Thursday, September 17, 2009

Love/Hate Relationship

I'm in school again.

I'm worried because my excitement at returning to school is already wearing off... less than 3 weeks into the semester! I think it's because I'm finally getting homework. Which means I need to keep track of assignments now. I have a presentation to do on Friday (I hate public speaking), I have 12 days to memorize 3 pages of dialogue (and a performance of the scene in class... again... I hate it), read a 1-act play by Monday, a 10-page play due by the 30th, a 2 page script, storyboard, as well as shot list, logline and "pitch" for a short film, which I have yet to edit together... I have to eavesdrop on a 2 conversations, grade 24 papers, watch a 3 hour documentary (I get 5 points extra credit to check out the film and show it in a classroom to my classmates on Friday. might as well, I say). This all means I have to have some self-mastery and actually do my homework and stuff... that's hard for me to do.

While it occurs to me that all this homework sounds like a lot of drudgery... I also just bought a copy of Aristotle's Poetics for personal reading pleasure, which will go in my stack of 7 books that I'm already reading...

I love to learn, I loe to write, I love to read, I love to edit films.... I just don't like all these assignments!

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Fallacy: "you know what you did!"

So... in one of my classes, we were challenged to come up with a story, then we were told to write a sort of monologue for the main character. then we were told to justify the Antagonist's views.

I didn't have a story in mind(the one I had come up with didn't really work for the last exercise), so I started coming up with general motivations for someone to do what they do.

-The end result is all that matters. "the end justifies the means".
This is where an antagonist could truly want the BEST results and does "whatever it takes" to attain that end., but then again, what's "best" is pretty subjective isn't it?
-Love. "true love conquers all".
This is a more identifiable view than doing something out of hate. hate makes you bad, love makes you good (or at least misunderstood).
-Religion. ...not gonna go there, but it has a LOT of potential
-Insanity
This is actually something that strikes me as very, very interesting in a story. Anyone who has seen Adaptation (with Nicholas Cage, Chris Cooper, and that one woman)
and has anything to do with writing knows that this is the cheapest way to "twist" a story... Fight Club, Secret Window, maybe even Psycho. Where we are told at the last second that someone was crazy and that explains everything. it's usually unsettling, but generally I think it makes for a weakened message.
However, if this insanity isn't a twist, if it is acknowledged very early on... then I think that makes for a very human, very pitiable perp. Of mice and Men-kinda.

Anyway. that's that.

I also learned something recently about communication, hence the title of this post.
'You know what you did' is probably the most false statement anyone can presume to make. I think that the key part of that phrase is "did". No one DOES just one thing. any behavior or action can actually have myriad effects. So when someone asks innocently "what did I do?" it's probably best to relate to them exactly what you perceived that they did. Because that might be brand new information to this alleged "perpetrator".

Letting this assumption, that each other "knows what they did", go unaddressed is incredibly detrimental. When someone does something, and you assume you know why, then you are inclined to respond in defense or response to their perceived motive. If you are hurt, you may want to get even, or you may want to be pitiful and hope they "come around". This quite often results in a cycle. "You hurt me, I hurt you, you get even, I get even, you one-up, I one-up" back and forth, until someone throws in the towel, or someone goes too far. The proper way to address being hurt (i'm learning) is to not assume ill will-- there is no "perp". Instead, you must assume that the offender is unaware of your pain, and inform them of it. Most likely they are unaware, or if they ARE aware, they will probably tell you the reason they did what they did. Their reason may actually be that they are getting back at you for hurting them, and you had NO idea that you had. So don't be so quick to decide you're the victim. You may, in fact, be the perpetrator.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Gonna Take Some Time...

Hey Reader...

Why do you keep coming back? isn't this blog a little repetitive? Do I not have 3 or 4 topics that I rotate through with the occasional exception? Surely the intrigue now is when I'll finally "get it"... well this post is certainly not that one.

This post is yet ANOTHER lament on my life; Feeling trapped, tied down, burdened, scarred, scared, skeptical...

I'm here in Utah, with no real desire to be here whatsoever. It's nice having my brother and sister-in-law around. I have a lot of friends here.... Sure, these things are all true. But I have been here nearly 4 years, and I'm bored with it. I want my simple life back, when I wasn't tethered to school with in-state status. And, with just over half of my program completed, leaving now would be a complete waste.

Maybe I need to stop fantasizing about how good life could be somewhere else. I know that things would be just as hard somewhere else, it's just that I can't stop daydreaming about how things would be NEW somewhere else. And Utah and the experience is growing old and stale. I need a change. I want to escape the familiarity, I want to feel uncomfortable, but instead of the cause being a cramped, squelched feeling, I want it to be uncertainty. I want to date someone who doesn't know 30 of my friends... having mutual friends really takes away the "mystery"-- the get-to-know-you factor. It may not seem likely, but I assure you, there are no "Strangers" left here for me.

I just want to take my camera, my two favorite pair of jeans, a good book and a deck of cards and just GO.

If you, or someone you know, would like to sponsor me... please get in touch.

Evan

Been thinkin' about this post(I didn't really think it through, just wrote it). What I have come to realize, is that it's not that I know everybody around me, and I want some mystery in my life... there are oodles of people I don't know, and I could get to know them fairly easily. But, the problem is that there are a LOT of people who know me, but then again, they DON'T know me at all. In the past year I've had a huge change in my life, I think in the past 3 or 4 years I've been 3 entirely different people. Now, the people who have known me more than a year have this idea about me that I am all out of energy to quash, people who have known me longer than that have these very, very deep-rooted ideas about me that I can't change, EVER. If they were to take a look at me, they wouldn't see a new person, they would say "Oh, a new Evan! and that may be true, I am a new Evan, I can't be anyone else. But there is no severance in their minds between who I am now, and who I was before. There is still, in there minds, this continuity that cannot be called a new beginning, because they weren't there for the event, they weren't privy to my thoughts. All they know is that I've made changes, but they don't know the depth to which I have changed. I don't know that they could fathom it. I am still Evan, and I am limited to who I am --and what I might become-- by what I have been.

New people can't know me either, but the beauty of it is that they aren't blinded by images of what I used to be. That's what a move and a new life would do for me. Like I said, I could get to know new people here, people I have never met before. But I can't escape the people who I know already, and the transference between the old me and new me that they subconsciously perform.

Another thing. I would say I am quite lonely. I would say that I have a lot of friends, and I enjoy them immensely--but I'm lonely. I'm not playing the victim here... perhaps more the martyr. I choose to be lonely. I could be "Dating" someone within a week if I decided to, but I have made a choice not to. It's definitely not fun. It occurs to me every now and again, when I realize some girl is smitten with me, that it would be so simple just to go along with it. Why not? many of these girls are exceptionally attractive, and not all of them have issues. I could easily get along with them, even enjoy being with them.... But it wouldn't be fair. As much as I could enjoy a relationship right now, I am too self-centered to invest myself. I've chosen myself over someone else, because until find someone I want to choose over myself, I will be too selfish for any relationship. So, here I am.