I'm an 80s child – I was born in 1970 and spent my teen years firmly implanted in the era of big hair, parachute pants, and Rubik's Cubes. I make no apologies for the 80s, but as I get older, I do start to wonder about how my own pop culture might have messed with my head a bit.
You need a montage.
If you've seen even a handful of 80s movies, you know about the montage. The classic example is the Rocky movies (pretty much all of them). Rocky's just a regular guy, but he has to train for the fight of his life. Cut to 5 minutes of cow-punching, hill-running, log-carrying, and triumphant arm-waving. After just a few inspirational training scenes, we know he's ready to take on the world.
Of course, this 5 minutes of condensed montaging supposedly represents weeks or months of 16-hour training days, sculpting Rocky from regular schmoe into peak fighting condition. So, why did they condense all of that into a montage?
Hard work is boring.
Sadly, that's the long and short of it. From a movie-making perspective, I completely understand. I don't want to see Ralph Macchio actually paint a fence for 3 months until he learns karate. What's the message the montage sends about real life, though? Just skip over the hard work and get right to the good stuff.
It's all good stuff.
I'm not going to lecture you about hard work and why you have to actually put in the time, because I think there's a more important lesson here. Most of life isn't the victory scene – it's the work you do to get there. If you don't enjoy the actual work, then what's the point of it all? Do you really want to spend 98% of your life miserable just to enjoy a few moments of payout?
Why is work so bad?
There's a broader cultural message here – work is bad. Now, obviously, some aspects of work and having a job are less than ideal. In a general sense, though, why is exerting effort something we automatically want to skip over? Would I rather sit on the couch watching Judge Judy all day and eating out of a tube than burn the calories it takes to lift my arm and write?
We've been conditioned to believe that passive entertainment is good and effort is bad, and the conspiracy theorist in me is starting to wonder if that conditioning came from the people who sell the passive entertainment. If movie makers made you think work was rewarding, you'd have less time to spend $22 on a movie ticket, medium popcorn, and slushee.
Unmontage your day.
If you're like me, you montage in your head. Let's take physical training as an example. As I'm exercising, I'm thinking about all of the things I'll do after I exercise, or how great I'll look and feel a year from now (if I actually keep exercising). It all jams together into a montage, but then reality kicks in, and only 30 seconds have passed on the elliptical machine.
Why not enjoy the process? I came this close to saying "learn to love the journey" – it's cliché, but it's true. Life is process, and if we montage over it, we'll find ourselves at the end too fast.
