Failurism and a Creative Explosion

Missed class today. Again. Only missed Calculus though, its my second strike before I fail the class due to absence. The reason? I can't sleep. When I do end up sleeping, its through class and through the day. Healthy? Productive? No. Its a vicious cycle. I feel complacent with school. It really makes me think, however about whats going on in my life. I want to be a pre-med student and go to medical school, but I don't know anymore that I have the drive. I don't know that I want to do anything with my life concerning professionalism at this point. Be that as it may, realizations often come in waves for me.

Living on my own has made me realize the potential to spend time on ones self, rather than on others. I remember devoting an exceptional amount of time back home "hanging out" with people and partying with them. Here I am the lone ranger. I have social interactions, but I eat, sleep, and spend most of my time, alone. I'm okay with it though. Its not something to be proud of, but it has allowed me to spend time on myself and divulge into my own creativity. As a result I came up with a couple ideas from websites, and while I'm here at college, I have access to several servers, and I can subsequently host my website for free. As well as that idea, I have also become attached to writing, not writing novels, or articles, but writing for TV.

TV is the ultimate story telling in my mind. How does one manage to compile, find actors, shoot edit, and altogether come up with a story that is supposed to last 12 and half hours, and have that be only one season? Obviously there are teams of writers, but the task itself seems incredibly consuming. I my self am still in the developing stages, and although I've developed a script I feel like there are so many branches and places I could go with my story that its just insanity. However, I have learned from watching TV shows and taking notes on what I liked and what I didn't like the power of these shows and their story telling. After watching the "Scrubs" pilot, I was very impressed, it was a solid combination of character development supplemented by several threads that could span into multiple episodes or even seasons. After watching that first episode I knew what real story telling was, but for my script, I wasn't sure how to apply it. After uncovering the story telling that is "Scrubs" I checked out "Always Sunny in Philadelphia" which was hilarious. The main difference between the two was that "Scrubs" is a medical show where as "Always Sunny in Philadelphia," quite frankly... Isn't. It seems that the viewer has to be much further roped in with story in order to accept the medical scene, especially because so few people are doctors. One could easily get the impression that the characters on the show that are doctors are on a higher plane because of their occupational status as doctors. However "Scrubs" immediately succinctly convinces the reader otherwise. The true power of the show was showing the viewer that the main character was just like them. This however was supplemented by the fact that the main character narrated the show, helping to develop a better connection and create a main point of focus for the viewer.

Regarding the show "Always Sunny in Philadelphia," the viewer (if it is part of the target audience, which seems to be later adolescents to adults in their 30s-40s) automatically can identify with the characters in the story. The show, unlike "Scrubs" draws the reader in primarily with laughs, to the point where they want to come back for more. "Always Sunny" deals with several ethical issues, but it does so in a way that is either poking fun at the issue, or continuing to make fun of its characters, and in a round about way, get back to poking more fun at the issue itself and what it may do to some people. While "Scrubs" is about a budding doctor, learning the ropes of a hospital and becoming his own person. "Scrubs" outlines immediately the flaws of each character, and is able to build on them through character developing stories. Another portion of "Scrubs" is the "philosophical endings" that occur in order to help the viewer take away from the stories, where as "Always Sunny" leaves the reader laughing, without necessarily teaching them anything.

However these are just two shows, and being that I've only watched the first few episodes of each, I have noticed that the shows have to exceptionally funny, or they have to have strong factors to keep the viewer engaged, namely Drama, in the case of "Scrubs." I'm going to check out "How I Met Your Mother," "30 Rock," and "The Office." I've seen all these shows before, but now its time to learn from them