On the one hand, yes, I am stressed. I am burnt out. I am in deep water, just like everybody else around me. This isn't anything new and nobody wants to hear it.
On the other hand, one thought keeps me afloat. One idea keeps me from breaking down, giving up, and spiraling into the gutter.
I'm not exactly where I want to be, but in my eyes, I'm doing what I need to get there.
I feel lucky to be so busy right now -- to have my plate so full that I can't even begin to hope for an end. I read so many blogs posted by miserable people with a career I'd kill for, but not much else to say besides "poor me..."
See, a funny thing happened when I started to study storytelling in film. For lack of a better word, it's almost become a religion for me; something to live my life by. I honestly feel like an absolute moron for not understanding this up until now, but the films I've watched, the games I've played, the books I've read, they're not about people sitting on their asses talking about whatever floats through their little heads. Stories are about people who do things. THEY ACT.
This is rule numero uno. It's drilled into my head every week by my professor. Screenwriting is built upon characters who do things. You can't see them think on screen. That's where books come in. We aren't entertained by heaps of dialogue. That's where plays come in. I study film and all I care about is what people do!
Naturally, my new interest has rubbed off on me more that I had ever expected. I think about this so much that, like I said before, it's transformed into a religious belief. A lifestyle. It has transformed me into a proactive human being.
If you want one take away, one thing to know about who I am now, know this: I don't just talk about things, I go out in the world and I do them.
Telling stories in film is how I learned to live this way. For my entire life I've watched people do things on screen and for the most part saw it as mere entertainment. Now, just into my twenties, I get that it's way more than that. By writing about characters who must work extremely hard to get what they desperately want, even when faced with every imaginable obstacle, I get inspired to do the same.
If I don't set to work hard for what I want, no one will care, nothing will be gained, and it won't mean anything at all. Since I apparently missed the boat on Sartre's nutty brainchild back in the day (freshman year seems so far away...), I'm grateful for only just now grasping the importance of creating and doing. I'm totally there. A person is defined by their actions.
It's weird how I started thinking about this post as an excuse to complain about being overworked and how I'm starting to get nagged by school about applying for graduation and commencement, and how I have to finish my screenplay in five weeks. Oh, and finishing all the books I'm assigned or forcing myself to read. Look I even took a picture of the stack. There's more but it would have fallen over...
Yet here I am, realizing how great it feels to be up to my neck in work. To be a human producing something, anything. I am busy pursuing a goal, trying a hell of a lot of new things, and making sure that if I die tomorrow, my story will be about a guy who did exactly what he wanted.
