SCABs

Think Less More – By @gringojoe96

By Joe Ribton

 

Think Less More

Think less about how it took 3 weeks for your body to recover from all those ‘temporary water-based’ tattoos.

Think more about how you have just manoeuvred your way out of that big fat hole your Humanities degree left you in. I feel like Keanu Reeves waking up in the real world. A real, grown up world where I will continue to reference The Matrix at any given opportunity.

In times of nagging discomfort, always those three words: Think Less More. The perfectionist in me overthinks everything, I’m definitely overthinking this SCAB right now. The problem I’ve always faced is overthinking to the point of giving up, but now I’m joining SCA the doing will get tough and the tough will invariably get doing.

This phrase first appeared to me on a poster in the Anthony Burrill book ‘I Like It. What is it?’, gifted to me before my GCSEs. Its a rather mouthy way of saying get to the good part, get to the doing. The mouthiness really makes you grapple with it, don’t overthink the mantra about not overthinking or you’ve already failed the test.

In those wanton upper school years I got the itch. You all know what I mean. The impulse to create. My first, unfinished, screenplay aged 15 was titled ‘Think Less More’. It got the ball rolling, even if it was weirdly incoherent and incoherently weird.

The wild creative, much like your everyday vampire, craves the lifeblood of its peers. I started a blog at university with an interview segment, in which I badgered high and low for some sweet sweet ~blood~ professional insight; how do they do it? Where did they start? And why do I enjoy the taste of blood so much? The first person I properly pestered, the first person who agreed to an interview, was Anthony Burrill himself. The acts that my life has fallen into thus far have not all been cyclical in this way, but his kindness was an excellent conclusion to those formulative times.

Not that we ever stop evolving. I’m here to learn, to adapt and overcome as Bear Grylls would say. I’m here to do more thinking and more doing. A bit less overthinking and smidgen more blood drinking. (Why I’ve developed a running joke about me enjoying the taste of blood I don’t know, I’m trying not to overthink it damn you)

Marc gave me ‘the call’ as I was right outside Wimbledon Tennis, where I was about to spend 11 hours washing dishes. On this day I experienced what can only be described as the very antithesis of ‘Think Less More’. It was the longest day of my fucking life. It feels like I lived every possible version of the next year in my head. Was it madness or a shitty rip off of Groundhog Day? I stood at the sink daydreaming, gormless in revelry. Good thing my colleagues already knew I was weird, they had all seen the tattoos.

I ‘think less more’ to block that voice in my head that says I can’t achieve anything that I set my mind on, to teach myself not to get distracted and to make sure I’m always thinking preposterously big. Don’t be mindless, don’t dumb yourself down, now – for the first time – your whole educative experience can be spent being creative.

I’ve never been so excited.

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