650,000 Hours

When I was in high school, I wrote for the school newspaper. The part parts of the paper were always the editorials and columns. The difference between an editorial and a column was that all the underling staff-writers could write an editorial (which had to be about a legitimate issue and was written in the third person), while the oligarchy of senior editors could write a column (written in the first person about whatever the heck you want). The male-female ratio of our staff was a little out of control. I was always one of about four or five guys, while there would be 20-25 girls (I loved that class). It was always easy to tell when one of the girls had written a column during their senior year. They were always about how they're excited for the future but were still nervous, and how they were really going to miss all their friends but promised to stay in touch. I, on the other hand, wrote about how they needed to have a live polar bear at Winter Formal.

Lately, however, I feel a little like those high school senior she-journalists. Which is probably very unnecessary, because I'm not really even a senior. But this is my fourth year at Ozark, which means that most of the people I came in with as a freshman are getting ready to graduate. And that means that after May 22nd, my life will be quite a bit different.

I'm a boring person in that I don't often make many changes to my life. Some people can't handle life if there is not regular change. Consistency means monotony, and monotony means dreariness. If these people experience too much routine, they begin to feel like they're trapped in a wooden crate and need a Purple Drank just to calm themselves down. I'm not like that. If you've ever eaten out with me before, you know what I mean. I always get the same thing when I go to specific restaurants. Wendy's: #10, medium-sized with a Coke, and barbecue sauce. Spangle's: #3, just ketchup on the burger, medium-sized with a Pepsi. Cheddar's: chicken tender basket, with barbecue sauce and honey mustard, with a Coke.

One may wonder why I don't mix things up. It's not because I'm scared of change or I freak out if everything isn't exactly the way I'm used to. I just figure that if I like the way things are, there is no need to change it. My dorm room has been decorated pretty much the same since my first semester. Why? Because I like my King Kong and Chronicles of Narnia posters, and I have no reason to get anything different.

But soon, things will change whether I like it or not. It's sad, because the truth is that I wouldn't mind keeping life how it is now. I could keep on going bowling every Monday and playing cards in the student center on the weekends and going on late night runs to Taco Bell forever. But that isn't how it all works out. We get old and get jobs and move away. Our lives are not undisturbed dollhouses that remain quiet on the shelf. They are waves of the ocean that roll and fluctuate. For some, this means freshness and vitality, but for people like me, it means letting go of a lot of good things, and I don't always want to do that.

The Classic Crime has a song called "Four Chords," and the chorus goes like this:
Oh oh, here we go
Been down this road
About a thousand times before
But we ain't bored
Oh oh, here we go
Singing songs we wrote
About a thousand times before
But we ain't bored
The same four chords
The same four chords

For the most part, I like the chords my life has been playing for the last few years. Sure, at times I wish my situation wasn't so stressful or busy, and I wish some relationships were better or that my intramural basketball team hadn't lost in the semifinals, but I have good friends and I do a lot of fun things. If I weren't a pessimist and were really thinking through what I'm writing, I would say how we never get to experience new, better possibilities unless we let go of some of our old routines, so these moments of change are both necessary and exciting. When we learn more chords, we can play more songs. The guitarists who only play four chords don't get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. They play back-up for Miley Cyrus.

And yet, there is something comforting about those four chords. Sometimes the best songs are the simple ones, and you replay them over and over again in your head. That doesn't make it a song for simpletons who are scared of more complex chords. It makes it meaningful, and maybe it's worth listening to again and again.

Speaking of songs, today on Youtube I watched the music video for Skillet's "Hero." Like many music video, after a while the band in outside in a torrential downpour as they play. Somehow, playing rock music in the rain is so much cooler than playing it elsewhere. The water bounces off of the drumheads and is splashed by the guitarist's rapid strumming. I wonder if my blog posts would be better if I started writing them outside in the rain. It might not be very healthy for my laptop, though.