So for my final project I wanted to do something a little different. All semester we have been talking about the everyday. But what really is the everyday? Everyone has a different version of their everyday, but I think that the whole concept of everyday is that it is boring, plain, reoccurring, repetetive, usual.
Dictionary.com defines the everyday as the routine or ordinary, commonplace. After some consideration, however, I think that I have to disagree with this notion. I am sure there are many of us out there who WISH our everyday were actually like this, being routine and ordinary. Speaking for myself, I find everyday life to be unpredictable, sometimes even uncommon or unusual. This includes the simple aspects of daily life to the most complex. It may seem like an everyday occasion, for example, to go to class every day five days a week at the same time. Yes, while this may be routine, what about a snow day? Or an unexpected cancellation? Or being sick and missing class? Or what about your computer crashing, causing you to lose all of the information for your project? Or getting stuck in traffic and arrving late? What about the big occasions in life, such as finding love, getting engaged, being surprised by a loved one, getting divorced, going to war, having your life in someone else’s hands, getting into an accident, a sudden death. Life is not everyday, but it’s unpredictable, sometimes good, sometimes bad, but never the same. You will never experience the same moment twice, be in the exact place at the exact time on the exact day ever again. Each day that passes by is your last day for something, whether it be your last day of class, your last day in college, your last day as a teenager, your last holiday with someone.
I think we created this concept of everyday to make ourselves feel better, to make life not seem so unpredictable, and to forget that while we may be bored with life, someone else’s life is being turned upsidedown,
So, for my final project, I want to expose this misconception of the everyday. I want to take what we consider to be everyday and twist is around, giving a behind the scenes of what is really going on to create this everyday for us.
If this doesn’t make sense yet, let me explain. I want to present what we typically, as Americans or even as college students, consider to be the everyday. Typically, we get up in the morning, we eat breakfest, we go to class, we have lunch and dinner, we do homework and study (sometimes) we watch tv, we hang out with friends, we go to sleep at all hours, and the next day the cycle continues. On the weekend (or sometimes during the week) we go out, we party, we drink, we do stupid things that we consider “typical.” We eat fast food because we are too lazy or too poor to cook, we go shopping and buy clothes we don’t need with money we don’t have (in a figurative sense). We spend the “best four years of our lives” usually at our parents expense, and by the time the first year is over we begin to complain about how boring and routine our lives have become.
We complain about the everyday. We are probably all guilty of doing so at some point. We forget to cosider, however, what goes on “behind the scenes.” Like Shakespeare said, “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.” What we see on the outside is not always the true “everyday.”
Consider this: Every 21 hours there is another rape on an American college campus; approximately 1,400 college students 18 to 24 die annually as a result of alcohol abuse; 25% of college-aged women engage in bingeing and purging as a weight-management technique.
Everyday? I hope not.
Or, even consider, on a bigger scale, how many people never make it to college; how many people are unemployed and barely surviving; currently roughly 12% of the US population fall below the federal poverty threshold.
Or, even consider the products you consume and buy; the hamburger you bought off the dollar menu probably came from a slaughter house; the leather shoes you wear came from a dead animal; a person in Asia or some other country was exploited by the US so you can buy a your sweater cheaper.
What about the uncertainty of life? The National Cancer Institute estimates that one in three people will get cancer in their lifetime; 40000 people are killed in approximately five million motor vehicle collisions and other car accidents annually; one person commits suicide about every 40 seconds; one person is murdered every 60 seconds; one person dies in armed conflict every 100 seconds; 2 to 4 million Americans mutilate themselves; 32 million Americans, or more than 10% of the U.S. population suffer from domestic abuse.
So, what I want to do is expose the everyday, show that it is not always what it seems, that there are hidden things behind the everyday. I want to contrast the everyday with the not so everyday, people’s perceptions with what actually is occurring, in an attempt to rid this conception of the everyday.
I am not sure how to go about this, but possibly through Flash or some type of similar program, flipping through various concepts of the everyday, and then showing what may actually BE the everyday. Maybe even ask people what they consider to be everyday, and then showing what is actually everyday.
Not sure, but this is what I am thinking and well see how it goes.
