Rather than write a blog about Friday’s award ceremony that I initially titled “I Witnessed Incest on Stage” (which I’m saving for another time), I came to the utter realization that today I will die. Sitting back and reflecting on this past weekend, it made me realize some very important things about myself and my future.
2011 has truly been one eye opening experience after another. Other words to describe the year could be bizarre, abnormal, surreal, tragic, sickening, mesmerizing, lucky, loving, and happy-as-jelly-beans. For five and half months, 2011 has displayed every possible emotion one could ask for, and some that you wouldn’t.
I’d like to think I’ve seen it all this year- but then looking at the calendar and I suddenly realize that the year is ONLY half way over. And I don’t know if I’m happy or sad about that. The bottom line for the year of 2011 is that it has opened my eyes to many great and wonderful, if not shockingly despicable things. This of course, revolves around one thing and that is “Change.” The other side of change, as I’ve come to learn, is understanding. Change is inevitable and a certainty, understanding on the other hand is not.
I had a dream the other night and it involved me talking to an old lady on a park bench. She went on to describe some of my worries, complaints, questions, and concerns. She ended with the statement of, “You’ve already made the choice. Now you have to understand it.” As I woke up, I realized that it wasn’t a dream at all but a scene with The Oracle in The Matrix Reloaded. She was right. Life is about choices and understanding them.
Sometimes those choices aren’t given to us, but chosen by others. In the end though, it still amounts to change and it’s up to us to understand it. Otherwise we just get cranky, dwell on our bitterness of the situation, and ultimately a refusal to cope.
I’m certain that if I drop an apple it will fall. I’m also certain that when a part of me dies, another will be born. What I’ve been witnessing in 2011 is a part of me dying. I’m crawling into a cocoon and will emerge as something else. It’s change. Nothing more. Nothing less. It’s happening whether it’s welcomed or not. All that is left is for me is to understand and embrace it. The vicious, if not beautiful cycle of the end is the beginning is the end is the beginning is the end is the… so on and so forth.
As I sit here and ponder metamorphosis, I can’t help but look back upon the the changes I’ve had to adapt to over the years. What kind of person would I be had my parents not divorced? Better yet, who would I be? Following the chain reaction of my parents’ decision 26 years ago is damn near impossible minus a few key things, but those key things stand out and make me who I am. The divorce has given me new siblings whom I love, friends whom I admire, beliefs that I respect within myself that I wouldn’t have had otherwise, and my own family complete with three wonderful boys.
Then again, reflecting on the changes of years past is easy. While impossible to trace every possible scenario had you taken that road over the other road, it’s not difficult to see what you’ve become because of it to a certain point in your life. The difficult thing is to think about current changes and the inevitable future. Who will I become a year from now? Five years from now? Ten? Twenty? For me, it’s not really a question about a year from now. It’s a question that needs an answer NOW. Not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today. Sure the events of yesterday and the prospects of tomorrow go into the equation, but whatever choice is made will need to be understood.
With each film I do, I always put in some sort of theme that is important to me which helps me stay motivated to finish the picture. The theme of change was something I put into a film I did a few years ago called Beyond Amity. The script for the film toyed around with the idea of destiny. Our lead character Calvin experienced willing and unwilling change, and through those hardships he was able to gain something in the end. Beyond Amity will remain important to me for that reason alone. My major contribution to the film’s shooting script was the inclusion of the book ‘Unity & Destiny’, a series of scenes in which the author discusses his book with a talk show host. Their discussion was that of understanding the choices we make day in and day out and to hopefully not get lost in the miseries of life but to move on. Evolve. Learn. Grow. To me this even involves the people in our lives from family to friends. People will come and go. You will make friends. You will lose friends.
Probably a shallow and I’ll admit, selfish thing I do with the people I meet, have met, and will meet is my internal deduction of what I have to learn from that person. If there is something I need to learn from that “friend”, then I’ll make an effort to be their friend. If I feel there is nothing more I can learn from them, I move on.The trick to finding a good friend (and a good mate) is to find someone who constantly challenges you to learn. Someone who motivates and inspires you every day. To consistently feed each other with one learning experience after another. If you’re unwilling to take advice from this person in your life, or they are just as unwilling then that relationship is over. Maybe that’s why I have gone through many friends in my life. It’s not that we hate each other (most of the time its quite the opposite), it’s just a matter of one or both of us having changed and us finding out there is nothing in common between us. Our ideals and aspirations are no longer aligned for growth. It’s change. It’s understanding. It happens. And it happens more times than we think.
While I go through this change of events, I am able to put into perspective why things are happening the way they are. It’s possible that this will take some time. But like the certainty of the apple and gravity, I am certain that I am changing and there will be some casualties. It’s officially time to shed the deadweight that has been slowing me down and exhausting me. The person I was five years ago is not the person I am now, and I know that the guy I am tomorrow will not be the same as I was yesterday. And I’m very eager to see what the rest of the year holds in store for me.
Today I will die. But today I will also be reborn.
