I'm not sure if you've noticed, but I've been doing a lot of writing over the course of the last week or so—and it's been awesome! I've felt much better about this structure of storytelling vs. the previous incarnation of my blog that involved rather errant accounts of my daily activities (kind of the equivalent of the types of emails I was complaining about yesterday). I was glad to hear that you preferred this new format to the old as well. I don't know . . . Maybe it shouldn't as much as it does, but your opinion kind of means the world to me. I could win all the writing awards there are (not to say that I would) and still be left unfulfilled if what I'd written wasn't rated "Awesome" by you. I think that was one of the reasons walking away from film was so easy.
Anyway, I wanted to mention writing again because I had touched upon it recently in one of my letters to you. In that letter I went on at length about my loss of love for writing. Now here I am writing at length. That's quite the flip-flop, yes?
No, actually. I've been thinking about this a lot and while I've been writing with great zeal over the past ten days it has not been a reawakening of the passion I spoke of in that previous letter. In that letter I was making reference to strictly creative writing. Fiction writing. Flowery prose and poetry. My former love of film and the fictional yarn. All of that is still absent, but I don't think I really miss it.
I had mused over it so heavily because it represented a time in my life when I knew exactly who I was as it concerned passion and career. There was a comfort in the assurance I felt then that I have been missing over the past several years. The more I thought about it, though—the more I tried to recapture it mentally—the more I realized I think it was all a yarn. I think I had loved the idea of who those things made me in the eyes of others rather than the actions themselves. Does that make sense?
Like my letters and emails and conversations would focus on the flowery things of life (once I moved on from my graphic fifth grade narrative phase), and my time with friends would focus on conversations concerning movies and their criticism, but none of these things crept into my alone time. If I were left to my own I wouldn't be thinking poetically. I wouldn't be constructing a movie in my mind. Do you know what I would be doing if left to my own devices? I'd be hiking. I'd be dreaming of travels. I'd be sitting in a tree fort dreaming of exploration. I'd be looking forward to the next scout outing.
It was really in late high school—in the midst of girls and popularity and girls—that I fully lost myself in poetry and film. Looking back it's almost like I created a persona for myself, and then fell back into that persona after my mission. Then you rescued me from it.
Don't get me wrong, I still think there is some staggering beauty in film. Sometimes it still bowls me over and I'm left disoriented and speechless. I love that. I love thinking about it. But there doesn't seem to be any part of me that truly wants to be a part of that anymore. I've tried to reawaken that love of making films and I just can't find it. I think it never really was. Maybe.
Maybe I'm just rambling again. Maybe this is just another phase. I feel good though. I still have no idea what I'll do to make a living. Maybe after all of this I will be a filmmaker. Who knows? What I do know is that I've been writing more and it feels great!
.a boy
