bohemian slapfight

-bobella-:

poupak:

This is really great. I needed to read this right at this moment.  I am tired.  I am EXHAUSTED.  Sometimes I forget my own motto: nobody will make you happy; you are the sole person responsible for your own happiness; be happy, and the rest is just the cherry on the cake.

This is true of other things - like feeling lonely and tired.  

I needed to read this right now. Thanks Chrissie for posting!

andthenitripped:

Sometimes I do a random search on my computer and end up finding things I saved for some reason or another. I wish I had the link so I could adequately source this gem but in the spirit of true journalism, I’m worn the fuck out and still working but also taking a break to remind myself why I’m still up working on a night where I should be sleeping.

It’s from Cary Tennis’ column on Salon.com, which I like but I haven’t read in about 2 years. So it’s mad old.

But still relevant! I’m bolding stuff for emphasis!

… So as you work on the real thing, the dream loses its shimmer. This is real life. It has a shimmer all its own. It has a shimmer that is sometimes sour or bitter. But it is the real thing and it is what we live in. It is a gift. It is the gift of real life.

Before, you had only vague notions of one day making films. Now, you are educated in the field. Before, you were far from the centers of film production. Now, you are living right in the worldwide capital of film production. And yet now you feel like giving up. After one year, and some discomfort and disillusionment, you are wondering whether the dream is worth it.

One year is nothing. Try spending 10 years in N.Y. See how that goes. Try writing 20 scripts. See how that goes. Try spending every year in workshops and classes and meeting other people who want to make films. Try living the life in earnest. It will be painful. There will be little escape from the reality of the dream. The dream will not be an escape any longer. The dream will be the job.

There are dreams and there are career plans. They are not the same. Some dreams are compensatory: visions that we retreat to in times of stress, like blankies for infants, things that comfort us and tell us what we need to be told. The dream of being a famous writer can be like that: a dream of infantile power and attention that disguises the more immediate need — for safety, self-love, serenity, peace in our hearts.

But the work, that is another thing. The real work is staggering; the real work is work. It is not dream. It is pushing against the wall; it is hearing what we do not want to hear; it is doing the numbers; it is learning the new terms as they come along; it is sitting through evaluations and self-evaluations. It is an eternal object lesson in our powerlessness and our smallness. The real work is grinding and slow.

When I look at all the writers who have won coveted prizes and all the filmmakers and artists who have had success, what I notice is that they are the ones who actually filled out the applications for fellowships and sent their work around for critique and rejection; they are the ones who locked themselves in rooms and worked at it; they are the ones who did what was required; they are the ones who allowed themselves to be beginners and to begin at the beginning and do the next obvious thing.

What I conclude is that as creative people, we are citizens. We are citizens of the dream. As citizens of the dream, like citizens of the factory or the city, our job is to follow good working routines, to participate, to lend a hand to the greater enterprise. We are workers. Our work is ethereal but we are workers. Material must be transported. Mouths must be fed. It is work.

When seen from afar, like a rainbow, the dream is radiant and seductive; but when you are in it, there is just a lot of steam. There are men moving scenery, huffing and puffing. It is the factory of the dream.

Here is the other thing, a more prosaic thing: You are unhappy because you are not getting your needs met. Because you are unhappy, you are thinking about chucking it all. Because you feel unhappy, you feel that the dream is farther away than ever, when in point of fact it is nearer than ever.

You are lonely and tired. That is a condition of your material existence in N.Y. You are lonely and tired and so you begin to have bad thoughts. So work on the loneliness and the tiredness. Do not imagine that creative success will cure these things. Whether you are successful or not, you will often be lonely and tired. It is cured by fellowship and sleep. It is cured by exercise and citizenship — that citizenship in the dream I mentioned above.

So do not despair. Establish ways, now, of staying out of the abyss when you are lonely and tired. Take care of yourself. Go to the gym. Call your parents and have them tell you how lovely and talented you are.

Remember: You are closer to your dream than ever before. You are getting to it. The closer you get to it, the less it will seem like a dream, and the more it will seem like a job.

That is how you know you have attained your dream: It no longer seems like a dream at all.

Wow, so this is exactly what I needed to read right now.