I Don't Exist

It's official. I don't exist.

After a series of events (some planned, some total surprises), I have been rendered less... uh, present, than your typical American twenty-something college student.

For better or worse, people of my generation exist more connectedly and in more places than people twenty years ago could have imagined. We have cell phones, Facebook, blogs, Twitter... not only can someone be reached wherever they are on the globe these days; they can get an update sent to their phone about what Nathan Fillion had for breakfast. In some respect, we are all a little bit more alive than prior generations, because we are practically omnipresent.

On the other hand, I realized over break that I had been caught up in media over-saturation and was probably the worse for it. That is more fully described in the previous post, but ultimately one of the steps I took was to delete my Facebook to make more time for individual pursuits. My initial plan was to dip my feet into a life without technology to further pursue my creative passions. I wound up tripping and falling in the deep end.

Within five hours of arriving back in Minnesota, I had deleted my Facebook. Within ten hours, my phone was dead and I couldn't find the charger. I realized that I had no money to buy a new charger (or food or gas, for that matter). I realized that I needed money to go on living, and so I was forced to accept new hours for the shuttle van (or more specifically, my old hours from last semester that had me working Friday and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons), essentially losing my entire weekend.

On top of all of that, I am taking nonstop classes after chapel for the entire semester. I was also cast in the school play as one of the leads, so I have rehearsal for two and a half to three hours every night. That's about five hours of class every day followed by three hours of rehearsal, compounded with me having no phone, no Facebook, no money to do anything (including driving to and from campus more than once a day), and working on the weekend nights when all of my friends are doing things. I was driving shuttle nonstop to and from Arden last night when I realized I'd disappeared. To many people, I no longer exist. The only person truly aware that I am around most of the time is me, and even I'm not so sure of late.

There are good and bad sides to disappearing. The bad sides are kind of apparent (I think losing cell phone service is feared by my generation just slightly more than death), but the positives are numerous as well. I no longer wait around on the internet for someone to come on and suggest a direction for my life. I sit down and read a book or work on homework, which was kind of the goal of this whole experience. I've had trouble writing the last couple of days, but I'm sure it will pick up. I've definitely got loads of time to sit in the shuttle and think about it.

On top of this, I'm pretty sure I won't be dead for long. This is one of the exciting things about going into exile in the wilderness (I'm even growing the beard for it right now). Nobody ever goes into the wilderness, survives, and then return without something that's totally frigging awesome (or maybe people do, but we don't have record of them in history). For me, working on the play, senior project, and prepping for my trip to Nashville at the end of February should be motivation enough to get me through the doldrums of January and February. Those months suck no matter what happens anyway, so I guess it's not too much of a loss.

Strikes and Gutters

I don't usually like to write personal blogs, mostly out of some feeling that I probably should find the idea of personal blogging to be repulsive. Sure it's therapeutic, but then again, so are hard drugs and mercilessly beating helpless animals (or so I've been told... in regards to both examples). At the core of personal blogs is the idea that your little thoughts are worthy of widespread attention. A lot of talking goes on on the internet, but listening is in much shorter supply. It almost feels like a prayer offered up to social whoredom. I prefer to write movie reviews, offering my prayers to nerddom instead. That being said, journaling seems like a much less offensive (some might even say healthy) activity, and since nobody reads my blog anyway (especially without Facebook to link it to), I'm going to start typing up little updates.

I've been back at school for about a grand total of four days, and already my (hopefully) final semester at Northwestern is shaping up to be one of the most eventful. On Monday I auditioned for the school's forthcoming performance of The Boy's Next Door. This was going to be my final chance to audition for a main stage show. BND documents the exploits of four mentally handicapped men living in a group home, and the slow decline of their caretaker Jack. On Tuesday I was called back to audition for the role of Norman, one of the mentally retarded men who is addicted to doughnuts, protective of a set of keys that he keeps on his person at all times, and who is dating another mentally challenged woman named Sheila. I prepared for this role more thoroughly than normal, and I was officially cast yesterday. We've already had two rehearsals.

Also on Tuesday I heard back from the NRB (National Religious Broadcasters) where I had many projects pending for the collegiate broadcasting contest. This was more melancholy in that while I won two awards (best music video for Bluegrass Breakup and 2nd place for on air demo for my radio show Group Think), I also did not win anything for projects I was pretty invested in. I know you can't win em all, but there were a few instances where I was legitimately upset. NRB has never been my goal as a film student; in fact, many of my favorite projects I've made weren't even submitted because I assumed they had no place there. But it would have been nice, nonetheless.

Also this week, I've slowly been running out of money. I've been trying to keep up on gas and food, staying on campus for the entire day so as to limit my number of car trips and buying ramen in bulk to save on cheap meals. Even at this rate, if the hours at work don't pick up, I'm going to run out of money and be in some serious trouble.

That said, I'm not particularly nervous about this situation. It's a secret only to a small number of people that last semester at school almost destroyed me. Any pride that I had was pretty much systematically destroyed, mostly on purpose. I have trouble compromising. I have been very blessed over the course of my life with incredible opportunities most of the world would give anything to have. I've had loving, supportive parents, been given a top rate education (which I will even begrudgingly include Bondurant high school in). I've been blessed with a love for the arts, which has provided me with my direction in life, and with the discernment to find my own path in that field. I've always been characterized by several things, including unbridled optimism for that the future holds for me, love for all things creative, and an exceptional comprehension of concepts both artistic and literary..

Unfortunately, I (like pretty much everyone else who claims the monicker "human being") am characterized by just as many negative traits as positive ones. I suffer from tourettes, ADHD, various skin disorders, severe depression, asthma, and severe social anxiety, and have for most of my life. Basically, I sucked at sports, friends, organization, and every single other thing involved in being successful before you turn 18. And at that point, I had no idea what was wrong with me. I had no confidence in myself, and aside from artistic pursuits (which, once I rediscovered them, all bets were off in that arena) I had the confidence beaten out of me.

Needless to say, I carry some baggage with me. I’ve overcome a lot of it, and on a normal day a lot of the problems I’ve faced throughout my life don’t affect me at all. But if I’m not careful, something like those subconscious self-loathing whispers creep their way back into my mental dialog. This happened last semester. More than that, they took hold of me and controlled me.

I showed up at college to start last semester with the idea that I was going to live that semester more fully than I ever had. For the first time in my life, I was going to take my depression and my social anxiety and I was going to smash them. If I liked a girl, I was going to pursue her, and I was going to confidently assume she might like me back (as opposed to my previous assumption that she would run away screaming and find someone with a shotgun or a pitchfork). I ran into life headfirst with this assumption in toe. And the first woman who I even had a passing interest in, I had asked on a date within a week. We went on the date, she didn’t like me, and in normal world, it would have been over and everyone would have moved on. I wasn’t living in normal world. I was living in a world where 90% of my time was spent working on writing a play, running a radio show, prepping films for contests, writing reviews for the school paper, and working (homework really never factored into last semester til the very end). And so, I didn’t have time to really pursue a person or develop a friendship or do those complicated things you really need to do when dealing with a relationship. Instead, I sat in my tortured editing suite dungeons and reflected on why I sucked so much that I couldn’t overcome simple social anxiety.

The next development came soon in the semester. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I began to resent the things I was good at. I began to devalue my skills, because I considered them crutches to help me avoid the fact that I sucked. So I started spiting myself. I stopped investing in anything except hating myself. I sat for hours a day, sitting on Facebook, insisting to myself that that was all I was good for. I lost all joy that I found in writing, directing, and living. It was an unhealthy response, but it triggered a reaction.

Towards the end of that semester, I began pouring myself into directing my bathrobe drama. That woke me up. I hadn’t enjoyed doing something like that in over a year. I absolutely loved it. It was the highlight of my year. I realized this, and then as I left for break a short week later, I started doing some soul searching. I went down some wrong alleys over break (as one is apt to do at 4 in the morning pumped full of liters of Mountain Dew). I sent people messages and regretted them in the morning. I wrote scripts and short stories that never reached fruition. I checked out ten movies and watched one of them. I sat awake at night over and over again, doing little to nothing.

The last week of break I found what I consider genuine insight. It came after a development. I was mad at myself. I’d just had a conversation with the person I had a crush on online, and I made myself seem crazy. I was crazy, but I didn’t want her to do that. I thought long and hard to myself, and I addressed the fact that my self-respect did not exist. I did not respect myself, because I didn’t think that I’d earned it.

That day, I got on the treadmill in my basement. I hadn’t run in ages. I have asthma, as previously discussed, and I was out of shape ta boot. I determined that in spite of anything, I was going to run two miles. I was going to run them as fast as I’ve ever run two miles, and I was going to do it to earn some self-respect back. I started running. Within two laps (which my treadmill measures by) I was out of breath, exhausted, and my back hurt like hell. I stopped at a mile, completely exhausted. I walked away, explaining to myself why I could never have made it two miles. Within two hours, I was back downstairs on the treadmill again. I deteriorated at about the same rate, but I was mad this time. Instead of stopping, I turned the speed up. Whenever I knew I had to give up, I turned the speed up on the treadmill. Either I was going to finish running, or I was going to die. As long as the latter wasn’t likely, I was going to finish. When the two miles was done, I felt absolutely awful (I ran my record mile on both miles). I went and collapsed on my bed and fell asleep for the night.

When I woke up, I had an epiphany. I didn’t have anything to prove to myself. That two miles had proven nothing. It didn’t make me feel any better about myself. But I did want to run again. I felt absolutely awesome because I’d worked off some of that angst energy. I felt the best I had in months. Running wasn’t about proving something to myself or changing the world. It’s just a good habit that improves the quality of life. I’ve run regularly since that day. I wanted to write again too, not to pen some masterpiece or to prove to a woman that I was a genius, but simply because I love writing and find meaning in it. That night, I wrote and completed a script, and I’ve written regularly since that day. I deleted my Facebook, and spent the time working on reading books and watching films I didn’t have time for. I’ve forced myself to live by principles I admire by trying to be nicer, and I’m looking for a charity to get involved in. How much of that is going to last? I’d be happy if I stuck with about a quarter of it.

In truth, none of us is really worth all that much. And these trench runs to save myself weren’t getting me anywhere. I’ve determined that I’m not out this semester to break anything or to find the love of anyone or to overcome anything. I’m here to live. I’m here to do what I love. There is no accomplishment attached. I want to make a silent expressionist arthouse sci-fi movie. It’s tough, impractical, and, like, nobody is going to like it. But I’ve always wanted to make one and this is going to be my last chance to do so. So I’ve got a big list of silent movies I want to watch while I work on the script. Here’s hoping it all works out.