Category: Thoughts

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” – Steve Jobs

Still thinking about mortality, and how our lives change. I’m not sure what I thought I would be, at this point. But I do understand that I am lucky to have most of what I wanted.

There’s a lot to be said for how you approach life. I’m not sure, though, that it should ever be approached carefully. No one gets out alive anyway.

So do what you can, when you can. Try your best. Don’t be afraid to take chances.

And enjoy yourself. As often, and as fully as possible.

Information. Connectedness. It’s a double-edged sword.

We are, without a doubt, living in the most interwoven period in history. What used to be a butterfly flapping a wing in one part of the world leading to a hurricane or typhoon in another – now it comes with a single press of a key on a keyboard.

In fact, so much has been done from behind a computer that it seems unlikely we’ll ever move backwards towards a simpler time (catastrophe notwithstanding).

I’m an optimist, and when it comes to technology, perhaps even more so. First and foremost, I am a filmmaker who works with filmmakers, and often I tell them that we have everything we need to create – the barriers to entry are the smallest they’ve ever been.*

And that’s true for a lot of industries. Maybe that means jobs shifting, and repurposing how we do things, but I think that’s something humanity has been dealing with since we learned how to plant crops and tend fields, moving away from a hunter/gatherer lifestyle.

* Getting projects seen is another matter entirely, and while creating for the sake of creating is important, creating commercially viable projects and making a living is the intent, I’d wager, of most every artist.

I remember when I first started writing daily (I had heard an interview with Seth Godin, where – from his standpoint of writing a daily blog – he recommended doing the same), it wasn’t about much.

It probably still isn’t. I don’t watch much of the news – I am routinely uneased by the state of things. I spend a lot of time with my work – commercial production and independent film consulting.

These things I’ve learned, I try to convey. Somewhat. It’s always a balancing act, with how much we want to give away and what we’re trying to say.

I’m not yet to the point where I can just say what I mean, without worrying about how it’s received. I wonder if everyone’s like that.

Maybe yesterday sounded a bit unhinged. But I was in a good mood, and having fun writing, and thinking about the pile of things that I need to get done once I finish writing, and how there’s never enough time, or if I have the time, my energy is failing, or if I’m fortunate to have both, then something else draws my attention away.

(Apologies to my 5th-8th grade English teachers for this runon sentence.)

So, I just wrote what I was thinking. As I was thinking it.

It’s been a while, but I once wrote about Ira Glass’s quote:

“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

I had an interesting experience recently, where it occured to me to ask myself, “What are you doing?”

The scary thing is, I mostly have no idea.

A lot of the time, I just wing it. When it comes to work, art, getting things done, trying to build and maintain relationships.

All of it.

I’m not sure if there is a guidebook for living life (that would be one hell of a big book), but if there was, who’d have time to read it?

I spend a lot of time talking to beginning filmmakers about how, a) there are a lot of ways to get a film made and, b) just because someone has done it, doesn’t mean they knew what they were doing!

And I think that sums it up. Most of us, we have no clue. We just go through the motions, every day, trying not to get found out that we don’t know as much as others think we know.

But none of us really know. You know?

It’s been said my mind is a steel trap. Not by me, mind you. But, others have said as much.

I’m sadly not able to live up to that moniker. I forget, and while it brings me joy to reread books or rewatch movies, I sometimes think that it would be nice to never forget.

That aside (and maybe later I’ll write about Jorge Luis Borges’s short story Funes the Memorious), I can be surprised. 

I opened a book I was given at one my graduations, though I don’t know which. A Book of Graduate Wisdom, full of quotes for the next stage in my life. On the inside cover, in my sloppy handwriting, I had written florilegium.

While I don’t recall writing it, its meaning at least came back to me.

“A florilegium (plural florilegia) was a compilation of excerpts or sententia from other writings and is an offshoot of the commonplacing tradition.”

Over these past six months, I’d say that finding time to write was the challenging part of not doing it.

But that’s not wholly true. Yes, I’m busier than I’ve been in quite some time. Consistently so. But, there’s always time.

A number of writers wake before sunrise, and get their writing in. Someone like Maya Angelou had a hotel room – a getaway where she could sit and write in office hours.

We don’t all have that luxury, but finding time to do something can always be explained away.

Making time to do something, though, is something we can all do.

Well that’s out of the way. Nearly a week back in writing, and still finding my flow.

Write. Or do nothing. This was advice that popped up again recently. I’d heard it years ago, from a certain author who’s found himself out of the good graces of many of his fans.

And, I wonder, wandering as I do from topic to topic, can we separate the art from the artist? Does a person of low moral character deserve to have their art enjoyed?

That’s a topic for another post I guess.

250 years. Give or take some signatures.

But 250 years of America.

It’s impossible to consider the good without the bad – though some try. Like anything, America has stumbled on its way here.

Even still, and in spite of certain current circumstances, there is an innate pride in being American today. Moreso than past independence days. Today feels momentous.

Let freedom ring.