But, Dude: What’s the point?

Why do we give up?
After putting all of that time and effort.
After working towards it for so long.
After longing for it over sleepless nights.
After believing in yourself through out the process.

Just to give up now?
What changed? Oh, did you fail? You did, didn’t you? But, this is not the first time you failed though, right? You have a lot of experience in failure and you have a lot of experience from failure. You always found something to improve on, something to work on and something to work towards. Work on yourself to get better, better than you were yesterday, better than you already are.

Why do you want to give up now?
What’s new this time? What didn’t you face the last time that you do this time? What is it that makes you think you can’t do it now? Hope, is it? Is hope what’s missing this time? You don’t have it now, and you had it before? Wonder why? What’s different now? Could that be the root cause?

…

But: Okay, pause. Let’s pause here for a second. Who is narrating this monologue? What’s this person’s story? What were this person’s life experiences? Where is all of this content coming from? I don’t see where you are going with this, what is the point?

Dude: What do you mean, what’s the point?

But: I mean, what’s the point of all of this? Where are we going with this?

Dude: What do you mean? Why must there be a point? Why are we obsessed with a point or the point? Why must it lead to the point? Why can’t all of it be the point? Instead of just caring for the end, why not care for all of it including the end? The whole experience matters. The whole experience is what makes it a whole experience. Isn’t that the point?

But: Yeah okay, that’s a bad pun on words.

Dude: Nah man, think about it. Do you watch every scene in a movie only to get to the end of it? Do you care just for the end of the movie or do you care for the experience of watching the whole movie? I’d argue the same for life. It’s not just the anniversaries and the holidays that matter, it’s all the days that matter, including the boring mundane ones. The mundane ones are a lot more in number than the special ones, that should be reason enough for us to make the mundane ones more special than the special ones. Why do we wait in anticipation and excitement for the special days, why not make all the days special?

But: Okay listen, this is all good. But, it also feels like you are all over the place. You need to organize and rebuild all of this content through someone’s lens. You need to tie it all together for your audience to comprehend this better. Present it better. Build your characters first, present your content through those characters. You can’t just enlighten people through abstract content. It doesn’t work that way, it never did.

Dude: Doesn’t that sound like a challenge? And why do you always look down upon my audience?

Inspiration -
John Danaher