On Passion

I still get excited about the sheer awoken-ness of characters sometimes. About the mystery of them. While editing scene 2 of Delta Phi I got to see the strength of a cinematographers instinct in a new environment, and the oscillation of disguise/reveal of Delta as he moves through a library. I knew it would be there in theory, it’s written into the script. But seeing something concretely is a huge part of the magic for me. It causes something in me to wake up, to stir a little, to just feel wonder and bewilderment. It’s like the discovery of a strange and exotic new animal. I’m absolutely in love.

This website is, in part, academic. It has to be if I want to share the meaning of metafiction, but I have to write to the beat of my passion. Passion feels like acting on impulse but with extreme slowness. It’s this deep compassion for every aspect of your unique, individual experience, to the point that your experience expands and it’s so much about what’s in you that it’s not about you at all anymore. Passion is so easily misunderstood. It so often controls us instead of the other way around.

I’m pondering this because I need to tap into it over the next several weeks. I need to be unequivocally committed to this work right now, to embrace an entirely different lifestyle if I’m to meet my deadlines, and more importantly, my potential. I didn’t necessarily want that for this season of my life. I wanted something more nurturing, romantic and restful. But we don’t always get to choose what season we are in, and fighting it detracts from your experience. Anyway, it’s a great place to be, to be working like this. I only hope that I can have many, many more seasons like this because there’s so much work I want to share, not to mention generate.
I never could explain the immense love I have for the imagined friends of our hearts, and with film, I may not have to. I’m in a place where my love makes sense. I have to fight to keep a place for it because it’s how I have to share my light. We all have something great to offer, but we have to find the place where it’s wanted and work tirelessly to keep that place.

Returning to your Passion After a Break

Sometimes you have to finish something not because you have anything new to offer it, but because it has something to offer you. If we jumped up and abandoned our commitments every time we ran out of novelty, we wouldn’t learn anything.

Starting anything new is fun. You’re full of inspiration and ideas. Every moment you spend on it, whether it’s a relationship or a project, feels like an act of self expression, and that’s because it is. You’re giving a lot in the beginning, and it’s fun. A huge part of maintaining stamina for a long project is getting rest from it.

After getting a break, though, the project seems smaller.

When you are inside a problem, everything aspect of it is big and important. After stepping away it seems trivial. You can’t see the consequence of what you’re doing. It seems to have no purpose. All the effort, time and even vulnerability that you invested in the project suddenly seems like a waste, and that is hard to confront.

This presents an enormous challenge when you’re trying to get back in the game. Some people find this haunting them not only for a single project, but in returning to a particular lifestyle or art practice. We get disillusioned by more experience and even desire for more experience.

The novelty won’t necessarily come back when you get back to work. In fact, it’s likely that it won’t. What happens may not be as exciting but it is at least as valuable: if you insist on returning to your passion, it will have something entirely new to teach you about yourself. You’ll get sudden insights or understandings. You’ll have an easy opportunity to face things about yourself. Some that were difficult and too hard to bear before, and some that were great but just hidden from view.

Above is the beautiful new logo for Delta Phi. I'm working with designer Hemza ElKhateeb to develop a look for the text as well. His stuff is so worth checking out. 

In addition to editing video this month, I'm spending most of my time working on finding clarity. I've spent too much energy trying to teach what I do instead of do what I do. I want to know, above all else, what people want in their hearts and how I can feed them. That's the job of any storyteller.