Quote?

Daily Challenges:
Day 1 – Write some basic things about yourself
Day 2 – 10 likes & dislikes
Day 3 – The meaning behind your Open Diary name
Day 4 – Your day, in great detail
Day 5 – Five places you want to visit and why
Day 6 – What band/musician is most important to you?
Day 7 – Do you read? What are your favorite book?
Day 8 – Pet Peeves
Day 9 – If you could live off of one food and beverage for the rest of your days, what would they be?
Day 10 – Post a picture of your desktop
Day 11 – What is your favorite quote?
Day 12 – Your current relationship, if single discuss how single life is
Day 13 – Three confessions of your choice
Day 14 – Things you want to say to an ex
Day 15 – A photo of someone you fancy at the moment
Day 16 – If the world were to end tomorrow, what would you do with your remaining time on earth?
Day 17 – What do you want to be when you get older?
Day 18 – Name the tv show(s) you have become addicted to
Day 19 – The best thing to happen to you this week
Day 20 – Your definition of love
Day 21 – What kind of person attracts you?
Day 22 – A picture of what you wore today
Day 23 – A letter to someone. Anyone
Day 24 – Would you rather date someone plain with an amazing personality or someone beautiful with a plain personality?
Day 25 – Seven things that cross your mind a lot
Day 26 – How you hope your future will be like
Day 27 – A picture of your handwriting
Day 28 – Do you wish for anything at 11:11? If so, what do you wish for?
Day 29 – Picture of yourself
Day 30 – Anything you want to post

 (For anyone wondering where the heck the pic of my desktop went, it’s pretty simple. For some reason, the tried and true method of hitting Print Screen, paste, and post isn’t working. Every single time, it doesn’t work. So, sorry if you wanted to see my really messy desktop, but OD isn’t cooperating on that for some reason)

So anyway. Favorite quote. Um. Hm. I’m not exactly a fan of those quotes that famous writers or people have said, that makes them look like a cross between Yoda and the Kung Fu master sitting on a mountain top who is just waiting for you to show true enlightment before teaching you the five point exploding heart technique.

So consequently, I don’t really have a favorite-favorite. But I do have a favorite one I heard recently.

I heard it while watching Chopped: Grill masters, between making fun of the choices that some people on that show made.* Most of the contestants looked like people that were just a heart attack waiting to happen, and wouldn’t know what green stuff looked like if you set them down in a jungle, but amid them all, was this one guy who worked as a cook for a chuck wagon. Cooking for legit cowboys every day.

*I’m a bit of a foodie, and I love watching the Food Network. Not so much for actual tips anymore, but more to make fun of others’ incompetence. Is it petty? Maybe. Is it fun? You betcha. I could probably write a curiously long entry just about my favorite FN fails.

He said something that really struck me: "Life is simple. We make it complicated."

When I heard it, I rolled it in my head a few times, and really thought about it. It’s true, really. The basics of life aren’t really that hard to meet if you’re born in a first world country. They really aren’t. Shelter, and food are available by hard work or charity, with minimal amounts of effort compared to some parts of the world.

But we’re just so far beyond subsistence, that we’ve added a long list of other requirements for us to feel like life is worthwhile. A nice car. A huge house. A hot significant other. That new pair of shoes. Gourmet ice cream.

We don’t need those things to live. Not really. But they sure are nice, and we need something to work toward if the basics are well in hand, right?

And that’s the heart of how I feel, really. I’m never truly happy unless I have something to look forward to. Something I’m clearly working on, that might come in the future. As a writer, I can kind of break this down:

When you write a character, if that character is perfect in every way, they’re boring. Yes. They are.

But… what if you add a few flaws? Say, that character has a drinking problem? That character is depressed over something that happened in their past? They have a bad habit of scratching themselves in public?

Boom. Instantly more interesting.

I feel like people’s lives are the same way. They don’t want simple. They don’t want everything figured out. Because if it was, what else is there? We need our chaos. We need our pain. We need our joy, and our heartbreak.

Because honestly, all this would feel like just a grand waste of time if we didn’t experience every little wrinkle for ourselves.

Speaking for myself, I know I’ll always endeavor to keep my life complicated. And that is a beautiful thing.