I often reflect on what people admire about someone. Its a weird, but natural thing humans do. Think about it, there is some aspect of someone else that you’ve deemed worthy enough to desire and possibly acquire. Now its essentially the lowest form of envy, or jealousy, thats why its weird to me. We often are told not to compare or get envious of others, I mean its a lesson stemmed back to biblical times, and I think it’d be safe to say that this part of human contact isn’t looked upon as negatively, because the next step of admiration for someone is creating not just using one part of that person, but their whole being as an “ideal” for you and your life. Introduce what we call a role model. When talking to people there seems to always be at least one person who they can look to as their role model. Introspectively, this never seemed accurate. There were many things I like about certain people, no one person could ever really just “take the cake”. There were parts of Bruce Wayne, not just batman, parts of Jay Gatsby, Remus Lupin, my father, other family members and friends, that I really admired. Like so many others these fixations and fascinations started at a young age. Funny thing though, I remember being a kid in my room created this amalgamation of an idea of this “super person”. By using what I thought was the best aspects and characteristics of people, this was my idea of self identity. Growing up like this, I never really wondered about who “I wanted to be”, instead I always tried to figure out “who I think I should be”. This conundrum, if you will, is something that followed me my whole life. Retrospectively I came to realize that everything I did, pursued or liked when I was younger was influenced by someone else. This self identity I came to grow into really had nothing to do with “Self”, but the aspects of identities from other people. Getting other perspectives of this it seems that this isn’t a unique approach to life, but they all seemed to go through, or go to, something I never really did. And this is where the often say “College was where I found myself”.
High school was fun, I did a lot of growth and it was the first time where I began to combat this “identity crisis” but I can’t say there was real completion nor accomplishment of who I was. Post high school I found myself essentially pursuing a life that seemed decent, full of love, struggle, commitment and purpose. I found a girlfriend, a decent job, and I prepared myself to take care and grow with her. Lacking one, I found an identity within someone else, it was easy and something I was used to doing with girlfriends. But I truly think, and this may sound drastic, this set me on a course for where I would find myself a couple years later, in full treatment for my depression and anorexia. And this lack of development really took its effect during my stay at home where I attended community college. Funny thing? I always dreamed of going off to college, I always wanted to go away, meet new people and be whoever I wanted to be. Have a new identity, create who I wanted to be known as. These people were new! They didn’t know who you are in high school. “Find your identity”, thats a big aspect of college correct? There was something so attractive about having that chance of a clean slate, the idea of being whoever you want to be. Truly making yourself in your own image, I could be someone totally different, I could experiment and try things and be someone new, fresh, but I never did. I never got that experience. I don’t know if that’s phony or not, or if this even truly happens, but let’s be real everyone seems to have done it. There was a time though, which I believe was my first actual step to personal growth and development, that took place during my recovery from anorexia. There were 2 questions my doctor asked me which truly starting my recovery, my inner awakening. “What’s your passion?”, and “What should you be fulfilling that you’re letting food stop you from doing?”. I remember these questions like it was yesterday, I remember how they made me feel, the drive and motivation, and I remember my answer. But these questions were asked 2 years ago, and up until a couple of weeks ago, I thought I still believed that answer.
These last 2 weeks have been weird. For the first time in what seems like a very long time I wasn’t bogged down in a productions. This is the first time since what seems to be October that I’ve actually had time to sit and reflect on what I’ve been doing, my choices and my future. With the planning of my departure from my day job I had some pretty grand dreams and goals to fulfill. And one of those dreams, again, stems from something from when I was a kid. For as long as I could remember I always loved conversing with people. It was my favorite way of spending time with them, and my love for this is something I think I can actually do “professionally”. As a history lover, I have always had such a thirst to understand people and why they do what they did. People are really like enigmas and puzzles, there are so many layers and every perspective, life and lesson learned is unique and interesting. In studying History, we often cover how countries, societies and generations change and grow by learning from past mistakes. You see this mostly in the communities that are covered particularly in times after war. This is do to the lessons people learn after either overcoming or being defeated in a battle based on beliefs. These beliefs are understood to be wrong and they pass that lesson down to the next generation, and this is evidently prehistoric. But more on a personal level, this feature of communal learning is communicated through wisdom. These lessons are not scientifically factual, they are not based on years of peer reviewed evidence, they are extremely personal and individualistic. And these are the lessons I love hearing, and most particularly, hearing about how someone came to them and what they’ve learned from them. In my opinion this type of interpersonal communication tends to lead people into a deep, emotional connection, which can be hard because this requires more than a surface level agreement. One often has to expose themselves of a mistake or hardship to delivery these lessons, which informs and demands trust and respect. This level of communication doesn't just happen off the bat, but it’s extremely rewarding and fulfilling when reciprocated. I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of these conversations in my life and I often look forward to them in relationships and friendships. And its these conversations and its this love of human connection that led me to creating and pursuing my podcast, which was the reason for leaving my job. But luck would have it that at the time of pursuing this dream of mine, I got 2 opportunities I couldn't turn down, which has led me to where I am today, trying to pick up the slack of what I’ve let fall by the waist side.
After leaving my job and going into 2 big productions, it felt like I was shifting into a higher gear, putting the pedal down and just grinding. Having wrapped both production I’ve recently found myself trying to keep that momentum going, that motivation, drive and thirst for accomplish-based fulfillment. But I couldn’t do it, I had nothing left. I often found myself with nothing to do, which led to much needed, harsh, soul searching. After this reflection I found myself off my path, lost and disappointed. But its times like these that I needed to really focus on, and prepare myself. What’s important to me? Like really, what's important to me? My work is important, and I know I can pride myself on my work, and I’ve always just worked a lot, it’s essentially all I know, it’s all I ever really do and I often put a lot, albeit maybe too much value on it. And it feels good when people appreciate my ethic and what I can produce. But I realized something, I often talk about hard work vs talent and I think this was the time I really had to swallow the tough pill. So, let’s be real, I’m not talented, I can just work hard. What comes with this revelation is that I will always have to overcome this feeling of not being good enough. And what hit the hardest was that as of late, I don’t work hard for myself. I really only work as hard as I do because it’s what I see other people admire about famous, or profound people. They work hard, and they often sacrifice a lot to get the best product they are working on. So that's what I do, I imitate and imposter. So after all this, and much contemplation I found myself back in a familiar state. My eyes were glowed to either my computer screen or an old book. I was reading, watching, thinking, reflecting, going through everything I possibly could. I figured I had to get back to why I made this drastic jump, this bold leap to follow my passion and heart. To get back into full swing in my productions, my podcast, my interests. I had to remember back when I was working my day job I gave myself an ultimatum, I made myself a promise. As soon as that job starting inhibiting me from outside and personal productions, then I would quit that job. With my idea for my podcast series, and when the opportunities came for the Documentary and the Indy feature film, I knew I couldn’t do it all. Something would have to give and my career in the film industry must not be held back by the idea of security and a paycheck. But since I’ve left my company to fulfill this dream, I have not stopped working, nor ever worked harder in my life. Yes, launching my production company and Patreon was really my plan and my reason for leaving, but these other 2 productions felt like something I needed to do, and I had to fully commit and put everything else aside. Having finished those 2 productions and with plans on starting my podcast next week, I found myself in yet again, another dilemma.
To Be continued.