I hope everyone reading this is seizing the day and if it’s nighttime, and you haven’t seized the day, I abhor you to get in your time machine and seize the shit out of the day you’ve just failed to seize!!! It’s your only chance!!!

I’m writing this, a comedian, in Dublin, working his way up whatever comedic ladder I’m climbing up. Wondering where the fuck I’m heading, however I’m grateful for every step of the journey. Seizing the vaster reality of The Journey.

I do feel that the road will be kind; it currently leads some unnecessary disrespect, unreturned e-mails and phone calls, mindless hecklers, ups and downs, laughter, good buzz, great interactions, and new creative ways to sustain my existence, such as life.

I know that what I harbour inside of me will lead to a living and good things, different good things, for the goodness in my life at the moment I’m extremely grateful for. I don’t understand the rush. Where’s everyone going? What’s the hurry?

Some days I feel this hurry, it’s understandable the way things are going, but that’s a subject for another day.

When this hurry hits I get all excited and energized and do my best to get shit done, though more often than not when these surges occur, I haven’t the faintest idea where to go or what to do with them. Be productive! I write mostly, but how does one seize the day? How does one seize the moment? These aphorisms when used incorrectly, misinterpreted and taken out of context (lately on a daily basis) don’t instill peace in my soul; they instill haste and chaos.

Today’s age has loads of red tape, hoops and games, in all shapes and sizes. Which game do you want to play? And what about you…? Everyone’s playing his or her lovely games isn’t it great…? Systematically growing further and further away from each other.

Has life become one big carnival where everyone hops on and off the rides? Choosing their favorite, then riding that ride over and over and over and… is this what’s expected? Or am I the dumb ass for taking my time and allowing life in? Am I the retard standing in the corner telling jokes, whilst watching everyone have fun on their rides and missing out? The buzz kill moron who won’t ever get it? “Oh look, there’s the poor lost cause, he’ll never get it, all he has to do is pick a ride, but he just stands there making fun of everyone and doesn’t play, why doesn’t he play? He must be stupid or something… He was probably dropped as a child…”

Is this my destiny, on my head stone will be: Here lies Connor McDonough-Flynn, he didn’t play the game and he died… Fair play to him…

Is life a game? Or is life, life? Are we all trapped in a big sports arena competing against each other to be the star? Has the Roman coliseum grown to a worldwide scale? Now we’re all running around afraid of getting eaten by the lions. Chariots racing around us all, everyone dodging spears and banding together in shield brigades to fend off the other game players? What the hell is going on?

Would I be better off in some hole in the wall in the middle of nowhere, with a small fire and a shoddy internet connection, reading about how the lions continue to rip heads off and how people are growing continually more comfortable killing each other for their own personal gain. So they can have a big house, a nice car, a woman with big breasts, or a husband with a giant cock, and they can lock themselves away in their castle of glorious matrimony. Looking down at all the minions fucking each other like rancid rabbits in a field of sewage. Is this the dream? The goal? The life’s work that people want to hang their hats on?

Perhaps that view is a bit extreme…

I do like things, I do love life, I’m grateful for my existence, filled with love, I love, there I said it. I feel to, ‘holy shit, what a pussy…!’ But I’m not sure what to make of it all. Seize the day. Does that mean go out and corner the first human I see and not leave them alone until they let me seize them? Go into a comedy club and not leave the stage until they let me seize the stage? Just take everything that I want, with reckless disregard, and seize it all? Doesn’t sound very enjoyable to me.

I know, once again, this is a bit far fetched, perhaps radical, maybe even a bit scary, but I don’t understand this seize aspect of life. I work hard, I chase my vision and make the best life I can for myself, which to be honest, at the moment, isn’t much. I battle with my own yearning to drink this world away. I don’t but that could be another way of looking at the, seize the day rational? Seize a bottle and then seize another one and then… many have fallen down that void.

I ask these questions because I’m generally interested. It’s easy to blame the world and the past on everything, parents, tragedies, and all that jazz, I’m not going to play that hand, but what am I missing I ask? Which pieces to the puzzle are missing from my puzzled box? And how can I make the pieces in my box of pieces work? I suppose that’s the big question.

The human journey, how to make the pieces in one’s box fit the grand scheme of this vast planet called earth. How does one maximize one’s existence to the fullest and truest possible degree?

Seize the day, and have no care or concern for anybody else but yourself, is that it? Step on heads and seize yourself, and then seize the day, and when you’ve seized the day, seize the week, then the month, then the year… seize, seize, and then seize some more. Until you seize out and fall into a coma and then you’re all seized up and it’s time for someone else to seize…

I talk in circles, backwards and forwards, doing my best to appreciate every opportunity I can. Should I be driving myself to seizures and be left alone in a padded room, labeled a crazy person because I did too much seizing? Living a life where I cannot exist without seizing? Rendering myself a destitute seizing addict.

Or drowning in a deep depression, and killing myself because I missed a day, and I didn’t seize it, and I cannot deal with the shame of not seizing every single day. What is this seize the day, I feel I am missing yet another point. I have not seized the point of seize the day.

The day’s over now, I hope in the deciders eyes I’ve seized today, though I cannot be sure, I feel good about it, though if one were to measure my day using today’s measurement scales I feel I would fall drastically short of seizing the day. I had a lovely day off, spent writing, reading and meandering about nature, have I seized today? I feel I have, but perhaps I am wrong. Or, perhaps I hold the key to my seizing of the day…?

Is seize the day objective or subjective? Is it down to my perspective or another’s perspective? Is there an outside source that judges the day seizing? One can’t be too sure.

Tomorrow I shall wake up with plans of seizing, though I’m still unaware of how to properly seize. Perhaps in time I will better understand the seizing process and be able to properly maximize my seizing of the day.

Running around, non stop, tirelessly seizing every moment of every day, sucking the marrow out of each and every day until the day is no longer there, only a withered frame of a day. Become the: Seize the Day Master! I have seized all the days, and have chosen not to share any of my seized days, for I’m Seizure Man!!!

I’ll instead keep all the seized days to myself, creating a seized day monopoly, with no intention of sharing any seizures at all, not even one moment of day seizure will I share, for I am the one who’s seized them all. I worked tirelessly to seize all the days and no one else tried to seize as much as me, so they’ll not know what it’s like to seize the day for I have seized them all!

All the days are mine and I have seized them all!!! Carpe Diem!!! Yes!!! Full day seizure!!! I win!!!

Most of these aphorisms are taken in the wrong way, posted up endlessly on facebook and social media, spewed out in moments of judgment, people misusing them to recharge their insecure fears like a mobile phone. These great sayings of belief taken out of context and used to manipulate one’s self and others to the point where there’s no enjoyment at all. People running around like deranged maniacs: I must seize the day, get the fuck out of my way, I must SEIZE! Is there seizing to be done over there? What about over there? GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY, CAN’T YOU SEE I HAVE TO SEIZE THE FUCKING DAY!!! 

Is this what Horace had in mind…?

Perhaps, and bear with me, enjoy the day…? Or if you want to get real technical, pluck the day (as it is ripe). This seizing of the day is not based on future at all, it’s based on seizing the moment, enjoying the day, plucking it, patting it, watering it, whatever you chose to do, and not thinking of tomorrow today, instead acting in the best way you can today. Carpe Diem’s not ignoring one’s future. Rather it’s holding onto one’s self and doing what you can do today, and not trusting that all will fall into place someday. Enjoying today while it’s here. Doing your best, connecting with humans on a human level. In this mad, rampant world we live in, that’s all we’ve got to hang our hats on.

Take a breath and take the day in, laugh, act, and hopefully, you’ll not seizure out of the day, and force me to make a satirical joke about you. Would give me a break from constantly pulling the piss out of myself, an aspect of life I’ve seized wholeheartedly.

Article and Featured Image by: Connor McDonough-Flynn