Scramble, anyone?

Wired News: Game, Set, Film: “As in the cult cooking show, teams were given a short list of must-have ingredients for their movies: a close-up of a street sign, the words ‘spirit world’ in conversation and someone stepping on something.

Teams then had a few short hours to channel adrenaline and cinema skills to write a script, scout locations, find music, shoot scenes and edit the piece into a 3 1/2-minute movie.”

Having done this, I’m trying to imagine doing it in less than 48 hours. And it hurts.

Harness and channel

Art is the answer to insanity.

Maybe I can’t get all of this out of me in any way that will mean anything to anyone else. Not in straight words, at least.

But perhaps this is what all my life’s experiences have been leading to. I’ve always wondered why I’m so many things instead of just one — I’m a writer, a musician, a filmmaker. Not great at any, but good at all. And maybe it would have been nice to have been the best at one thing, but I’m not, and I can’t chagne that now.

So maybe I start thinking across boundaries.

Maybe all of this — thought — comes out in media. Words, pictures, sounds. Motion, light, dynamics.

Something has to give.

Understanding the crazy

Tackle a problem. Seek a truth. Try desperately to grasp patterns, to make sense of unconnected things. Use all your resources to channel what you’ve learned, gather knowledge, put the pieces together, form the greater picture.

And maybe you don’t have what it takes. You’ve got it all there, finally, but can admit to yourself that you’re too close, or too focused from a single perspective, or simply overwhelmed. Call in the troops. Assemble the wise and the trusted.

And then think for a moment how you will tell them what you know, how to present the puzzle pieces, how to verbalize what you think you’ve stumbled upon.

The world stops making sense, and words might as well be tinted chirpings of a wild bird. You can try all you want, but suddenly people are staring, pointing, eyebrows cocked and legs tensed to run away. And you know you’re THIS CLOSE, and you realize that it doesn’t really matter, and you just want it out of you, no matter how.

Maybe they’re not so crazy after all.

My liver hurts from all the thinking

Now playing: a nice random assortment of insanity.

I’ve had plenty to think this weekend. Seriously — read over the past eight or ten entries here, and you’ll see evidence. Fine: I’ve had my thoughtful time, my time to ponder, my mental flexing.

Can we just make it stop now, just for a little while?

These voices in my head, the ones that sound like me only incessant? They’re a little close to driving me nuts. Seriously. And I know that you can’t be insane if you know that you are — or maybe you can. Maybe I’ve got that backwards.

Fuck.

It’s days like these that I can understand a breakfast cocktail.

Seriously. Please. Silence. Stop the noise. Just for a little bit?

Her’s is serendipity. Mine is confluence.

“The Greeks didn’t write obituaries. They asked one question after a man died: ‘Did he have passion?'”
-Serendipity

There’s a section of ILLUSIONS by Richard Bach that talks about turning randomly to a page of a book, and finding the words that are written there. That’s the universe’s way of speaking to you.

“Be yourself.
Especially, do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love;
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment
it is as perennial as the grass.”
-Desiderata

Do I believe in the idea of a soulmate, one fated person for another? Are there many fish in the sea, or do all the prior experiences act as preparation for the one? Is life predestined — does fate guide all? How do we avoid simply sitting back and waiting for fate to deliver us where we should be, if so?

And can be believe in fate without the believe in predestination?

“You are a child of the universe,
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.”
-Desiderata

Sometimes I think that it is better to be at peace with life than to be happy. Trusting that things will work out as they should. Believing that everything will be the way that it will, and accepting that.

Perhaps that is my faith, the religion that I seek. Not a higher power that created us all in his image, or snakes that eat their tails, or Messiahs and fallen angels. Just that things are all right, in the unbiased view, from the non-perspective.

“So it goes.”
-Kurt Vonnegut