when you want to make everything happen
When I write a post I usually upload a photo first to help center my words and keep me moving in a certain direction. But today the words in my head - I can see them in black and white chunks of paragraphs in my head and I have to translate them here. I woke up feeling a little anxious - I’ve noticed how deeply my dreams impact how I feel when I first wake up. My dreams have been vivid lately. Sometimes when I’m awake I wonder if I’m dreaming because it all feels so real but then I wake up.
It’s a strange thing to grow up and kind of become an adult. I was talking to someone yesterday who started school for their current profession when they were 30 and I felt inspired. They’re married with children now but the idea of doing something you feel passionate about and starting training for it whenever you decide to is empowering.
Sometimes I feel afraid of choosing a path because once I’m on it I know there are 9 other ones I’ll be wishing I could take at the same time. This kind of fear has kept me from choosing things. I am afraid of investing in one direction only to find 6 years down the road that I want to go in a completely different one. The reality is, as long as you’re fully committed to an idea and a direction, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with changing directions later on. You figure things out along the way. But I think I rarely let myself be fully in one spot - my brain is always working on something else, further away. And therein lies the issue. I find it difficult not to regret time spent in places when my brain and body were so separate. I was living there but my mind was here, I was doing one thing but wishing I was doing another.
This fragmentation or disembodiment is worshiped in a lot of ways - we celebrate people who can multitask and be wearing 5 different hats at once. I think about film directors who have rules on set in order to keep their entire cast and crew focused on the moment at hand, such as no phones allowed (Scorsese went to far as to not allow watches to be worn on set at one point). Sometimes I think my brain/body separation would be eradicated if I were invested in a project that felt completely me. An arena where I felt like I could be totally myself and the gifts or strengths I brought to the table were exactly what was necessary. I imagine I would want to be awake to each moment in an environment like that.
The tricky part is that I imagine myself working solo as an artist and that just doesn’t cut it for me. The idea of going to a studio and working alone all day is not my idea of fulfillment in my work. I love the idea of working on a team, working towards a common goal, sharing the same vision and passion for something.
I get so excited when I talk to people who love what they do - I convince myself that I would be just as happy doing whatever they do. Their passion is contagious. I realize over the course of my life that I have taken on other people’s passion and not just their feeling, but the object of their passion as well. I went to school, changed majors, made things, didn’t make other things, because I saw how people loved what they loved in their experience and I thought I could love them too. But the truth is I am me and not other people. I nerd out about different things.
I saw Oppenheimer the other night and I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I get excited about an idea and my brain starts racing and I have to start looking into phD candidates at Toronto universities to see if anyone is studying things I would find interesting. I get excited at the idea of connecting with other brains. I imagine becoming friends with another dreamer who believes in impossible things and feels like a tortured soul because of how different they are and then magic happens when they realize they are not the only one who believes in impossible things.
I think that’s also why I like movies like Ocean’s 11 or Lord of the Rings - I like the idea of someone being self-admittedly a little different or over the top or eccentric and other people slowly joining the cause because they see that they have something to offer to benefit the group. I want that feeling for myself and for others - to feel like the strengths you have opens doors and allows the impossible to become possible.
Probably one of my biggest hopes for this life is to find the people who see me for who I really am, acknowledge the quirks and the beauty and the flaws and still want to collaborate with me somehow. And I need to let them, because that can be the tricky part. It’s not that there aren’t people around who love me, but am I brave enough to let them in?