It takes four and a half hours to travel 3,000 miles. I guess I'm still getting used to the 1970s. I ate a Pat's cheese steak at 8:30 AM eastern tie after landing in Philly, which also equates to 5:30 AM according to my body's west coast chronology. My intestines are still paying the price.
I've been reading a lot of Jiddu Krishnamurti lately, an 20th century philosopher that blows my mind. Trying to single out one quote is futile. Of the several topics that hit home with me, he speaks of how one can be addicted to knowledge, and in this addiction a person can become deadened to their experience and, in the human need to qualify and identify with traditions and ways of thought, avoid what is unknown. To my understanding, the unknown can only be reached through risk and action. Intention or latent ability cannot jump off the cliff to see how the water feels below.
Every time I come home I wait for something profound to happen or reveal itself to me. I think lately the problem has been that I've left my eyes closed to experience, thinking and trying to take connections too much. Profundity doesn't linger, as it shouldn't - there are more surprises ahead. Waiting for it is a blindfold, even if you often only catch it as it speeds past.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Mama, Mama I'm comin' home
Tomorrow night I’ll take a flight back home to where I spent my youth. It’s a town that calls itself a city due to its bloated population in the 1940s or earlier when it applied for a city charter. It only makes the mainstream news for some quirky oddity or for some things more radical that have smeared its name in the polarizing acts of its mayor, who, seeking political notoriety, and despite decades of decline caused by everything from the post-industrial exodus of jobs to bad luck and extremely poor management and foresight, chose to blame illegal immigrants for causing all of the local issues of lack of funding, lack of jobs, an incapability to retain most of it’s college educated youth, crime, and drug traffic (which, I might add, had been in existence there since the 70’s at least).
I knew since I was young I couldn’t stay there. Streets I roamed as a kid into the late hours of the night are now places where, partly due to fear mongering, I need to keep scanning with a watchful eye. It’s unfortunate, but change is always inevitable. I grew up among people who thought that things in my town shouldn’t have changed since mid century, and indeed many things didn’t – I cherish many of them. The joke was that our town was a great place to be when the world came to an end, since everything always arrived or happened there twenty-thirty years late.
Arriving into the time warp is evident even on the drive into town on 2 lane “highways,” where the absence of Los Angeles freeways does nothing short of delight my eyes. I’m lucky enough to go to visit a dozen or two older relatives, many now octogenarians and children of the Depression era. My grandmother is 80, and still cooks twice a week for family dinners. In a rare act among other locals her age, she recently took up Tai Chi. Some things do change.
She’ll sit us down and have to be told that we can get our own drinks, that she needn’t need to serve us. The kitchen is always warm, the warmth that comes from over 4 decades of use and bringing family together around her table. Time and again I’ll sneak back to where she keeps the family photo albums to hear stories about people I can barely remember, and some that I’m not able to stop inquiring about.
Her husband of 50 years died 6 years ago this Sunday. Besides being the man who gave the inspiration for the name of this blog, he was one of my biggest role models. Much as he has become mythologized in my mind over the past 6 years, coming to see his humanity has brought me to understand and appreciate his example even more. Abandoned by his parents, raised by his immigrant grandparents, working from the bottom to VP of his company. The night before he died, he asked my great uncle -- his brother-in-law – what he thought about a person’s chances in the afterlife. When he took his second heart attack, we shook hands with those who dropped by the funeral home to offer their condolences through a line down the block for two and a half hours straight. I’m inclined to think that what caused that was quite a special, genuine magnanimity, and a selflessness that he shared with my grandmother and their children, as well as many of those I’m lucky to call family.
The town I grew up in is now more a narrative about the past, but I'll visit what's left, and everyone who remembers it. "And so it goes, and so it goes, and as the Book says, 'We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.'"
I knew since I was young I couldn’t stay there. Streets I roamed as a kid into the late hours of the night are now places where, partly due to fear mongering, I need to keep scanning with a watchful eye. It’s unfortunate, but change is always inevitable. I grew up among people who thought that things in my town shouldn’t have changed since mid century, and indeed many things didn’t – I cherish many of them. The joke was that our town was a great place to be when the world came to an end, since everything always arrived or happened there twenty-thirty years late.
Arriving into the time warp is evident even on the drive into town on 2 lane “highways,” where the absence of Los Angeles freeways does nothing short of delight my eyes. I’m lucky enough to go to visit a dozen or two older relatives, many now octogenarians and children of the Depression era. My grandmother is 80, and still cooks twice a week for family dinners. In a rare act among other locals her age, she recently took up Tai Chi. Some things do change.
She’ll sit us down and have to be told that we can get our own drinks, that she needn’t need to serve us. The kitchen is always warm, the warmth that comes from over 4 decades of use and bringing family together around her table. Time and again I’ll sneak back to where she keeps the family photo albums to hear stories about people I can barely remember, and some that I’m not able to stop inquiring about.
Her husband of 50 years died 6 years ago this Sunday. Besides being the man who gave the inspiration for the name of this blog, he was one of my biggest role models. Much as he has become mythologized in my mind over the past 6 years, coming to see his humanity has brought me to understand and appreciate his example even more. Abandoned by his parents, raised by his immigrant grandparents, working from the bottom to VP of his company. The night before he died, he asked my great uncle -- his brother-in-law – what he thought about a person’s chances in the afterlife. When he took his second heart attack, we shook hands with those who dropped by the funeral home to offer their condolences through a line down the block for two and a half hours straight. I’m inclined to think that what caused that was quite a special, genuine magnanimity, and a selflessness that he shared with my grandmother and their children, as well as many of those I’m lucky to call family.
The town I grew up in is now more a narrative about the past, but I'll visit what's left, and everyone who remembers it. "And so it goes, and so it goes, and as the Book says, 'We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.'"
Friday, April 24, 2009
Hit Me, Part 2
In The Last Professors, Frank Donoghue excavates the nature of the long standoff between the academic and corporate world, dating back to the Gilded Age of the late 1800s, when industrial capitalists (or when you’re from the anthracite coal region: robber barons) began to attack higher education as useless. Academics, then, go on the defensive: The humanities and liberal arts have immeasurable value, if not immediately economically apparent, and need to be fought for. With the heartless nature of corporate mentally, this is absolutely correct, but there is a deeper issue here that I’m not sure will be discussed.
Growing up, my generation was told: get to college, you’re set for life. Maybe your parents and very likely your grandparents didn’t have that chance, so our generation is the time to make it right, taking that step beyond the blue collar that was always dreamed about. Social waves generally hit my small home town 20-30 years after their rise, so while Mad Men made millions at mid-century, our families were hoping that their factory didn’t lay them off. But I digress.
Truth is, at the turn of the century, Carnegie’s assessment of higher education may very well have been right. This doesn’t mean he wasn’t a cold-hearted prick, but we’re all subject to the influences of our environment, and Carnegie was a self made man from humble beginnings. Universities back then were only for the wealthy (where now, they’re only for those who don’t mind being slowly milked for interest on their never-ending student loans). It was the “old boy” network, where wealthy sons could go off to college to waste time as if they were living at a country club and come out with a Bachelor of bacchanalia. They could then go on to their life of aristocracy and maybe politics, and for all those without the money for college? Well, with enough social skill, ambition, and intellect they could still have a good shot at landing a good job without a college education.
Now that a college education is so widespread as to be expected for most careers, it’s a necessary rite of passage, whether or not one learns – or rather, remembers – anything. Don’t get me wrong, the more education for the masses, the better. I wish that every person would have the time, energy, and desire to keep educating themselves and read just as many books -- maybe ones that are even more practical -- once they are out of college. But nowadays we don’t even see how the business mind of universities has us as sitting duck-customers. For a middle class income, we must to go to college. Why? The shitty job market is one reason, but there is a much bigger one: We’re a huge revenue source. For example, when did the switch get flipped (or maybe its just been a steady transition) that post-graduate studies were a necessity to stay competitive in the job market?
Unfortunately, I’m speaking in terms more vague than I’d like. I’ve been reading non-stop of the underbelly of higher education, and my will to become a man of letters has waned as a result. How does this relate to yesterday’s post at all? Shit… what was it again…
Ah yes.
It is an unavoidable fact that most of us will have to take it on the chin numerous times in our life. Hopes will be dashed at the expense of current need, and long-term goals will appear too far to grasp. Refusal to submit may be our only source of fuel. But search for alternatives – they are out there. The collective unconscious becomes richer the more you try to access it, and while stories of others who have carved their own path may not be completely applicable to everyone, they prove that there are other ways. We can aspire to them if we are creative, innovative, and persistent enough to find them.
Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Double down on 11, beautiful babies.
Growing up, my generation was told: get to college, you’re set for life. Maybe your parents and very likely your grandparents didn’t have that chance, so our generation is the time to make it right, taking that step beyond the blue collar that was always dreamed about. Social waves generally hit my small home town 20-30 years after their rise, so while Mad Men made millions at mid-century, our families were hoping that their factory didn’t lay them off. But I digress.
Truth is, at the turn of the century, Carnegie’s assessment of higher education may very well have been right. This doesn’t mean he wasn’t a cold-hearted prick, but we’re all subject to the influences of our environment, and Carnegie was a self made man from humble beginnings. Universities back then were only for the wealthy (where now, they’re only for those who don’t mind being slowly milked for interest on their never-ending student loans). It was the “old boy” network, where wealthy sons could go off to college to waste time as if they were living at a country club and come out with a Bachelor of bacchanalia. They could then go on to their life of aristocracy and maybe politics, and for all those without the money for college? Well, with enough social skill, ambition, and intellect they could still have a good shot at landing a good job without a college education.
Now that a college education is so widespread as to be expected for most careers, it’s a necessary rite of passage, whether or not one learns – or rather, remembers – anything. Don’t get me wrong, the more education for the masses, the better. I wish that every person would have the time, energy, and desire to keep educating themselves and read just as many books -- maybe ones that are even more practical -- once they are out of college. But nowadays we don’t even see how the business mind of universities has us as sitting duck-customers. For a middle class income, we must to go to college. Why? The shitty job market is one reason, but there is a much bigger one: We’re a huge revenue source. For example, when did the switch get flipped (or maybe its just been a steady transition) that post-graduate studies were a necessity to stay competitive in the job market?
Unfortunately, I’m speaking in terms more vague than I’d like. I’ve been reading non-stop of the underbelly of higher education, and my will to become a man of letters has waned as a result. How does this relate to yesterday’s post at all? Shit… what was it again…
Ah yes.
It is an unavoidable fact that most of us will have to take it on the chin numerous times in our life. Hopes will be dashed at the expense of current need, and long-term goals will appear too far to grasp. Refusal to submit may be our only source of fuel. But search for alternatives – they are out there. The collective unconscious becomes richer the more you try to access it, and while stories of others who have carved their own path may not be completely applicable to everyone, they prove that there are other ways. We can aspire to them if we are creative, innovative, and persistent enough to find them.
Or at least that’s what I keep telling myself. Double down on 11, beautiful babies.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Hit Me, Part 1
In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell addresses a case study of teenage smoking, that baffling and enduring cultural epidemic. Fitting into his overall theory of the Law of the Few, he talks about the strength of personality of certain individuals who, when picking up the habit, are able to influence and give social “permission” to their peers to adopt smoking as well. He also notes, according to his second theory of Stickiness, what everyone knows: nicotine is addictive, and some people are drawn to it more than others. These long known factors have been elusive to the anti-smoking movement, because they have always focused their campaigns on issues that either tell people what they already know or that miss the driving socio-cultural factors that attract youth to try it out.
Smoking preference is a personal matter. My thoughts, rather, were stuck on Gladwell’s mentioning of adults (or parents) being so much less influential on a young persons’ decision to smoke than the youth’s peers –in particular, those who embody the traits of, “defiance, sexual precocity, honesty, impulsiveness, indifference to the opinion of others, [and] sensation seeking.” (238)
It’s a concept we all know. Parents are less influential of their adolescents – always has been, and likely always will be. They exist in different social circles; people relate to their own age group; every child must prove his or her independence, etc. The Wild One, James Dean, “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand,” every coming of age film in the past 60 years, punk rock, and now, unfortunately, even complete morons can symbolize the youth ideal (Paris Hilton et al.) – though I suppose every generation has had their idols.
Joseph Campbell speaks about how when parental lessons and imparted wisdom fail to apply to a youth’s social experience and obstacles, and this becomes the start of a major loss of credibility, even if only unconscious. That’s why people often don’t (and probably, shouldn’t) believe regular praise from their parents. Mainstream culture changes too rapidly, and for most of us who are only passive participants and observers, navigating a new labyrinth of current trends isn’t worthwhile if you aren’t absolutely terrified of getting picked on.
American youth go through rites of passage dictated by bureaucracies intent on producing conforming, if not outstanding, workers to fill in new spots in the system. Score high on SATs, get into college, do well enough in college to find a job despite possible residual alcoholic tendencies, try to put money away from retirement and not blow too much dough on personal indulgences. Most people hate their jobs. Most youths hope they won’t be one of that majority, if they think about it at all. But once you’re locked in, it’s very hard to make a switch. Comfort is often an enemy to risk, and by our 30s, when all of our being tested and struggling -- like we were told by those selling us education -- should be behind us, most everyone can settle with what they have if they’re comfortable. This is the personality change that occurs: a general lessening of ambition due to fatigue.
Now this certainly isn’t a castigation of the average guy (or girl)– I wish empathize more than criticize. The point is, why be surprised by the disconnect between parents and youth? With full lives ahead of them, why wouldn’t an adolescent choose defiance over letting their lives get sucked out by routine, bills, and authority, let alone listen to someone who has submitted to this, regardless of the person’s amount of choice in the matter?
To sum up, this rant was a impromptu sampling of the odds stacked against so many, but its real purpose is as the first step in an effort to brainstorm. The question: How can anyone take real agency in preventing the need to submit to the hand we were dealt? Or maybe I'll just offer some encouragement to do, and praise for doing so.
But at least in the worst case scenario, once our kids hit their 20s, they’ll start realizing the same thing, plop down on the neighboring chair, and share a silent drink over our newly shared circumstance. Unless we, and they, are lucky enough to buck the trend.
Smoking preference is a personal matter. My thoughts, rather, were stuck on Gladwell’s mentioning of adults (or parents) being so much less influential on a young persons’ decision to smoke than the youth’s peers –in particular, those who embody the traits of, “defiance, sexual precocity, honesty, impulsiveness, indifference to the opinion of others, [and] sensation seeking.” (238)
It’s a concept we all know. Parents are less influential of their adolescents – always has been, and likely always will be. They exist in different social circles; people relate to their own age group; every child must prove his or her independence, etc. The Wild One, James Dean, “Parent’s Just Don’t Understand,” every coming of age film in the past 60 years, punk rock, and now, unfortunately, even complete morons can symbolize the youth ideal (Paris Hilton et al.) – though I suppose every generation has had their idols.
Joseph Campbell speaks about how when parental lessons and imparted wisdom fail to apply to a youth’s social experience and obstacles, and this becomes the start of a major loss of credibility, even if only unconscious. That’s why people often don’t (and probably, shouldn’t) believe regular praise from their parents. Mainstream culture changes too rapidly, and for most of us who are only passive participants and observers, navigating a new labyrinth of current trends isn’t worthwhile if you aren’t absolutely terrified of getting picked on.
American youth go through rites of passage dictated by bureaucracies intent on producing conforming, if not outstanding, workers to fill in new spots in the system. Score high on SATs, get into college, do well enough in college to find a job despite possible residual alcoholic tendencies, try to put money away from retirement and not blow too much dough on personal indulgences. Most people hate their jobs. Most youths hope they won’t be one of that majority, if they think about it at all. But once you’re locked in, it’s very hard to make a switch. Comfort is often an enemy to risk, and by our 30s, when all of our being tested and struggling -- like we were told by those selling us education -- should be behind us, most everyone can settle with what they have if they’re comfortable. This is the personality change that occurs: a general lessening of ambition due to fatigue.
Now this certainly isn’t a castigation of the average guy (or girl)– I wish empathize more than criticize. The point is, why be surprised by the disconnect between parents and youth? With full lives ahead of them, why wouldn’t an adolescent choose defiance over letting their lives get sucked out by routine, bills, and authority, let alone listen to someone who has submitted to this, regardless of the person’s amount of choice in the matter?
To sum up, this rant was a impromptu sampling of the odds stacked against so many, but its real purpose is as the first step in an effort to brainstorm. The question: How can anyone take real agency in preventing the need to submit to the hand we were dealt? Or maybe I'll just offer some encouragement to do, and praise for doing so.
But at least in the worst case scenario, once our kids hit their 20s, they’ll start realizing the same thing, plop down on the neighboring chair, and share a silent drink over our newly shared circumstance. Unless we, and they, are lucky enough to buck the trend.
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
Use the Schwartz
I’ve developed a recent addiction to the TED talks, where the TED (which stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design) organization invites “he world's most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes).” In 2 and a half days I have watched about a dozen of them, never failing to be riveted. One of my favorites is by psychologist Barry Schwartz, entitled “The Real Crisis? We stopped being wise,” and covers a range of topics all centered around 2 ideas:
1. How rules, convention, and mindlessly conforming (read: meeting the minimum required standards) erodes moral skill and will, as well as original thought.
and
2. How focusing on when people become addicted to and dependent on incentives (ie. Wall Street hustlers), “they stop asking what is right.”
He calls for the need to re-moralize our society by celebrating moral heroes and strive to be moral exemplars to others. Schwartz’s speech is definitely worth a view, not only for it’s content but for how great a speaker he is.
It lays out a simple and impenetrable argument that few can argue against. This, however, is because hardly anybody wants to look like a jerk that is screwing others over, nor appear as the rabid dog whose crusade disregards the need for compassion. Every religious tradition follows some form of the Golden Rule and teaches selflessness. It’s no mystery that this is both the ideal form of conduct and a really taxing way to try to live, conscious of the consequences of every action we take and aware of how leaders, ourselves or others, should uphold this level of morality in order to have the right to lead.
But society is complex, and its great ills can’t be solved by a blog post. So watch the TEDtalks - besides wisdom, you'll gain some really cool knowledge and be entertained.
PS. The audio and video from the TEDtalks can be downloaded free as podcasts for iTunes as well. I've also posted the TED website under Links on the left.
1. How rules, convention, and mindlessly conforming (read: meeting the minimum required standards) erodes moral skill and will, as well as original thought.
and
2. How focusing on when people become addicted to and dependent on incentives (ie. Wall Street hustlers), “they stop asking what is right.”
He calls for the need to re-moralize our society by celebrating moral heroes and strive to be moral exemplars to others. Schwartz’s speech is definitely worth a view, not only for it’s content but for how great a speaker he is.
It lays out a simple and impenetrable argument that few can argue against. This, however, is because hardly anybody wants to look like a jerk that is screwing others over, nor appear as the rabid dog whose crusade disregards the need for compassion. Every religious tradition follows some form of the Golden Rule and teaches selflessness. It’s no mystery that this is both the ideal form of conduct and a really taxing way to try to live, conscious of the consequences of every action we take and aware of how leaders, ourselves or others, should uphold this level of morality in order to have the right to lead.
But society is complex, and its great ills can’t be solved by a blog post. So watch the TEDtalks - besides wisdom, you'll gain some really cool knowledge and be entertained.
PS. The audio and video from the TEDtalks can be downloaded free as podcasts for iTunes as well. I've also posted the TED website under Links on the left.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Seeking a Literary Life
In trying to figure out my future, I’ve come to a crossroads – a paradox, even. I have read many books on writing, and story construction, and character, and theme, and so many levels of criticism of film and society, how it might or should or does fit into our lives. For those to try to create, there is often a personal intimacy that develops with your subject matter, to the point that pieces of the creator of a work or his/her experiences and emotions are embodied within what is created.
So many successful writers – myself not being one of them – have taken the (sometimes) noble and (sometimes) fulfilling challenge to pursue what is deemed a “literary life,” meaning, a life worth writing about. It’s common advice to common writers to “write what you know,” so changing your life to be exciting enough to fill your stories with exciting things, your imagination adding to real experience. This is a formidable task, and it seems like writing stories about not being able to write a story only works when you have the creative genius of Charlie Kaufman. And even then without enough confidence (your own or others’) in your work, and a great deal of luck, you won’t be getting a film made.
Shouldn’t everyone try to live a literary life? Not settle and take chances like the hero of our own narrative?
Yes, but it’s complicated. Because even when everything boils down to personal choice to act or to not act, everyone’s situation is different, and those differences can mean drastically different outcomes for the person who thinks they can copy another writer’s path to success.
As I was perennially trying to rework a semi-autobiographical feature film idea, I realized how every new element added was somehow related to new developments in my own life. Consequently, once I fell in love 9 months ago it became incredibly hard to include a realistic, anti-romantic element with my story. Though I plodded on in an attempt to get that missing piece that would solve all of my problems and write the screenplay for me, I asked the question: maybe my attachment and desire to write this story – and my inability to do the same – has to do with the need to psychoanalyze myself from a slight distance and discover how I – or my story’s hero – was going to find fulfillment and happiness.
But was I living a literary life? No – I was standing still in the muck of my own confusion. Write characters that you can relate to, and create a life worthy of a cinematic hero. Those two things started to appear as opposites to me, especially as I learned more about what the actual life of a screenwriter is like, not to mention the inevitable changes to the industry (read: corporate philosophy and solely bottom-line driven motives) that are squeezing the opportunity for artists who don’t want to starve until the hereditarily rich and untalented bestow their praises.
So, what now? Adapt. I’ll continue to love quality films and great stories, but I’m moving in a direction that can’t involve submitting to a broken and dying system.
It involves writing my new story through action, and not behind the protection of that ingenious screenplay that I just might finish someday.
So many successful writers – myself not being one of them – have taken the (sometimes) noble and (sometimes) fulfilling challenge to pursue what is deemed a “literary life,” meaning, a life worth writing about. It’s common advice to common writers to “write what you know,” so changing your life to be exciting enough to fill your stories with exciting things, your imagination adding to real experience. This is a formidable task, and it seems like writing stories about not being able to write a story only works when you have the creative genius of Charlie Kaufman. And even then without enough confidence (your own or others’) in your work, and a great deal of luck, you won’t be getting a film made.
Shouldn’t everyone try to live a literary life? Not settle and take chances like the hero of our own narrative?
Yes, but it’s complicated. Because even when everything boils down to personal choice to act or to not act, everyone’s situation is different, and those differences can mean drastically different outcomes for the person who thinks they can copy another writer’s path to success.
As I was perennially trying to rework a semi-autobiographical feature film idea, I realized how every new element added was somehow related to new developments in my own life. Consequently, once I fell in love 9 months ago it became incredibly hard to include a realistic, anti-romantic element with my story. Though I plodded on in an attempt to get that missing piece that would solve all of my problems and write the screenplay for me, I asked the question: maybe my attachment and desire to write this story – and my inability to do the same – has to do with the need to psychoanalyze myself from a slight distance and discover how I – or my story’s hero – was going to find fulfillment and happiness.
But was I living a literary life? No – I was standing still in the muck of my own confusion. Write characters that you can relate to, and create a life worthy of a cinematic hero. Those two things started to appear as opposites to me, especially as I learned more about what the actual life of a screenwriter is like, not to mention the inevitable changes to the industry (read: corporate philosophy and solely bottom-line driven motives) that are squeezing the opportunity for artists who don’t want to starve until the hereditarily rich and untalented bestow their praises.
So, what now? Adapt. I’ll continue to love quality films and great stories, but I’m moving in a direction that can’t involve submitting to a broken and dying system.
It involves writing my new story through action, and not behind the protection of that ingenious screenplay that I just might finish someday.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Drink Your Breakfast, & May Your First Task, Be a Multitask
These are the musings of a guy still trying to figure out what to do with his life, and fearing that he might love the figuring a bit too much.
I was told recently that I might be attracted to questing endlessly toward far-off goals before abandoning them as their requisite commitment approaches. She might be right, but I’ll apply my hope for a different reason through argument.
Years ago I thought that I might be subject to a “two-year” rule. That every 2 years, I was ready to change my location and circumstance to some degree in order to stave off cabin fever. I transferred after 2 years of high school, studied abroad after 2 years of college, and moved from the east coast to Los Angeles, where now, after 2 years and change, I am waiting to break out into a new incarnation. Before it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, I figured that if 2 years in Walden were good enough for Thoreau, maybe constantly changing my path in a similar way could bring out my genius that has both shown itself as scurried away accordingly to its own whims for years.
Yet increasingly over my time in the West, a time marked by unforeseen personal growth and happiness with income and “professional” experience that amounts to nil, I have come to wonder if the search for my perfect livelihood has been a forever shifting mirage. I came to La-La Land to try my hand at writing for film, learning much about the craft of story and the workings of the industry but becoming so cynical about it so as to abandon writing altogether for months. This marks my first attempt to return to the written word, if for nothing else but to feel some kind of obligation to get my ideas beyond my thick skull.
And so begins my blog: Cup a’ Toast. My Italian grandfather used to call me a hard head – “cappo rozzo” – which in the southern Italian pronunciation sounded like “cup a toast” to my 4 year old ears, and remained so ever since.
What I’ve always been stubborn about: my curiosity in seeking the answers to the questions that keep me up at night or lead to excessive Googling, and an obstinate drive to pursue my intellectual passions while trying to get over self-consciousness and uncertainty.
Here I will air everything that teases my brain in the hope that any wisdom accumulated will not equal useless forgotten knowledge.
I was told recently that I might be attracted to questing endlessly toward far-off goals before abandoning them as their requisite commitment approaches. She might be right, but I’ll apply my hope for a different reason through argument.
Years ago I thought that I might be subject to a “two-year” rule. That every 2 years, I was ready to change my location and circumstance to some degree in order to stave off cabin fever. I transferred after 2 years of high school, studied abroad after 2 years of college, and moved from the east coast to Los Angeles, where now, after 2 years and change, I am waiting to break out into a new incarnation. Before it became a self-fulfilling prophecy, I figured that if 2 years in Walden were good enough for Thoreau, maybe constantly changing my path in a similar way could bring out my genius that has both shown itself as scurried away accordingly to its own whims for years.
Yet increasingly over my time in the West, a time marked by unforeseen personal growth and happiness with income and “professional” experience that amounts to nil, I have come to wonder if the search for my perfect livelihood has been a forever shifting mirage. I came to La-La Land to try my hand at writing for film, learning much about the craft of story and the workings of the industry but becoming so cynical about it so as to abandon writing altogether for months. This marks my first attempt to return to the written word, if for nothing else but to feel some kind of obligation to get my ideas beyond my thick skull.
And so begins my blog: Cup a’ Toast. My Italian grandfather used to call me a hard head – “cappo rozzo” – which in the southern Italian pronunciation sounded like “cup a toast” to my 4 year old ears, and remained so ever since.
What I’ve always been stubborn about: my curiosity in seeking the answers to the questions that keep me up at night or lead to excessive Googling, and an obstinate drive to pursue my intellectual passions while trying to get over self-consciousness and uncertainty.
Here I will air everything that teases my brain in the hope that any wisdom accumulated will not equal useless forgotten knowledge.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)