Beyond Exhaustion

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray.” ~ Robert Burns

Boy have I been living that quote recently.  Last week was a perfect example of it and even though it wasn’t the worst week ever, it was pretty brutal at times.  I won’t go into too much detail since I’m keeping most of it close to the vest, but the trials and tribulations of last week have continued into this week, keeping me on guard when I should otherwise be relaxing.

Broken promises, creepy crawler infestations and sleeping in a new place every night has had me pushed to my limits.  Isn’t it funny that when you proclaim a goal to the world, the world suddenly does everything in its power to stop you?  Steven Pressfield called this “The Resistance” in his book The War of Art.  Mostly an internal mechanism of self sabotage, he does describe how “Resistance” manifests in the people and world around you, trying to prevent you from progressing in life when you’re on the right track.  I’d prefer a pat on the back to know I’m going the right way as opposed to explosions and chaos.

Last week I had all my posts already written or outlined before publication.  With the craziness of recent events, this week is going to be significantly harder.  I have been trying to wean myself off the ‘Net for a bit (even though the Blackberry is still glued to my hip) in an attempt to get my mental wheels turning on their own instead of consuming the information smorgasbord.  Even so, here are a couple of standout articles I came across recently.

• The Value of Alternative Goals ~ Brad R. Torgersen – Brad talks about how goals outside of his obsession (writing) keep the highs and lows of the writing life from having a negative impact on his overall life.  The double edge sword of obsession is quite sharp, one side essential to achieve success and the other easily driving you into depression.
• How to Make the Leap from Short Films to Features ~ Joke and Biagio – For many aspiring filmmakers the path to success is 1) Make Short Films 2) ??? 3) PROFIT! without any real idea how to play with the big boys.  Joke and Biagio give solid advice on how to leverage the short film medium to your advantage while avoiding the pitfalls of the “short film rat race”.
• Uncle Bobby’s Wedding ~ Jamie LaRue – I found this post through one of Neil Gaiman’s tweets.  It’s a letter written by a librarian (LaRue) in response to library patron’s request to pull a book.  It is one of the most well written, well thought out replies to censorship I’ve read in a LONG time.  He also makes the—shocking—claim that parents should be responsible for raising their children, not outside agencies (library, government, etc).  Intelligent debate seems to be a lost art these days.  Give this letter a read and remember how it use to be.

I will try my best to make this week’s posts decently sized.  I’m not looking to cheat with one line posts or a jumble of links, but they will probably be on the shorter side till things settle down.

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Tagged as: Blogs, Brad R. Torgersen, Insanity, Joke and Biagio