BASTARD VEGAS HAMSTER WHEEL

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)

What satisfies

“It’s all good, i’m in Hawaii B****.” That’s what she said.

I remember thinking that this just seemed like a lie, because we know that this doesn’t really matter, we know that a location isn’t changing your internal makeup. Sure people are having fun, and it’s beautiful, but i notice something happen when i would talk to people about my project. I would see something change in their eyes, and there was this visible shift.

It went like this.

Person: So why are you here?

Me: Well, i’m mostly here to work on a documentary called “The Unstuck Project.”

Person: What’s this about?

Me: “It’s basically meant to feature people that feel stuck in their lives in a variety of ways. Primarily addiction, loss, stuck in a job, abusive relationship, difficult past etc. Anything that causes someone to feel despair, like they will never get out of where they are, like they don’t know how things will ever be better or how they will ever be “ok” again.”

That’s pretty much it, sometimes i would explain a little more but mostly that’s it. Here in the Mainland i can explain this film, and people will most often say that it’s a cool idea, but you know… for OTHER people. I get that glassy eyed stare where i’m pretty sure people think i’m talking about their life, and i feel them get a little uncomfortable, like they don’t want it to be them. Because it would just be too awful to be where you are. What i found in Hawaii was vastly different. I give my answer, and very often from every corner of the world people told me the truth, and with ease. It wasn’t weird or uncomfortable, it didn’t make me like them less, which is all i can imagine for why so much of the time we don’t tell the truth about what’s going on. I think we make it a big deal, or maybe a lot of people really suck at responding to reality when someone is brave enough to share theirs. But it’s really not that weird, because nearly everyone has a been at a place in life that cannot be sewn up to look better than it is, and what ends up happening, is that we don’t tell the real story of the real us because that is too scary, but we end up telling on ourselves with our actions… usually. Somehow that is more comfortable. But i just prefer the real story about your life, and i’m really glad you weren’t ashamed to tell it and i’m impressed, legitimately impressed that you giant former pro European athlete dude sat down with me at a party and told me the truth, and the man who lost his wife to cancer and is now left with two children told me the truth, and the brilliant girl who is transitioning out of homelessness told me the truth, and over and over and over again.

 All in all i’ve found that you are where you are in your mind. You think you can’t feel failure, loss, emptiness, loneliness, abuse, addiction because the weather is great, and because the ocean is spot on? Or that the the girl, the guy, the drugs, the drink, the attention is going to heal you up until it doesn’t and you just need it all over again. 

Everyday you are seeking, sometimes it’s just this auto pilot thing where a lot of you is seeking/controlled by an impulse managed by physiological pathways that you’ve created based out of habit. But i bet we can live better than this. I bet fulfillment and purpose are more than base desires, and grasping at the temporary.

I don’t want people to feel helpless, to hide, to lose life in a battle with shame or even sometimes just not knowing why we feel so empty at times. While traveling and learning people’s stories I really just came to love people more, you almost can’t help it when you get the chance to really see people. It’s like the veil has been lifted, and you can see and now you just have to do something with that sight.  

Hawaii Day 1

I’m out of it, i’m not sure if it’s the jet lag,the fact that i was up
at 7 this morning after no sleep the prior night, or that i didn’t
drink anything except a Kombucha and some margarita like drink made
for me by an Australian. I can’t possibly be hung over given that i
only drank about 2% of the monster drink he made… here goes, Hawaii
DAY 1.

I landed in Maui Hawaii on August 28th
Sam picks me up in his black pick up truck, and helps me get my
enormous military and duffle bag into the truck, we go to whole foods,
we talk about why i’m here; the documentary, the content, and he says
“this is perfect” and he knows just who i should talk to. He’s nice,
he’s calm, he looks a little younger than he is, but he has this wise
way about him. He brings me to a youth group service he and some of
his friends lead to build community among the youth, he asks me to
speak about why i’m there and talk about identity. The kids are
boisterous, they dance and sing to every pop song that plays as we gear
up for the message. I learn that they have come a long way from last
year. Behaviors have a changed, and the leaders say they listen more
now. They were listening about 60% when i spoke, and i had forgotten
just how much difficult it is to to speak when there are distractions
in your tiny but albeit  an audience. I told them how cool it was that i
had literally just gotten off of the plane and i was already with some
cool kids, and i explained to them what i hope to accomplish while i’m
in Hawaii, i felt the room full of distracted energy of kids who want
to jump around and sing Rhianna songs, so i quickly try to address the
concept of coming to grips with your identity like Sam asked me to do, and finding yourpurpose. It was a weak attempt, and i should have called upon my
substitute teaching days to get them to chill and listen but instead they won
and i wrapped it up for fear of boring them into a coma, or more likely
what looked like was about to turn into a tickle fight. Sam and Joshua
one of the other leaders spoke after me, and they had a little better
luck than i did. Sam connects with them, he persist past the struggle
and keeps going until they are all quietly listening.
The night goes on like this, i talk to more people, i have one of the
girls show me her Tahitian and hula dances… i try… : )
Sam takes me to the hostel right after, it’s a party hostel 100%
parrrrrrrrrrtay. There are about 20 different little pockets of
foreigners and my shirtless guide takes me around to
my room, explains the clothing optional, pot brownie hippie tours to another island this weekend,(thanks dude) it’s muggy, and everything feels wet and crowded.  So far, I have yet to
meet a girl who could speak anything other than broken English. I was
hoping to meet some girls initially since i’m traveling on my own and
it would be cool to know some girls in the hostel.No luck so far, so
on this night i set my bags in my shared room, and i walk myself down
to a pool room and interject on a game of pool with a guy
they call Texas, an Australian, and an Austrian. They are all friendly, playful, sweetboys who tell me there stories without much hesitance. That’s Day 1. I’m off to find a smoothie : )