Artists Rule

Art is amazing. I had a discussion today with a friend of mine who helped advise me last year in making some big decisions in my life. The decision to change from practical and rational life to one of creativity and spontaneity. This is how I had thought that I had found myself. Society conditions us to seek security and comfort through material means. But creation is truly the most amazing quality human beings have.

I realize my fears stem from this feeling that in pursuing a life of film or creating art in the entertainment industry I feel like I am being selfish. Rather than try to make money the fast and easy route I am saying I want to do something that I don’t know if I’ll succeed or be good at. Sure I made a couple of films in high school, but these were merely parodies and nothing serious. I often wonder these days if I’m funny. The past few months I’ve thought not.

Yet really its more about being proactive. I always hated working hard. The problem was not that I couldn’t do the work, but that it was for something I didn’t enjoy. So I would think: why put in so much effort if I don’t like what I’m doing? Then I found my passion. This is how I think everyone should live life. Find what it is they love, and pursue it. Forget about reason or rationale…throw caution to the wind.

But yeah, on another note…for all you non-existant readers…do NOT see the movie “Michael Clayton”. It sucks. Cliche as shit and so dull that halfway through you want to shoot yourself or the director because the movie is all dialogue, in which the characters are talking about nothing. They didn’t want the viewers to think that the plot was something they had seen before so instead of spelling it out they tried to make it more subtle by hinting at what was going on, which created a necessity for a million conversations.

I wrote a screenplay for this film workshop I’m doing. Not really sure how I feel about it. But at least its a start, and its for something I want to get really good at. Really damn good at. Wow…I almost feel ambition.

The Road Less Traveled

I always loved Frost’s poem. It was inspiration. Feelings of hope as well as possibilities always enter my mind when I read it. Yet having taken the road less traveled, or walking it currently, I wonder if rather than stray from the path, I have fallen off of it.

The fast track in life is so comforting. I used to know exactly what my future held. Trading stocks or orchestrating a merger; climbing the corporate ladder of investment banking. No need to worry about money or what people think. Security is your comfort and you can tell the world to fuck off because you own everyone.

Yet now the track I am on seems less certain. This uncertainty haunts me daily. I wonder if I am doing the right thing. Am I being selfish in pursuing a dream that I’m not sure I can accomplish? The conditioning of 19 years strongly urges me to go back to what I was comfortable with. These thoughts that I am not doing what is expected of me — what other people believe I should be doing — make me wonder if I know myself anymore. This I think is where my self worth deteriorates, as I feel like I’m letting people down. Do I belong at the school I’m at? Am I a leader? A thinker? Or am I just a prodigy who fucked up and can’t do anything anymore? The more failure is on my mind, the more failure seems to be inevitable in my life.

And yet last night I was given a glimpse of hope. God was trying to tell me something in the form a girl who sat down next to me while I was rolling a joint at a party. There is still a chance that I can get laid! And I felt so happy too. Even though I ended up being a dick and ruining my shot with her, but I think it was a learning experience.

Speaking to my ex-girlfriend yesterday also brought me a lot of joy. I remembered the comfort I felt in being able to just cuddle with her every night and watch movies. Simplicity. Life was beautiful back then. I knew exactly what I wanted to do most of the time, and although I was taking a lot of things for granted, these days I’m feeling hella nostaligic.

But I decided that I believe everything happens for a reason, and I need to toughen this one out. It sucks that we are judged by our accomplishments rather than our human traits.

Requiem for a Nightmare

I often wonder if I am a drug addict. People used to think I was on drugs when I had never taken any. Then after I took some people didn’t think I was on drugs but that I was normal.

Last spring I experimented with mushrooms and E, and afterwards experienced a two week period where I lost touch with reality to some extent. My parents found out, as well as everyone in my family, as I was calling up cousins and such to tell them that I loved them. I had to withdraw from a couple of classes and ended up changing my major, and what I wanted to do in life.

But then afterwards life became better. It was finally how I wanted it to be. I was balling out of control. I could get girls! Well, its more that I could approach girls I had never met before and become friendly with them in a short period of time — something I always dreamt of being capable of. The art of “The Game” had dawned naturally on me. I thought that I had actually matured. I also started making these YouTube videos that people thought were hella funny. This led me to believe I was gonnna be famous or something! And making movies was what I had really always wanted to do.

And then came the summer. Oh the good ole summer. I went back home and had a dope internship at MTV, but for some reason I found myself down. I started feeling sorry for myself and my self-image went from hero to zero. This was living in the past. I wondered if it had been the spring quarter as I had not been productive in accomplishing what I had originally planned. Or perhaps it was that I wanted to party all the time instead of do work. Classes were easy but making videos and sketches became difficult. And then over the summer I found that I had lost my sense of humor and hubrus. The worst was wondering if this decision to change paths in my life had all been conceived in a drug-induced mania. Imagine feeling that you just made the biggest decision in your life and then constantly wondering if you really wanted this, or if it was just the E…