Category: Writing

Finally sat down to watch this. I had intended to see it when it released, but I just missed it. I do, regrettably, miss more films in theaters than I would like to, but the schedule doesn’t always work out in the way I try to make it.

So, popped a bag of popcorn, opened a can of pop, and settled into The Long Walk.

Knowing roughly the premise, it picks up right where it needs to. Ray being driven by his mother to the starting line. Now, in this world, there is not much that is explained. There was a war. There is some sort of dictatorship. As it goes on, you discover that many things are banned, the teaching of enjoyment of outlawed – books, music, likely other enjoyments.

You don’t see the upper class – those striving for the win are certainly of low economic status.

It’s possible that everyone applies to the Long Walk Lottery – only fifty are chosen each year, one from each state. 

And the winner gets a heap of money and one wish.

It’s in this environment that Ray meets Pete. And while at first, like the characters, you’re not sure if there’s substance there, as they walk on, so do we. And it becomes apparent that friendship can form in the strangest of places.

There are others who become a part of the pack, and a story of battlefield camaraderie takes hold. 

It isn’t long into the movie before the first contestant is removed, with extreme prejudice. Before the Title Crawl actually. And it lets the viewer know the stakes.

About halfway through, I found myself loving the relationship between Pete and Ray, and I was happy the story hinged on that. I’d not read the story, but I assumed I knew where the film was going. It still took a turn, and left several twists that I wouldn’t have expected. Plus a couple I’d called early.

Even still, at moments I would find tears in my eyes, and wish that, like one contestant said (paraphrasing) – “I’d wish that two could win the Long Walk, so that you had a chance to finish with your friend.”

Enjoyed it, but not sure if that’s one I’ll get around to watching again.

Yesterday ended up having a darker tone than I had intended, but it seemed to wrap up, so I didn’t want to attempt to gild the lily. I think we all our the culmination of our pasts, and everyday becomes our past at each day’s end.

It’s neither good nor bad, just who we are. And I think to be continually growing, learning, expanding our horizons is a positive way to live, and a way to make an impact on those around us.

And I think that’s something we all should aspire to.

With the nation’s 250th anniversary behind us, I find myself thinking about personal milestones. Major moments in the history of my life.

Like everyone, I was deeply shaped by the novel coronavirus pandemic. Hard to believe that’s now been over six years since the world shut down.

Four years prior to that, I had a personal event upend my life, and I left nearly everything stable behind in favor of novelty and change. In an odd way, the pandemic actually fit into my of life more than it would have before that time.

And even earlier back, the terrorist attack on 9/11; graduations; deaths; births. It’s interesting how many things affect us, and that we carry with us through our lives.

Maybe it means that things will keep happening, and we’ll continue growing until it’s all over.

 

A friend and I were talking about how commercials of today lack the appeal that commericals had in the 80’s and 90’s. We debated how much of that was nostalgia vs. quality vs. blatant commercialism or cheap production value. Many things.

We didn’t come to a conclusion.

But I was reminded of a story my mother told me about, when I was a young child, I would sit and play while the tv was on. Then, when the commercials started, I would pay rapt attention. Once the program resumed, I too would resume my playing.

Certainly not post hoc, ergo propter hoc, but still. I sometimes find myself watching commercials now as well. And they do lack a little subtlety that, maybe, commercials of yore maintained.

Like with writing, I’d let reading slip past me recently. This year, I’ve not read a lot. Until recently. I had a couple days off, and spent one of them between bed and couch, either sleeping or reading.

But books are still one of the great joys of my life. I like the thoughts that people have. I think about “thinking” a lot. Semantics and logic. I often thought I’d study logic in a Philosphy Ph.D. program somewhere, but never did. And now, the thought of going back to university is, if not furthest from my mind, way, way out there.

But, I still enjoy reading. Novels, mostly, but some nonfiction. I read the Chernow book on Hamilton last year. Currently reading Anthony Bourdain’s The Nasty Bits.

And, like time for anything else, making it is significantly more effective than finding it.

“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?