Making the Mundane More Manageable

What does it even mean to make the mundane more manageable? I’d like to say I had a great vision when I came up with this mission statement, some grand meaning and purpose. In truth, I just wanted a tagline for my blog. “On the Edge of Meanwhile”, “Just like You Imagine”, and “Pretentiousness Becomes Me” all came to me, but, being a fan of alliteration, the mundane won out.

As I often do, when I have created something randomly, I looked for the meaning. I’ve done this before in my videos, specifically a music video. I’ve juxtaposed random footage together and, using the song, decided on what the story is long after I’ve told it. Existential, yes, but it works when I’m too lazy to plan beforehand.

The Mundane. Every day we go through this; brushing our teeth, doing the laundry, reading a book. Sometimes, we do things that should be fun but have become too routine; playing a board game, working out, walking through the woods. We let these things rule our lives, mainly because we have too. I’m not going to stop brushing my teeth because I’ve done it for twenty-four years already, nor will I stop playing Guess Who with my sister even though I know the end result will be me wondering how a girl can win five in row while her brother silently weeps. This is the mundane. This is what we live in.

To make it manageable, though, is something else. Doing this requires us to step back from our lives and look at everything we’re doing, all the little things. Our minds are so trained on ignoring these small tasks that we forget we even do them. We need to train ourselves to see with new eyes, to see the absurd in the things we do, and find ways to make them more absurd.

I see this playing in our older videos; before I even came up with our slogan; dancing instead of studying, being haunted by a vacuum cleaner, the thought process of a clock radio, shaving to epic music, solving crimes in the dorm, and singing about a lost pie. These things are not by any means worth noting but we have tried to make them more than what they are.

Since coming up with this idea, I try to keep it in mind while making new videos. I find when I try to stray too far from our tag, I have a harder time getting the job done. But when I focus in more, looking for the weirdness in potted plants or Windows 7, I thrive.

I suppose I’ve always seen life like this, especially when I was younger. Everything should have been more than it was, bigger and cooler. School concerts should have been light shows and bus rides should have had an element of adventure to them. But, back then, it was cute. Kid stuff. Now, it’s weird to look at a salad and think, “What else could this be?” That’s part of the reason, I believe, I make these videos. To share these thoughts aloud earns me glares; to film these thoughts on Youtube gains me laughs.

As I’ve said, I can’t sit here and claim to have had a grand vision for the future and humanity when I came up with Red Raptor’s subtext. I can, however, say I’ve found great meaning in it since. I never let it dictate my ideas, it guides them. When I think, “What’s a funny idea?” I try to follow it up with, “What’s a boring idea?”