Stop Making It Pretty

A change I decided to make this year is to diversify my writing. Writing on cinema is where I am most confident: I love good cinema, and I enjoy taking part in the "discourse" (blistering rants) about bad cinema, too. I also have some background in the subject — I studied it, and though I prefer to throw out film theory and write from a subjective and experiential point-of-view, it gives me a solid base to draw from when I need to. So writing about movies is a relative comfort zone.

A thought I have been finding value in lately is about “making things pretty.”

At times, when our mental space is cramped, and the edges of our social feathers are distinctly frayed, or we simply feel like an ugly mess of inexplicable chaos and turmoil inside, a change of mindset is required to stay functional.

These are times we must embrace the ugly in the name of getting shit done. To forget about making things pretty, and focus on making it through.

There might be no energy available to make things “palatable,” or do them the nice way, and also do them. And only one of those things makes any sense to cut.

This ties in with a distinction between “energy” and “effort” I have found myself thinking about lately. Effort can be applied unconditionally, but energy varies wildly. We can’t always rely on being able to generate energy. The ability to apply effort can be relied on.

The point is to allow yourself to cut to the core and focus completely on the action and substance of things, driven by effort, ignoring form and appearance. A thought that may strike some as obvious. For others, to whom politeness and the value of appearances have become ingrained, this approach might seem foreign or uncivilised. Or, we might experience resistance to the notion generated more through the force of habit than disagreeing with the sentiment itself (Hey! That's me).

The problem is that all the niceties we come to associate with daily tasks, work, communication, socialisation, and so on, end up bound tightly to the thing itself. They are really two things.