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What do you do when it is almost impossible to enjoy anything or feel good? It is an amazingly paralyzing feeling. You head in one direction to get something done, and unless there is a pressing deadline attached to it, something that will publicly embarrass you or shout your incompetence to the world, you falter on the way and will probably not get it done.

Things mount up, and the more they mount up the more the paralyzing oppressive inertia takes over.

I have been having too many days like this lately. From waking up to going to bed, I feel like lead lines my shoes and things I either normally enjoy, or can easily tolerate, are gargantuan tasks that are all scary and mostly seem insurmountable.

I had one of those feelings of complete overwhelm this afternoon; I didn’t know what to do next with myself while dozens of things were screaming at me to get my attention.

On the flip side I had a good time in both my classes today. I had forced myself to plan well, and of course that always pays off. In my teaching and performing mode I can be larger than life, sincere, focused, gracious. Now that I think of it, it is sort of putting on an act, I rise to the occasion of teacher, and it is fun. But when I get off the stage, come home to take care of my life in between classes I sink into the no light place.

Something’s got to shift. I am not enjoying my life and that is a waste of my life. I am also keenly aware of the days slipping by, sun up, wake up, trudge through the day, write this, go to bed, do it all over. I need to navigate out of my habitrail, the well worn paths I have made through my days is not feeling comfortable, they are feeling oppressive, predictable, joyless.

My hunch is that I have to make some radical changes in what I do and how I do it. I have been talking about simplifying, but it is more than that. I need to find and liberate my natural exuberance and excitement that has sustained so much of my life. In short, I am realizing that I am not excited about anything. The potential of the outcome of the unknown, the bounty of my good fortune and years of hard work, my natural curiosity are dead and I need to reactivate that part of myself. I think it has a lot to do with having passion about the things I am engaged with and am doing.

I do acknowledge that all of the major areas of ones life are uncertain in mine right now. And that is hard to live with and I am trying to be fine with that uncertainty, knowing that most of it will resolve in time, and probably most of it in a fairly short time period too. So I can have patience with these circumstances, myself and this uncomfortable uncertainty. But as I write this I realize what is missing at the core of my day-to-day experience is excitement and hope. While all of these areas are hard right now, they are not necessarily bleak, but I am feeling bleak. And I think it is coming from an overall stagnation in my creative and expressive life and a feeling that I am letting great opportunities slip by because I don’t have the energy to focus or have adequate follow through. Saltwater haunts me, my documentary project haunts me, the de Young project haunts me, following up with my collaborator in LA haunts me…

But trying to have creative focus when your life looks dark and impenetrable is proving to be almost impossible. I am disenchanted with myself as a creative person and disenchanted with the worlds of film and art that I need to intersect with to be successful in these worlds.

I have found myself hating filmmaking for the first time in my memory. The only thing that preoccupies me is writing this and taking the pictures for my image blog/ilog. Am I using these forums of personal expression as a way to undermine myself, or would I be truly lost right now if I did not have these new and different creative and personal outlets?

I was joking with some friends yesterday that I had fallen out of love with my lover, (filmmaking) and they jokingly accused me of taking a new lover, (this). I assured them it was only temporary, but the way I am feeling right now I don’t know if that’s true.

I don’t know what is next, but there needs to be a next. Soon.