Structure

For day eight of Vlog Every Day April, I decided to try talking entirely in a series of haikus…and quickly changed my mind, opting instead to go on a stream-of-consciousness walk with y’all.

[spoiler title=”Video Transcript”]

Hello there, earthlings
I’m Adam the Alien
I speak in haiku

These chicks are so cute
They’d eat me if they were big
Tiny T-Rexes

I dared myself this
To speak only in haikus
What was I thinking?

Today’s been okay
Nothing notable happened
Not much else to say

And that is about as much as I can handle of that. Because unless it’s all written out in advance, it is really hard to think of haikus while just staring at the camera…phone…whatever you call it.

I love haikus. I love structured styles of writing. It’s like a new challenge. It’s like when…when Twitter was new, and I had to keep everything under 140 characters. It..it was…it was a challenge to make sure that everything got under that, especially when I was texting from my phone. Not using any kind of app or any of that nonsense, no, I actually had to think about, like, “Wait, how many characters did I just write? Did I go over? ‘Cuz when you fucked up, you fucked up and that was it. You couldn’t…you STILL can’t fix the tweet.

Where’s our edit button, Twitter?

(Where’s our lack of Nazis, Twitter?)

All I can say is, it’s a beautiful day.

And now I’m rhyming…

…but I’ll just keep climbing? Nope. Nope. Lost it. Lost it already.

Sometimes challenging yourself to stick to a certain structure, whether in writing —you’re writing haikus, or limericks, or iambic pentameter— or whether you’re doing a video every day for a month, having that structure can inspire you in ways that you never thought before. Because you have to meet that challenge in some way.

And that is something that I think is beautiful.

On the other hand, then you get writers and creatives of all types who start thinking that if you don’t stick to the structure, somehow you’re worse. Somehow, you’ve done something wrong.

And this is where we get things like grammar stricklers. Where we’ve created these sets of rules which were intended to aid in communication, but then people hold so fast to those rules that they actually end up hindering communication, or creativity, or whatever it is at hand.

Which is where I’m gonna take the time to say: all y’all who are saying things like, well, “y’all isn’t a word,” “ain’t isn’t a word,” “singular they isn’t a thing,” you’re just flat out wrong! Language was made to grow and change. Slang becomes words. And frankly, the singular “they” has been around longer than anyone currently alive has existed. So just…stop it!

Rules and structure are necessary sometimes. And for creativity, they can be a great boon. But if you try to enforce them across the board, they become a problem. They stifle creativity, and they hold us back as people.

Which is why it’s so important, anytime you find a rule in conflict with life, to analyze — WHY does that rule exist? WHY are we doing things this way? Once you know that, you can actually then analyze: “Okay, so does this still apply here, now, in this situation in life? Is this a good rule, or is this something we need to do away with?”

Because nothing should be so sacred that it can’t be picked apart and analyzed, and —if necessary— changed.

Change is inevitable. Change is part of life. Change is part of the world. Part of humanity. And while difficult, and unsettling, we always have to find ways to adapt to that change. Because if we don’t change, we stagnate.

But similarly, especially speaking in creative terms, you have to know the rules to break them. Well, you don’t HAVE to.

But it is useful, so you can actually say, “No, this was a conscious choice. I decided to do things this way. I know how it’s normally done, but I decided to do it this way.”

I mean, especially in terms of language, people forget that it’s all these famous writers that we now practically worship who…freaking invented a lot of those words! I mean, how much Shakespeare do we use now? He made all of that crap up!

And in my case, if I’d continued to the structure of establishing that I was going to make this entire video in haiku, it would have been much less pleasant for everyone involved. I don’t think you would have enjoyed it, I don’t think I would have enjoyed it, and instead you got me rambling about various topics. And that may be better or worse, but it’s what I decided to go with.

As usual, your thoughts are always welcome, and invited, and desired.

Until next time, I’m Adam the Alien. Fare thee well.

This is an endscreen
There are links for you to click
I hope that you do

An endscreen haiku?
An odd choice to return to
Why, Adam? Please, why?

BYYEEEEEE!

[/spoiler]