To Just Do It Anyway
Last night I went out with my fella to see a movie called Calvin Marshall. It’s a very sweet and funny coming of age story about a young man who loves baseball the most of anything in the world. Religiously so. Obsessed with. But the thing is, he doesn’t really have any natural talent. Not to make it to the college leagues, let alone the Majors.
He’s good at other things. Really good, like photography and journalism, especially sports journalism. People tell him so. Praise him for it. But all he wants to do is be in the game and on the team.
This film was made by a couple I know here in the Rogue Valley, Gary and Annie Lundgren of Joma Films, who have made a number of feature length films, truly wonderful films, about people in communities. In fact, many of the filmmakers and production community in our community made this film. So it’s kind of wonderful how they do their work. They are both quite talented and they held this showing of the film and had a Q and A after.
A few things really struck me:
You can love something beyond life itself and it might not be the thing you should devote your life to doing.
You might have this amazing gift but because you are so fixated on this other thing, you miss the place you could really soar and change the world.
There’s a scene when he’s just playing for fun and he’s much more happy and relaxed and that says something about the difference between enjoyment and fixation.
His coach kind of resents the passion the kid has, because he himself did not achieve what he really wanted to and hasn’t grappled with his own loss and where exactly his potential might live.
Gary, the writer and director, spoke really eloquently about how painful creation can be-how you have to live with this idea/project even when it gets really convoluted in your head, and even after you’ve finished it, you still have to wrestle with how to promote it. And if you are a humble person, you feel fake and weird asking people to look at you/give you money/promote you.
Per number 2 in this list, if you don’t let people see the thing you are good at (even if you are scared) then you are missing how you might actually use those gifts you have.
It was a good thing to watch, that film. I’d certainly recommend a viewing if you haven’t seen it. Plus it has Jane Adams and Steve Zahn in it and they are both just spectacular.
All of this got me thinking though, that many of us get stuck in some of those numbers. Either fixating on this thing we think we should be doing (or even really want to be doing but without the level-up talent needed to succeed), denying the actual talent we do have, resenting others who are putting their all into the thing we ourselves wanted to achieve. And of course, being afraid to just do the work anyway, share the work anyway, and perhaps just allow the work to live its own life.
I realize I used to write a lot more, for the love of it, for the silky feeling of words in my brain exiting my hands, when there was less online pressure to have it…do something big. Go viral etc. Social media these days is a place you have to be? But it sucks? And if you spend all your time publicizing yourself alone, online, you aren’t actually in community making things.
Which is something I really love about Gary and Annie. I have no idea what they are doing on day to day basis because they are out there making yet another film and building up a community of producers and artists. They do have another film coming out and I am truly looking forward to seeing it. What they do matters and I know that even if I don’t see anything about it on Twitter, you know? Somehow we all still know about it without engaging in the ether.
I’ve written more in two days than I have in about six months. And I can post about it and maybe 3 people sees it. And maybe that’s who should see it. Or maybe its enough that I just did it, anyway. That validation is really nice and I miss the blogging days of comment threads and conversation. Maybe I’ll get there and maybe I won’t, but I am thankful to the words, today.
Go out there and play some ball.