The Pitfalls of Doing Something

For the last several years, my work has been about helping people support their businesses or personal endeavors. And by support I mean a website. A supporting website. That supports. Supports what? The inside of a web browser? Keeping the scroll bar from falling over?

Let's be honest.

A website alone never saved anyone's business or made a dream come true. Many websites have made my dream of being an independent come true, but after a year of boasting across tables that I've been living on my skills and knowhow for the last x number of years, I begin to feel empty.

Let's be honest.

The only times that my skills really ever helped a client were the times when the client had a damn good idea of what they wanted and what a website's place was in their overall plan. I merely offered my limited expertise and delivered when and what I said I would.

I am by default restless. And my desire for some semblance of real accomplishment has breached my fear of actually doing something. The idea of a longterm project chasing a documentary about a subject that seems much too large and serious for this silly boy...this idea is driving me.

I am looking at words like war, freedom, genocide, and anesthetic-free surgery. I am going to sit across from a man who saw and did these things. And I am going to ask him about it. How do I face that after years of just bullying pixels and gentrifying html elements?

I don't know, but that's how it goes.

The Terrors and Truths of Approaching 40.

Some of us are lucky enough to have had elders who didn't suck.

Most of us weren't so lucky though. When we consider what awaits us based on who proceeded us, the alternative to getting old becomes attractive. We devalue our lives and slip into a measured suicide. We eat too much, sleep too little, starve our intellects and shutter our awareness.

I don't know if I am one of the lucky ones, but as I approach 40, I feel like my life keeps getting better...harder, but better. What used to be the harsh lights of failure are now the even lighting of clarity. I was never going to make it as a singer/songwriter. A friend's (Blaine Long) forthcoming album makes that so utterly clear to me. But now, that clarity is comforting. Comforting because I chose to leave musicianship behind when I began to see the truth of it. And now, years later, I am validated in my choice and can enjoy my friend's music without always thinking, "Man, I wish I'd thought of that."

But really, what I am digging so much about nearing forty, aside from the killer gray points in my hair, is my increasing willingness to take on larger and larger projects. I am currently working on a documentary that could take years of hard work and one to many hundred thousand dollars to do. And somehow, I am OK with that span of time and those numbers.

And so, I am hoping to not suck as I age.