Matt Hazard

I, Matt Hazard, have never been officially diagnosed with ADHD.  And now that that’s out of the way..

Evidently I am the type of guy who gets full-blown inspired by anything bearing the slightest bit of interest.  I have become the human embodiment of a Pinterest board – I have way, way too many hobbies.  This by itself isn’t so bad, but the complication arises out of the fact that unfortunately I am also a bit of a perfectionist.  Yeah, that’s a lie.  I’m a full blown perfectionist, to the point where I’ll sink an unnatural amount of hours into whatever the flavour of the week is to maintain a level of “quality” that keeps me happy.  So how bad is it?  Mix equal parts perfectionism with captivation, steep in an abundance of free time, and you’ve got a cocktail of confidence to tackle whatever tickles your fancy.  And this happy little elixir of traits is exactly what has kept me over-occupied for the better part of the last decade.

I have a burning need to constantly create.  An artistic itch that my career as an electrician just can’t scratch.  Ironically, with all of my apparent creativity, I can’t seem to ever dial in on exactly what I want to do next.  My solution?  Do everything.  Luckily for me, inspiration somehow manages to find its way into my life all on its own.  Watching Troy and Abed on the hit series Community inspired me to buy a camcorder and start video editing.  Failing to beat Sudoku on my cell phone inspired me to write a program in C++ that solves puzzles so I don’t have to.  Watching Louis CK on YouTube inspired me to start writing comedy and eventually perform on open mic night.  And one time, I took my younger brother to the music store to buy him guitar strings where I wound up buying myself a brand new electric guitar and amp because of a YouTube video that came to mind.  All that time and money spent in the music store, and I forgot to buy him his damn strings.

So why exactly am I complaining?  I rarely ever see anything through to the fullest.  My guitar skills are rusty on account that I’ve never actually learned a full song, just many, many intros.  I’ve only performed stand up comedy one time, even though I absolutely loved it.  My sudoku program is…well let’s just call it “slightly buggy”.  And I haven’t shot a video to edit in the better part of five years.  It would seem that my “perfectionism” errs more on the side of immediate deep commitment but stops short of actually mastering anything.   What’s that old saying – jack of all trades, master of none?

On the bright side, I have a lot of really cool crap around my house.  A slew of computer books, the guitar, an HD camera from that time I thought I could take up photography – old relics of random hobbies that I still find interesting given the time to tinker with.  I’d like to say with my collection of flash in the pan paraphernalia, I’ll never get bored, but that’s never the case – chances are I’ll find something completely new and different to dive head on into.  My latest inspiration?  Well, I just finished season 4 of Lucifer so naturally now I want to become an actor.  This week, anyway.  *shrug*