Do the Hokey Pokey

February 11, 2014

Something's not right. As I sat in bed last night reading Peter Hessler's Oracle Bones (a long overdue read for someone who devoted so many years to studying China and the Chinese language), I was finally able to put words to the creeping feeling I've been getting for the past few months. I miss thinking. I miss thinking critically. And working in video production isn't providing this important need for me.

SM and I waded through accumulated, muddled feelings together to get down to the root causes. When I was in college, my intention was to use my skills both technical and mental, to think and do, in the world of media. I was drawn to cinematography because of the combination of technical precision and big picture grasp of art, of art and science, that was intrinsic to the work. But after it became apparent how quickly film as a medium was waning in the industry, I lost hope that the technical skill of video would measure up to that of film. Instead I turned to producing because I would be able to stimulate both sides of myself if I applied my skills to organizing and thinking through the creative process. I thought that with the right partners in the creative realm, I'd be able to both think and do.

I've always been most comfortable in a supporting role. I've never been the writer/director type; instead I've always said that I'm the one who helps translate other people's visions to reality. Additionally, I want my work to mean something to others, to help on another level by informing and educating others. It's one reason why I was attracted to documentaries and non-fiction production. Fiction film, on the other hand, seemed more selfish for me to actually take part in. Obviously I love fiction films, and I think there's a lot there to think about (hence this blog), but when taking part in a fiction production, part of me can't fully commit because I don't believe I'm contributing to society. Part of me wishes that I could be an artist who is compelled to make art and thus justify bringing in tens of people to execute my visions. The same goes for thinking about going to back to school for film theory. But that's just not me. It's an odd desire, but I wanted to help someone else help the world.

My dream job used to be working at Sesame Street. I wanted to create the content that would help kids learn and be ready for school, just as Sesame Workshop's mission states. The catch is that I wanted to create that content in every sense of the word. I wanted to be Joan Ganz Cooney and Jim Henson. But those jobs don't exist, less now than ever. Sesame Street's production is actually done by a few third party production companies, where shooting and editing content is divorced from its conception, writing, and even puppeteering. It's been a real example of the market for video for me, a telling dead end on the path toward my non-existent ideal occupation.

At this point arriving at this conclusion, that I can't really tell someone else's story or explain someone else's information without ceding some control of the full capacity of my brain power, seems like common sense. It's hard to do and think critically on behalf of someone else, especially in such a specialized and growing industry. But I guess I had my hopes up because I was looking for a place where I could put my whole self into my work.

It's interesting how each step of my career has been a test to drill down to what I'm really looking for. When I was in college, I was running on all cylinders, nurturing my mind in all aspects as I learned about film theory and history along with the technical aspects of film production. When I moved into my first full time position, I continued to feed my curiosity through the content I was working on, even while the rigor of production wasn't too demanding. It was moving away from the engaging material and leaning solely on my production skills that started me questioning whether or not this was my calling. "Okay, so it's the content I'm missing," I thought. "I need to find a place where my approach, where critical thinking, will be valued as an asset." But the catch is that more I look (and this is an experiment conducted over 8 months of unemployment and then some), the more I'm beginning to think such a place doesn't exist. Furthermore, even if I were to find a few like-minded people and start my own venture, I'm not sure our niche would even be seen as a marketable edge over the competition. It's just not what the people want.

So, forget what the people want; what do I want? I want to help people. I want to think critically and do good. I want to use my whole self.

For these and other reasons I am aching to go back to school. I want to learn something new, and then I want to apply it in a realm that needs my assistance. I have always been interested in how things work and how things can run in the most efficient and best way possible, and I have also always been interested in applying such questions to people. It's part of what I wanted to bring to cinematography, to understand how characters were thinking and to help convey that to viewers. My new path is toward understanding the human mind and helping them through therapy and counseling, as counselors have helped me. Furthermore, I hope that by going into a profession that offers more stability both in my mind and in my bank account I will also be able to better pursue my interests in video, to actually afford to buy my own camera and to go to the movies and think about film in ways that I can't while spending time hustling for rent and happiness—always doing and rarely thinking as much as I would like.

When is My Big Break?

So. It's been a while.

I've gotta say, it's been an incredibly hard year and a few months since I moved to New York, and the bubble of lowlights and foiled attempts at success I've been living in have just not been conducive to musing about anything. I've been talking with a few close friends about adulthood, and that I just don't think I'm anywhere near it. Subsistence living, running in place professionally, and being stuck in a big city full of richos has me in a near state of arrested development, and it turns out I'm not alone.

At first I thought this was because of a lack of (trust) funds, especially in the form of my parents' help, but I have plenty of other friends who are fortunate enough to come from certain means but have found themselves in a similar emotional position. Then I thought it was just this damn city. And yeah, that is definitely part of it—the rent is too damn high, especially compared to my midwestern roots and life in Chicago only 18 months ago, and I do strongly feel like I'm bleeding money every time I leave my apartment. But that's not all of it.

In short, I think my despair, and that of some of my friends, is rooted in the fact that our cohort has been profoundly screwed over. Most especially the class of 2008, my class, who graduated the very same summer that the financial world was seemingly collapsing around us, has fallen into a sort of holding pattern from which it feels like we'll never recover. You'll notice I'm using a lot of qualifiers and subjective language, and it is on these conditionals that hinge the bulk of my fears. I am more than willing to allow that one's twenties are supposed to be hard, that these will be the hardest parts of our lives, that we're really "figuring out who we really are." But at this point, I'm 27, and I'm over it. I've learned my lesson; I've done my soul-searching. Where is the reward for all the nail-biting and tears and handwringing over missed bills and rising credit card debt and dignity lost in borrowing money from family yet again? I'm happy to look beyond this to the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel, but for some of us there is a real fear that it will never materialize.

All those months of economic uncertainty and hiring freezes represent a lot of lost time for the class of 2008 (and fine, 2009 too), and at times I don't see how we can recover. By the time companies slowly started hiring again, there were at least three classes of newly-graduated job seekers, meaning three times as much competition and a third as many excuses for lack of relevant experience. Sure, many individual hiring managers out there might understand that there was nothing we could have done besides take irrelevant jobs to make ends meet, leave the country, or rack up more debt going to school. But on the whole, we just don't look as good on paper. Even when I have made strides in my own professional career, I find myself plagued by an incredible case of impostor syndrome, and I'm constantly underselling myself.

More than five years after all of this, most of my friends have fortunately either found work or graduated from their programs, but there is a profound dissatisfaction or anxiety that I've been picking up from them and feeling myself stemming from officially reaching our late twenties. I'm 27 and will be 28 next month, but while my 30+ year old friends are buying houses, getting married, or even having kids (and some well-faring friends my age are admittedly doing the same), many of my friends from my graduating class are nowhere near that stage in their lives even if they want to be. How can I even think about raising a kid when I can't make rent? How would I fund a wedding when I can't find a steady job? Meanwhile, some of my younger friends have been struggling for what seems like the acceptable amount before landing their jobs and getting on with their lives and enjoying their early-mid twenties. The bigger things are easier to focus on when the smaller matters are taken care of, and vice versa.

I find myself most anxious that the anxiety will never end. I remember being an (albeit hyper-self-aware) angsty teenager and looking forward to being in my 20s when all these feelings and high school drama would finally subside. I want to look ahead to being 30 and knowing more than what I do now, chiefly that things will, on the whole, turn out alright. One thing I have figured out in my 20s is that there will always be problems. I will always find something to hate about my job, there will always be "first world problems." But the peace of mind that can come with a steady paycheck and food on the table is one that I hope will not be lost on me when I finally make it out of this.

Bored now.

For the first time in ten years, I'm completely unemployed. No UChicago, no AF temp job. It's been about a week. I'm miserable. I'm beginning to think I'm the type of person who can become lost without structure and purpose, but I can't be sure, since this has never happened to me. In general, my day to day activities and discipline haven't changed much since my previous arrangement of having two work-at-home jobs has finished, but the feeling is markedly different.

My first order of business during my last week with The University of Chicago was to secure a volunteer arrangement, something that could consistently get me out of the apartment and around the city I haven't yet begun to explore. I sent an email to Educational Video Center, a place a lot like a job I had back in 2007-08, and got a call the same day. Monday through Thursday, 2-5, I am a teaching assistant for two classes teaching social justice documentary filmmaking to high school/alternative school students. So that's something. (Perhaps more on this in another post.)

Other than that, my existence consists of applying to at least one job a day (though that drive has been waning), and interminably working on my production reel (UGH), so I can finally apply to all of those jobs in my queue that require one. I've also been teaching myself Adobe After Effects through online tutorials — and trying use it to come up with some kind of graphic identity for said reel. I usually end a variably productive morning with some Buffy or Angel, though I'm beginning to tire of it lately.

I'm beginning to tire of everything lately. As you can see, it's not for lack of things to do. As I've written here before, I can be by myself for hours and come up with an endless list of tasks I should take on. But for all of the busyness I put myself up to, lately, I still find myself thinking the word "bored" — a word and concept I loathe — and sometimes even saying it aloud. I don't believe one can be bored as long as there are things to take care of and thoughts to think and even people around (I guess). But I'm increasingly sad and bored and lethargic, and the false sense of discipline and purpose I give myself just isn't cutting it.

Now, if you know me, you are probably a bit surprised that I didn't plan for this, at least in part. But that's part of the problem: I did. I knew I might be unemployed for some period of time, but I thought I would be driven to give some attention to some of the priorities that had been back-burner'd over the past year. When I left Chicago in July, I did so with a vision of my temporarily-freelance existence, a picture that included cutting a feature-length documentary (pro-bono) for my friend DS and staying financially solvent through a few odd freelance editing jobs here and there through JS. Alas, DS reneged on the documentary after pressure from his production company — months of my work for nothing; I won't even be in the credits. And JS, well...that was probably doomed to begin with. I haven't heard from him in quite a while.

While I don't directly blame those guys for my current situation (wouldn't it have been great if I'd found a job here in NYC back in April?), and while I'm certainly grateful to have been able to live in this new, expensive city for three months now without much worry, I now find myself without any of the preplanned activities I'd banked on and been assured of just three months before, not to mention without the invaluable resume fodder I need to stand out in this insanely competitive market. I don't even want to broach the topic of money. It's just a disappointing situation, and I'm feeling helpless.

Unfortunately, the timing of my complete unemployment has come right as SM's work is ramping up. He has five classes, night lectures, reporting/field work, and hours of reading and writing assignments. By the time we're both home (thank God I'm out and about at least 3 hours of the day so I can say I get back from somewhere), I'm starving for connection, while he is stressing about school. I know I wrote here that I could go for days without talking to anyone, and I still think it currently holds true, but I don't think I realized how much purpose there is in working, even remotely, and resting assured that you will connect with at least someone, and that your work is meaningful to at least someone. Without that component, my world has shrunk that much more.

I'm volunteering at EVC in a program that isn't usually supported by others outside of the main teacher, so outside of helping students (who sometimes mistake me for one of them anyway) with camera work and learning FCP, I often feel superfluous. My friends here in NYC, with the exception of a few graciously involving people, all have their own lives and social groups, and they're often too busy or forgetful of my now-consistent presence to hang out. The perceptions of New York as an isolating place are starting to resonate. I have almost zero desire to get out and meet new people, I just miss having friends I could contact to hang out whenever, or friends with whom I'm comfortable enough to be some type of reliable social group. I remember feeling this way in 2009, after several friends of mine and SM's had left Chicago, and we didn't feel that bond with many people left in the city, so I know it's only a matter of time before that gets better. But feeling out of step with the busy, working world and with SM in school (and meeting new people there), it's hard to look very far ahead. I just hope I'm able to land a job before my money and sanity wear out.

A Little Career Daydreaming

I was recently thinking about career and end goals (a perfect storm of a well timed email from KAC and a future-oriented conversation with DS), and I'm fairly confident that this video has been my guiding inspiration since I was three or four years old. Isn't it amazing? The video opened up my mind to a new way of storytelling and a new view of the world from the behind the scenes that has proved to be even more influential than I thought: I think it pushed me into documentary filmmaking.

Anyone who knows me knows that I have always had one eye on education and the other visual media. From my babysitting jobs, to selling educational games at a toy store, to taking up photography, to teaching Chinese. Somewhere along the way, I discovered documentaries; first I watched them, then I wanted to study them, and finally I wanted to be part of making them. One of my favorite things about filmmaking is the behind the scenes nature of it, both in documenting how something works and, on a meta level, in thinking about and being a part of how such a piece is constructed. I also love the educational aspect: wondering about something, and then figuring it out — the pursuit of knowledge. To me, documentary has both of these aspects: you're pursuing knowledge and you're making something in the process that will in turn open up those doors for other people. And the small scale at which one can do this is fascinating: crayons, gardens (my introduction to jazz, by the way), plumbing systems. It follows that I think the most impressionable audience for this is young children. What cool ways to explain reality to children! In short, want to make videos like these. How to do this is what I've been trying to figure out. I really liked working for the University of Chicago because of the way we were supporting education with video. My favorite projects were for the Oriental Institute and the Mansueto Library. But the scope there includes promotional as well as educational video, so not every project could be like those. I'm trying to move into more specifically educational video work in my recent job search, so at least the content will be in the right place. It would be really cool if I could get into the creative aspect of that work, though. What I would love to do is to make those Sesame Street videos and/or come up with a similar show. That's where coming up with children's show/vignette ideas with KAC comes in. Hopefully one day we'll have our own show, and we can make all the crayon videos we want.