It was the world series… of poker in Vegas, I was there for a month and I was not down with the get down.
I was not growing into anything, just a surviving human in a pretty jacked up situation driving into the brightest lights and the saddest souls. I just knew this was not the story I was meant to live. Surely the world is made of more beauty and purpose than the exchange of way too much cash, the hustling of sex and the illusion of a party.
The vibe pushed down on me, it made me sad for everyone who lived to work, worked to party and partied to escape work… and the hamster wheel rolls on and on. We are infinitely capable human beings, can’t we jump off of that wheel and choose our lives? We can choose to live better, to value people and not things, to cultivate with intentionality all of the things inside of us that we breathe in and out into the world.
Vegas came to an end, I got back to Nashville and broke up with the dude that insisted I go to Vegas in the first place. From there I flew to Hawaii, and began working on a project meant to help people that feel stuck in life. I met with athletes who had been cut from their teams and lost the one thing they believed gave them value, a father who had lost his wife to cancer, girls in abusive relationships, people in office jobs that were making them feel pointless and depressed, drug addicts. So many people, so many stories, so many untold stories from people no one would have thought were struggling. I found that people hadn’t told their stories, or really talked to anyone about what was really brewing inside of them because there is this pervasive idea that people only like and want to spend time with happy people.
I wanted to challenge this idea. I wanted to find a way to give purpose to the pain.
Film can make things seem real; exposing the reality and the isolating idea that you are the only one struggling in a particular way. It can challenge ideas we’ve held about people we haven’t understood, and help us explore a deeper connection to each other. So, let’s just say working in film beats Vegas all day everyday.
(Originally written for http://www.fancyrhino.com)
Musing and Wandering 