In Defense of Making Things Up

You know the drill. You step off the blue line at Halsted, you have a mysterious look on your face, you're walking all cool and controlled, and you suddenly stop... You begin to stare at the sprawling Chicago backdrop in the distance. Your gaze intensifies. Somebody's surely thinking, "Man, who is this guy?? He's so mysterious." ...And CUT!

Except, that wasn't a scene from a movie shoot. It was just a random Monday morning.

Listen, UIC, we're all guilty of romanticizing our lives, whether we want to admit it or not. I mean, we kind of have to, right? Commuting by an uncomfortable, cramped train to a campus that's sporting its "brutalism architecture", A.K.A. a depressing state penitentiary look, isn't exactly the movie-esque life we all crave.

So, sometimes we gotta get creative and bust out that director's chair (the one that exists in our head).

(Photo: © Lightfieldstudiosprod | Dreamstime.com)

Now, I know the idea of romanticizing your life might sound stupid. Well, it is pretty stupid, if we're being honest. But it does serve a really important purpose, which is to combat the soul crushing mundane that comes with day-to-day life.

That 8am class you have? A tragedy. But add 3 sprays of Versace Eros Eau De Parfum (or 6-8 sprays, like me. Yeah, I'm that kinda guy), add a Deftones song to blast through the AirPods you're hiding under your black beanie, and add whatever internal monologue you want for that day, and hey--who cares if you have zero idea what the professor is talking about, as long as you spent your morning feeling like Tyler Durden in a deleted Fight Club scene.

But before you all start going out and acting like you're Brad Pitt, the cameras you're pretending are there can't stay rolling forever, or else you're gonna forget how to star in reality. You start looking at everyone else like they're hired extras, you start responding to every minor inconvenience like it's some crazy plot twist, and you start obsessing over how your life looks to an imaginary audience instead of actually just living. And that's when your life stops being a blockbuster movie and starts looking like an untreated psych evaluation.

So, if you're thinking of whether or not you should delete your playlist for when you're trying to look mysterious at Halsted, don't. The playlist can stay, and so can your director's chair. Just remember, while the script of your life is yours to write, the best scenes are the ones you didn't plan for.