Film

So, after a few interesting events... my old high school made a short film over interim, i went to a play reading at the UU, and quite possibly the craziest dream I have ever had, the artfulness of film has been on my mind. I promised a friend (who manages a a local art movie house) that I would write up my favorite films... It's also one of the few "hobbies" I have had for more than a season (photography is the only other).

And for this love I must thank the Sundance channel (and for Netflix these days). I first discovered it when was 14 years old. I watched it at my parents house over satellite because we were too far away from anything to get cable (they still are). I had no clue what cinema was. Movies were about making people laugh or seeing shit blow up (or occasionally being scared). But whatever the reason it was entertainment, thinking was not involved. It's funny how things change. The only time I watch those films now are on the big screen, usually around Chirstmas or the forth of July when the blockbusters are released. One, they are useless otherwise, and two, I would be doing a disservice to myself to be that out of touch with popular culture. Any film that grosses a few hundred million is worth seeing, particularly if the reviews aren't terrible (Avatar, Inception, ect...)

In my opinion a great film has to have several key characteristics: Innovative cinematography (Requiem for a Dream), a witty and insightful script (Dinner with Andre/Woody Allen Films), well developed characters (Little Miss Sunshine), take me to a place I haven't been before (Lord of the Rings/Dark Days), and a moving soundtrack (Gladiator). Having a quirky sense of humor or peculiar characters is also fun (You and Me and everyone we know/How's Your News). If a film has even one of these I will watch it, if has two or three of these it will be quite moving. If you combine them all, you have the most moving medium known to man. It is theatre, photography, literature, music and philosophy rolled into one. It's as close to life as art gets. I don't know of a higher art form.

It might be because of my ADD. I can't focus on a book because my own thoughts are pounding in my head louder than the words I am reading. It's not uncommon for me to read an entire page and have no clue what I just recited. Music does have this power to grip me, and photography does to, but not for hours on end. I have only stared one painting my entire life. Film is the only medium that has the power to grip me and maintain my focus...

The first film I fell in love with was the Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman and it landed on my face like a block of ice. It's set in the Middle Ages, during plague. It follows a knight who has just returned from some sort of crusade. The film opens with the night sitting on a cold, rocky beach, watching the setting sun. The film is in black and white and the white ball of the sun fades to the pale white face of Death cloaked in a black hooded robe. The knight questions death about chess, and a bit amused, Death (in a calm, bouncy Swedish cadence) agrees to play a game with him. The film follows the knight through the countryside as he seeks to outwit death and then eventually acquiesces he will lose and rather than trying to beat death he just tries to make it happen more slowly, and for the first time in his life, actually enjoys the simple pleasures of life - a sunset and a bowl of wild strawberries and milk. It was visually amazing, emotionally gripping, philosophically challenging and took me to a world I'd never seen before. It was the first time I had ever looked at film as art.

I might write more about this later, but I don't see belaboring each film being useful... BUT... I will say that I really do enjoy Vanilla Sky and I feel like I shouldn't. I know it's cheesy, emotionally gripping (but shallow) pop cinema... yet I still like it. Maybe it's the fact that it has an amazing soundtrack and beautiful women (maybe Penelope Cruz alone is the reason). I would like to know why.

I will also add that as well known as he is, Roger Ebert really is a great critic. I like his reviews and our tastes in film are pretty similar. I also find his writing to be very good. Here is a sample of his work on my aforementioned guilty pleasure.

Status Update

School
I got the scholarship I applied for which will cover almost all of my tuition for the upcoming year. The grant expires after 1 year, so I will have to reevaluate if it is not renewed. Either way, I think the science courses I will be taking are going to be pretty interesting and beneficial even if I don't pursue a career in education (general knowledge, medicine, pharmaceutical sales, other sciences). This summer I am taking two courses I need before I can start more advanced coursework this fall and it is taking up most of my time.

House and Community
I move back into my house on the 1st which I am excited about. Over the past month I have been working on the community garden in my neighborhood which has been a lot of fun. We had our grand opening this past weekend and about 100 people came out.
In the process of developing the garden we realized it would be beneficial to partner with other groups to complete the project. One of those groups was Homeless Helping Homeless who was responsible for a large part of the organization this past weekend - the mayor came, everyone was fed by a local organization called Food not Bombs and the CEO for Square Foot Gardening came out to see the project and made a big donation. What amazed me about this was how everyone had their own agenda (helping the homeless, cleaning up a neglected are, promoting healthy home-grown food) and yet was totally able to come together on this project. For me, I was certainly a part of the community, my church actually donated a few thousand dollars and I have really just enjoyed the entire process of turning the earth and watching these plants go. I also put a few hundred dollars worth of fruit trees on my credit card and was able to sell some as a fund raiser. The proceeds actually went towards getting a fruit orchard in the garden. It went over very well and we now have 15 trees in the ground. It was a special day.
More broadly we have also been continuing to hassle the city. We have been working to get a long term reforestation plan, we received two grants for new housing, and did another well attended litter cleanup. If anything, through this garden project and my reforestation effort I have learned the importance of focusing your efforts rather than trying to tackle too many different problems at once. A few high quality projects are worth more than dozens of mediocre ones. I think the aggregate change is still the same, but it terms of public awareness, personal satisfaction, and in bringing people into the community there is no comparison. Through this garden project alone we have added a few more community members to our ranks, been able to generate positive press on both tv and print, and been able to form partnerships with other organizations around the city that were not possible before this project.
As for my house, I have already found two roommates and it looks like my monthly costs will be around $125 with all bills included. This should make going back to college simple. I also want to do a few projects again. I planted all the shade trees I wanted a few months ago so now I would like to add an outdoor seating area with fireplace, a small koi pond, and a few raised beds for home gardening. I also added the orchard at my parents house that I started on last year. We have about 20 fruit/nut trees (figs, pomegranates, peach, plum, pear, apple, persimmon, cherry, pecan, walnut) there now as well as blueberries and grapes. I plan to continue to add to this collection over the years. I have a feeling I will end up here in the latter part of my life. If not permanently, certainly to visit my parents and get away on a regular basis.











Orchard in Salley




Spiritual Journey

I feel good in this regard. I am just working towards being more at ease, lessening my desire to have control of outcomes, working on seeing things from other people's perspectives, and just trying to see the beauty in each moment while offering a sense of gratitude for it all. I am also trying to be aware of the sense of purpose and meaning that can be found in each moment and trying to find the courage to speak up or do what needs to be done. I have a few more books on my self - some more stuff on buddhism and one on understanding yoga via the Bhagavad Vita. I quit attending the Buddhist center (I just have an odd feeling when I visit) but I did find a new new church just around the corner from my house. I am surprised I haven't heard of them already, but I am glad I found them. They sound like a happy, searching bunch of people - just what I am looking for. I am looking forward to attending in the coming weeks.

Miscellaneous
Other than that I have been running a little (Marine Core Mud Run, 1 Mile race (set a PR of 5:55), and a local 5k), did some kayaking, dating a lot, and just enjoying my friends and family... Looking forward to deep sea fishing this weekend


I feel good...

Resolution

I always get a little stalkerish when relationships come to an end and I have wondered why for a long time. Why does it bother me so much that I am willing to obsesses over it. I know all it along it has little to do with the other person, but it has a lot to do with my desire to sort things out. I want resolution. I am a very extroverted person and I thrive on talking about my problems. Few things bother me more than ignoring me or not talking about a problem when it's clear there is one. I don't get particularly attached to outcomes - just tell me what you want and I can quickly adapt - but I do have an overwhelming desire to know how things stand - particularly when things seem off kilter. And the end of relationships usually bring those behaviors where it's clear something is wrong and those times when people would rather not talk about it because that is easier.

Anyway, in the future I guess I could just be more direct about things and say "you seem a little different, is something wrong?" I guess I could also try to exercise a little more patience but it's usually after a few beers that these strong emotions crop up. I guess I could stop drinking too, but what fun would that be....

Chasing my tail

It would take a lifetime
to unlearn everything I know
and start again
Even if I had the time
I've already conceded I don't have the capacity
Maybe that's why I set my standards at perfection
so I can stay distracted by the chase
then I think of Ecclesiastes
"chasing after the wind"
but if god is perfection
maybe that's the same thing...
I wish it was that simple

More than anything I want meaning. I want purpose. I suppose for a long time I felt I would be able to find that in someone else. That this fairy tale romance would come along and somehow reveal to me what I have been missing in my life. Yes, I want some one who is pretty and healthy and wants to start a family and who might share my disparate interests in film, gardening, photography, ect... but I actually found all of that, and still I thirst. The single quality I want more than anything has remained elusive. I want peace with the way and direction I lead my life. I want someone who has that and makes me believe in what they believe in. I feel like the ways in which most people (mine included most of the time) are mindless distractions and almost entirely futile. I think most people feel like as long as they are helping others, they are living with meaning. I can't help but question that. Why is it good to save people? Why is it good to save Earth? Why does any of it matter?

I feel like a lot of the things people value are as thin as paper lanterns, like I could pierce them with a pencil. And when I ask questions, I tend to do just that. Sometimes I feel like I am just walking down the beach jumping on sandcastles or knocking down little kids towers of blocks. I have a hard time identifying and uniting myself with someone who views the world on such simple terms. It might be the fact that I don't have the faith in anyone to live by their own terms, to live an honest life by the things they say they really care about. Or maybe I really do think about things more critically.

I always finding myself concerned with the biggest of problems... sustainability of the human species, health of our planet, the structure of government and society, human suffering, global economies and human capacity in general and specifically to understand "god" (and other "spiritual" things). Often times that comes at the expense of the life that I live, the things I do with my time and how I deal with the problems that come up in the lives of my friends. It's hard enough to simply turn my attention from these inescapable, monstrous problems to the little things. It's even harder to turn my attention towards these little things and not feel like I am selling myself short or to spend a good portion of my time focused on one person. I feel like I have the capacity to do so much, I just don't know what's worth putting my time into. I feel guilty for simply enjoying life and ignoring these things.

The main thing I realized is that I hoped to find someone else to help me find meaning/purpose, but I think I am going to have to find it on my own before I will be able to settle down and be happy joining my life with another person indefinitely. I guess I knew that all along though since I have been kicking my marriage plans a decade into the future...

I have too much going on in my head right now - I just wish I could stop this endless cycle. I guess I should stop typing since I am starting to wander and not tie it all together, but I am glad I got some of it out. I will sort it out over the next few weeks.

Online Dating

A long-time friend of mine joined an online dating site a few years back and eventually met his wife on there. After my breakup, I actually joined. Mainly because I realized I had very specific tastes in women and was past the point of just meeting pretty strangers. Plus, it pays into my general desire to do things efficiently. Obviously everyone you encounter on the site is single and looking, and sorting through attractive versus unattractive people is quite simple and much of the awkwardness associated with traditional introduction melts away (I usually need a few beers for this to seem natural).

Anyway, there are two interesting things I have noticed since I have joined. The first were the types of women that the sites have set me up with and the second was the way I began to define myself after I realized I wasn't trying to cast the widest net possible to attract the largest number of mates, but rather isolate those few people who see the world like I do (or at least have mutual acceptance of each others views).

On one site, you are allowed to answer literally hundreds of user-generated questions which offer a few choices on both how you would respond and how you would hope a potential mate would respond. It then allows you to state an importance level ranging from irrelevant to mandatory. It then uses these ratings to match up users with each other. The site does a good job - I have actually been quite happy with the results and met some interesting people though the site. Girls I wouldn't have met otherwise. Some are still friends. That being said, I was pretty surprised with the types of women it was matching me up with. Many had tattoos, piercings, were outspoken, and a few had pasts that involved heavy drug use. It was interesting to me that if I had a stronger desire to be around people who see the world like I do, I would have socialized with people like that. It was almost as if I started to identify myself in the same way - and that I was just masquerading as a frat/mama's boy.

Along the same lines, it was also interesting to see how my answers changed to the questions over time. My little fears surrounding conventional relationships melted away. I was able to answer each question with an increasing amount of honesty and clarity. And at each point, there were still nice, attractive, interesting people who were a 90+ percent match. All in all, it has been a pretty liberating experience. I feel like I have been able to embrace all my quirks and be at ease with the things I enjoy. It's also translated into real life. I feel like when I meet new people I am telling them exactly how I feel because I have a much greater confidence that I am not isolating myself. I am able to talk freely, and to my surprise people generally respond pretty positively, and when they don't, it doesn't bother me nearly as much, since I don't doubt myself. The need to fit myself into some silly little box fades away.

It's been fun....

Miscommunication

It's funny how things have a way of getting naturally distorted. I recently was at a friend's house and they had a copy of the saccharine, but ever-so-popular novel The Notebook and flipped through its pages and landed on the scene where she flipped through two years of letters she never received from her former lover. It's easy to see how communication can fail when it has been intercepted, but it is quite another to realize you can say exactly what you mean and it can still be equally lost on the other person.

I remember how I excessively wrote to clarify what I meant after I left Connecticut and how I spent months trying to sort it all out. In my head I knew there was no way I could reconcile what was happening with what I really intended. I had hope my words would bring clarity, but I never considered the possibility that they hadn't even been understood. I thought I made it so plain.

It wasn't until last night though, that I realized this. That even when I say what I mean, language isn't precise enough to take the idea out of my head and make it pop into another person's. Without getting into the nuance that would take too long to explain, the basic storyline was that I said something, my friend took it the wrong way. Then, I said something else which only further compounded the miscommunication> By then she was too frustrated and just didn't want to talk anymore. I knew at that point there was nothing I could say to change her perception of the situation or of my intentions. So, I just kept talking to her, got in my car, and drove over to her house. I got there, gave her a hug and just said I didn't mean any of it that way. That was all it took, and she knew exactly what I meant. I still had to clarify a few things later, but the point I realized was that without the ability to just drive over, hold her down for just a moment and make her look into my face I wouldn't have been able to say what I meant. It was just a reminder how how complicated human communication is and how confusing it is.

I guess the important this is that I can see it now, and because of that, don't mind putting in the work to fix these things. I know back in my college days, I would have stood on the premise that I said what I meant, I could defend it, and I was right so I didn't have anything to be sorry for. It's funny how a little shakeup can change the way you see things. It's also a strong reminder of how much we all communicate nonverbally.