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Time And The Forgotten Word Called Boredom.

Time.. A man made conception built to be used by people who have their shit together. Unfortunately I am not one of those people and if you meet someone who says they are, well don’t believe a word they ever say again.

The truth is that I’m usually 5 minutes late for work, every morning, guaranteed. No matter how early I wake up or how prepared I am the night before, I seem to awkwardly walk into work during that morning meeting and be greeted by nervous eyes and uh oh smiles.

Having said that, It’s not being lazy or unorganized. It’s simply living in the moment with a hint of procrastination and when you’re a procrastination, time is a bitch always working against you.

My old man always told me, “You don’t realize how fast time goes by until you get older” and it’s true. I never noticed time until I met my wife and we had 3 beautiful children. I fondly remember sleeping in until noon and staying up past 1:00 am watching movies and playing video games, just being care free and not worrying about scheduling or time.

Now however, is the complete opposite. I believe that many parents and adults will agree that trying to balance between work and family life alone is tedious and time-consuming without adding a social life and personal hobbies in the mix as well.

The truth here is that, none of us have a lot of time to do the things that we truely want to do anymore. Life went ahead and got itself too busy and here we are, rapidly aging while we miss out on the little things in life-like watching our children grow up and learning new things. Enjoying the company of good friends or trying to find the time to write an article on your weekly blog. Nobody has time for spontaneous fun anymore.

We, as a society, are constantly trying to fill in any boredom we can with as much as we can fill it with. I remember the big thing in the 90’s was when you were sitting around with your friends and their was nothing to do and with a sighing breath you would say “I’m bored” …A statement that is no longer spoken in our busy lives today.

Boredom has vanished as the rise of technology and social media has risen to an all time high and I’m not complaining. I’m constantly on my phone either Googling, Redditing or on Facebook and that is the problem. Hardly ever do I, as an individual or we as a group take moments of life and enjoy them without constantly gazing at our small illuminated screens to fill in those awkward silences.

Rarely, do we ever just live in the moment and enjoy our surroundings. Hardly ever do we go to a concert to enjoy the performance of the band without documenting our own existence of being there or enjoying our food while it’s hot and ready to eat without taking a few minutes to capture a photo of the perfectly made cheeseburger with the appropriate amount of sesame seeds so we can post it on Instagram and look back throughout the years and fondly remember that beautiful burger on that very non-eventful day…..yeah.

We’re busy, plain and simple. Time is slipping away and we can’t control that. So take moments of life as it is, just day by day. Go ahead and take a couple extra minutes out of your busy schedule to do the things that you enjoy. Hug the one you love a little longer or have that second cup of coffee in the bright light of the morning as the sun rises. Be alittle less worried about time and alittle more focused on life.

The worlds wont end because you went outside your schedule and did something spontaneous. Tomorrows another day to try to be better at managing time.

Lets Put our phones down and engage in conversations with the ones that surround you. Leave your work life at work and go home and enjoy the rest of the day with the ones you love and take the time to stop and smell the proverbial roses and live in the moment because you might look back one day when your time is up and the only thing you want back are those precious moments that you missed.

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days before you actually left them” ~ Andrew Bernard

Thank you

Regards

The Modern Typewriter

Lucas Durelle

Who’s Modern Typewriter? And He Said What?

Often times, people will ask you what do you do for a living? In an age of labels and titles, it can be difficult to describe who you are as a person. I was recently asked what my style of writing is and truth be told, all I know is that I’m simply a writer.

I like capturing the stories of others and my own ideas on paper and simply releasing them into the world like the unboxing of flying doves at a wedding. I don’t have one area that I stick with or a niche.

My writing styles tend to differ from topic to topic, how I convey myself during an interview article is not how I would convey myself if I was writing a novel or a personal blog. Hell, how I convey myself socially isn’t how I portray myself in my writing.

I do know that the one thing I want to achieve in my writing is to give my readers just a moment of entertainment, a moment of reflection and maybe an eye-opening experience if I’m going to be posh.

In a previous blog, I introduced a new segment called Miramichi Spotlight which highlights local talent from the great city of Miramichi NB.  The segment allows me to reach out to the community and provide an uncensored platform for artist to share their passion with the community. I find that when I meet these artist it’s not about questions and answers, it’s about the conversation, the message they are trying to get across.
Recently I had the opportunity to interview a couple of local musicians and not only did the artist enjoy the conversation but also enjoyed the opportunity to talk about their upcoming projects and being able to speak their mind without censorship or a planned agenda. it was simply a good conversation.

Over the last couple of days, I talked to one of my readers and the individual stated that even though they thought my content was good, they didn’t feel that I should include profanity in my writing, that it’s not professional. Let’s clarify this shall we?

I agree that the over use of profanity can damper the message that is trying to be conveyed, although I’m nowhere near a professional yet, I find profanity can be used as a tool to set the tone of the conversation while capturing the humanity of the interview or the article I am writing. Can you imagine a world without colorful language or a tone of voice?, sounds boring and something you would see on an old black and white propaganda films. It’s impossible to censor anyone in this day and age and why should we be so quick to censor? If we feel the need to add color to our language then it should be expressed freely.

I know, for myself, when I write, I like to capture each moment of excitement, joy, sadness, anger, frustration, happiness or attitude of the conversation to add to the scenery of the topic.

I believe creating a portrait with only text is achievable with enough detail and attention. If I find the use of profanity can capture the heat of the moment, I will not be reluctant to include it in any article
I like providing the opportunity of an uncensored platform for myself and artist to speak their mind and talk about what excites them and their passion which allows the reader to be apart of the conversation and seeing the person at their most comfortable.

If you take anything away from this piece, I hope it’s the fact that you as the reader, individually, shouldn’t be afraid to express yourself and vocalize what you want in life!

The one thing you have to remember, it’s your life, no one else’s. Convey yourself and your passion in any manner of your choosing. Opportunity isn’t going to find you, you have to find the opportunity.

So go ahead, swear a little, drink that fourth beer, talk to that pretty girl you’ve been too scared to talk to and simply enjoy who you are and be proud of what you’re accomplishing in life.

I’m going to end this article with a quote that I found to be profound.

“When the whole world tells you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world” — “No, YOU move.”

Thank you

Regards

The Modern Typewriter

Lucas Durelle

Never Take That Second Guess 

In my last post, I was on a mission to pursue my career in writing and I decided to put myself out there despite any negative reaction that I may have received, hell you don’t know what you’re gonna get unless you try for it right?, So that’s what I did, I tried.

That day I decided to write down every little thought I could possibly come up with, I’d open up my writing app on my phone and just start typing. Not necessarily knowing where I was going and if I didn’t know the direction I was going with the writing, I would simply read what I wrote and think of a different road to take it down.

So while I was at work, I ran into a friend of mine who was on a committee for a local festival and I decided to take my chance and offer my writing services, I offered to write a mock-up and submit it to the committee and he agreed.

That night I went home and just began writing, I attempted to romanticized the idea of the subject. How I would feel in that situation and used that to fuel my creative juices.

After I was done furiously typing those keys, I was left satisfied with my results and I’m nervously excited for people to actually read something I worked on.

I was about to email the article to the committee head when I was starting to second guess myself. Which is always a terrible feeling and an even more terrible idea to act on it, which I did.

I decided to include a formal written intro and make my piece sound a little more business than romanticized. It had facts and dates and just other formality’s that I felt needed to be included. Once that was completed I emailed it off and waited for the first scheduled meeting the next day.

The meeting was scheduled at a local coffee shop which was nice because if there’s one thing I enjoy in this world, is a damn fine cup of coffee. I walked into the room and we all said hello and shook hands and took a seat. I introduced myself to the head of the marketing team and we began. I was handed the revised and edited version of my article and to my surprised they loved it and only minor changes were asked and again to my surprise, the changes they wanted to exclude was the formality’s that I begrudgingly added during my second guessing period. I ensured them I was correct the changes and email it back upon its completion.

The meeting went well and I left that day with a feeling of accomplishment. It was nice. I immediately called my wife to tell her the good news and that I was hired on to write 10 pieces for the festival.

If you take anything away from this piece it should be that no matter what it is you want to do in this crazy thing we call life, it’s putting yourself out there. Taking that giant leap of faith and hoping you know what you’re getting yourself into. If it’s going to bring a positive change to your life. do it!. what’s the worst that can happen?. Failure is only when you give up on something that you believe is achievable.

The second thing is to never second guess yourself. If your comfortable with what you have done why would you second guess it? that was my mistake and luckily it was minor.

Once again thanks for reading the modern typewriter and have a yourself a damn cup of coffee and go after what you want.

The Modern Typewriter Luke

The Road To Modern Typewriting

As a child, you were often asked the question “what do you want to be when you grow up?” the child you once where would say the professions that excited you the most at that time of age, you could have said a police man, a fireman, a doctor, a cowboy or the man on the moon but as you grow older you begin to realize the effects of your surrounds, your education, peers, co-workers, employers and your parents.

As you age, your chance at those dreams begin to shrink and shrink until it’s nothing more than a distant fond memory that you day-dream about to escape the harsh reality of the current path you are on. Very few people are fortunate enough to achieve their life goals and dreams and are proud with their accomplishments.. Unfortunately for the majority of us we have fallen into a comfortable slump, a place where we are neither disappointed or overly excited with our choices and sometimes we sink further into that slump and forget about our past goals and dreams just because we are comfortable.

Making excuses for our life choices is a great game we all play, we tell ourselves each and every day that it could be worse, we could be homeless, unemployed, starving, suffering from a disease  and most of the time we are correct, it could be worse ..but what if we started saying to ourselves each day while we drank our cup of coffee that it could be better. “this coffee could be better”, “this food could be better”, “my job and pay could be better”, “my health could be better”, “my happiness could be better”. “my life could be better” and that’s the key phrase “my life could be better” and why shouldn’t it.Lets stop making excuses and start making promises to ourselves. you could start with a very small promise that is easily fulfilled and achievable or it could be a huge terrifying promise that could shake things up and bring a positive change to your life.

I sat down the other night and decided I’m done with just having the bare minimum, I’m done with making less money then i should be making, providing less for my family then I should be providing. I should be looking forward to my future and being progressive with what i want to do with my life.

I’m not going to lie I am scared and terrified of changing and putting myself out there and being vulnerable and possibly not succeeding of becoming a writer but not as scared as I am with not doing anything with the life I was given, not at least taking this year and devoting it to a passion that might open new roads and a greater well-being.

I will make an effort each and every day to achieve the dream of being a professional writer and update my post often with any progress that I achieve and I encourage all my readers to do the same, go out in that big blue world and leave a footprint that your proud of.

So in short of it all, the big picture here is to jump back into whatever your passionate about, What gets you excited?What do you want to achieve with your life? What do you want to be when you grow up?

Because we never really stop growing up. With each minute that pass, we grow older and older and each day is different from the last.

Remember ,let’s turn around the saying “It could be worse” to “It could be better” because that’s what we should all strive for, some pursuit of happiness…something better.

Thank you

Regards

The Modern Typewriter Luke