Pace Yourself

I have vivid memories of doing the Beep Test (I mean, who doesn’t) in which my P.E teacher, Mr Johnston is shouting at me to ‘PACE MYSELF’. I did not understand what he meant by this at all and as a result continued to run as fast as I could which led to me having to drop out very early. Just a quick recap for those who haven’t had the joy of completing the Beep Test. It’s a fitness test that requires you to run between two points in between beeps, as the levels progress, the time gets quicker. The idea being you take it easy at the start to preserve energy for when the timing gets quicker. I still don’t fully understand it and may not have described it the best now either. 

The reason I bring this up is because even an odd 15 years or so later, I still haven’t grasped the concept of pacing myself. I will eat all the chocolate in one sitting, read a book in two days and get sad when it’s finished and realise, I didn’t really take in what was happening and tunnel through as many episodes of a show as I can, because I just need to know what happens/get through this bit/reach the end. And in all honesty, all these thoughts are coming to me because all I can think about is Hart of Dixie and whether Lavon becomes mayor/Zoe finding out Wade cheated on her/the end of Season 2. 

Much has been said about binge-culture, in fact I know I’ve written about it several times on different platforms. I still am frightened by the fact that our brains are more active when we are asleep than bingeing TV and further to this, the brain switches a part of itself off when we binge, like when we stuff our faces with food. This newsletter, however, is not about the dangers or even joys of bingeing television shows but more about an overall lack of patience when it comes to the consumption of media. 

I raise the idea of binge-culture because it encourages us to watch as much content as fast as we can, simply because we can. Currently this is no doubt exacerbated by lockdown. I also think this is exacerbated by our need-to-know society; the information is there so why shouldn’t we have it?

In addition to this, it takes a whole heap of willpower to read whatever it is or watch whatever it is to get the knowledge without looking it up first. Because so many people could simply tell us how it ends, they even break it down and analyse it for us! 

Recently I started A Court of Rose and Thorns, the first book in the fantasy series by Sarah J. Maas. I really enjoyed the first book, I hadn’t read a fantasy series in such a long time, or ever besides Harry Potter. So after gobbling it down, I started the second but I wasn’t enjoying it that much, I didn’t like where it was headed so I do what I like to do sometimes and I read the last page. Naturally there was a cliff-hanger so next minute I was on Google, getting closure on this series of however many books. The urge to know what had happened was gone and just like that I didn’t need to read it anymore. I spoke about this with my older sister who thinks it’s more about me itching the scratch for something in the fantasy realm as opposed to not wanting to read the book. And I do agree with this to an extent, I accidentally (and I really do mean it this time) found out what happened at the end of Hart of Dixie and I am still determined to see it for myself, even if I made a rule to stop watching with the remote in arm’s reach so I don’t fast forward things I find uncomfortable. I often watch shows over and over. I get frustrated when episodes are released weekly (like the old days) but I really do love it when this happens because that way someone else is in control of the pace. 

When I was younger, I would eagerly wait for the latest Harry Potter book to be released, before locking myself in the bathroom with a bean bag and only coming out when absolutely necessary. I don’t know if it makes it better, but my childhood home has a bathroom separate to a toilet and obviously I felt that locking myself in my room didn’t scream ‘leave me alone’ enough. I remember finishing the Order of the Phoenix one marathon Saturday and then felt like it was safe to get online and chat on MSN. No spoilers would come my way. I have a very strange personal policy on spoilers and whilst I won’t go out of my way to ruin the ending, you can’t avoid them forever.*

When I want to consume something as fast as possible, I try to remember how much I enjoyed watching Gilmore Girls once a week and how I survived. I also felt it really helped me out mentally. I wasn’t so affected. This is the other thing, when I fill my head up with a show, book, or album (when I listen to something on repeat, it’s all I can hear before I go to bed), I get so swept up into this parallel world I find it very hard to come back to Earth. This is probably due to Parasocial theory, which, if you’re new here, is a media theory developed in the 50s that claims we develop relationships with people of the media due to repeated exposure. So if I spend eight hours in a row watching Hart of Dixie (on the same day, not in a row), I will build relationships with all these characters. Not to the point I think I am living in Bluebell, but when I do have to get my head back into my own life. Hence why media is such good escapism. Although, media can test and push our morals. I have VIVID memories of an episode of Neighbours in which Steph finds out (on her wedding day!!) that her fiancé cheated on her with Flick (her sister). I found this particularly distressing and couldn’t sleep, the image of Steph throwing the hairpin Flick gave her down the drain still fresh in my mind. I think this upset me greatly as I have two sisters and couldn’t even fathom them doing that to me or doing that to them plus I was so black and white and now I realise the world is very grey and good people do bad things and vice versa. 

I don’t often reflect on being a Millenial but do need to remind myself that we straddle two worlds, our lives pre and post internet. We remember people not having their phones on them all the time but got phones at a time when that’s all we would want to do. I remember shows being released weekly but have the taste for having everything when and where I want it. It’s not that one is better than the other, but I do think that pace is important. 

I am trying to read a chapter a night of two different books, one more serious than the other. I limit my TV obsession to two episodes a day if time allows (I mean, I don’t plan on watching an episode during lunch when I am back working on site) and try to stop before I realise that I can think of nothing else. I feel like I finally understand why my dad was encouraging me to get outside all those weekends… even if I still eat the whole block of chocolate in one go. 

*There’s actually a very funny Louis Theroux interview on The Adam Buxton podcast where they talk about the absurdity of spoilers. All their episodes together are very good actually.