Just to reiterate, I am writing for myself. Yeah, I could keep it in a journal on a drive that only I have access to, but I am naturally a glutton for punishment. I also have some illusion that someone will take the time to read these and drop a nugget of good advice. I feel lost. I feel like I cannot see the forest for the trees.
There Is No Heading to This Paragraph
I’m the goof. I’m the clown. You need a quick joke – I’m your guy. I’m not the guy who can tweet wisdom and get likes and retweets. As a matter of fact, when I do tweet, even if I think it seems deep, nobody gives a shit. The fact is I’m a clown on a small radio station – and people listen to that for the music and not for my silly quips. I get that now. I am also cognizant of the fact that people close to me don’t care that I want to make a movie. I’ve “made movies” before and they have donated. Nobody has much faith in my skills to think that investing in a project I am putting my heart and soul into is worth it. It is a sobering thought and I have pondered its significance for a while.
Suburbia as depicted in Edward Scissorhands (1990)
I teeter back and forth between throwing in the towel and being a silent suburban automaton and actually “burning my ships” and going for it. I’ll mow my lawn twice per week; I’ll run out to get the mail moments after I hear the familiar groan of the mail truck; my garbage will be out on Wednesday evening, ready for an early Thursday morning pickup (unless there is a holiday that week – then we shift that to Thursday evening and Friday morning). Bored yet? NO? Great! It’s not a bad existence if that is what you want. It’s a trap, though. Humans were not designed for such a life. We were destined to appreciate the finer things in life. I don’t mean yachts and private jets or sports cars either. I mean love, friendship, joy, happiness, freedom of spirit. I mean the lack of real stress. Throw a rock and you will hit a guy or girl who has made millions telling people how they climbed out of their pit of debt and desperation. Imagine a life where you have your bills paid (or you don’t even have bills!). A life where, when you wake up, you can decide which adventure you’d like. How do you get there? I know the answer is slapping me in the face, but I am so numb from all the slapping, I cannot feel it. Kind of like not seeing the forest for the trees.
Do you know the Kenny Chesney song “Noise”? “Sometimes I wonder how did we get here / Seems like all we ever hear is / Noise / Yeah we scream, yeah we shout ’til we don’t have a voice / In the streets, in the crowds, it ain’t nothing but noise / Drowning out all the dreams of this Tennessee boy / Just tryna be heard in all this noise.” I think about this song when I feel like no one will ever “hear” my writing. When a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad book gets published and makes the writer a millionaire. When two friends show up to my public readings. When I sell maybe 300 copies of the book I put my entire heart into. Yes, I would love to get an agent and a publisher and a book deal that allowed me to quit my job and write full time. But I’m not there yet, so I’ll continue to put out my garbage, mow my lawn, and go get the mail. And I’ll also continue to create my art, in the spaces between, and hope that one day, I’ll be heard over all this noise. Keep going.
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Do you know the Kenny Chesney song “Noise”? “Sometimes I wonder how did we get here / Seems like all we ever hear is / Noise / Yeah we scream, yeah we shout ’til we don’t have a voice / In the streets, in the crowds, it ain’t nothing but noise / Drowning out all the dreams of this Tennessee boy / Just tryna be heard in all this noise.” I think about this song when I feel like no one will ever “hear” my writing. When a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad book gets published and makes the writer a millionaire. When two friends show up to my public readings. When I sell maybe 300 copies of the book I put my entire heart into. Yes, I would love to get an agent and a publisher and a book deal that allowed me to quit my job and write full time. But I’m not there yet, so I’ll continue to put out my garbage, mow my lawn, and go get the mail. And I’ll also continue to create my art, in the spaces between, and hope that one day, I’ll be heard over all this noise. Keep going.
Thank you Bethany 🙂 🙂
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