So, This is the New Year (And I Don't Feel Any Different)

Thanks Death Cab, for providing with a cliched emo type intro for this year of blogging. I find my relationship with cliche really interesting. I will always point out if something is cliche, and frequently I'll use that as an excuse to ridicule it, perhaps rightly. I could drop the cliche livejournal right here, because I've read a bunch of them, y'know, a lot of whining about how I have no purpose and need to make a change, it's a classic, but even as I ridicule it for the cliche, I can really relate to what is being said. I think we're all searching for the same things, it's just whether you express that in a cliche way or in a unique way.

I'm reminded of a scene from the end of Six Feet Under's second season. Nate and Brenda are breaking off their engagement and having a big fight about it, and she's yelling at him, saying, "Don't throw the ring at me, that is so cliche," which says so much about the character. Despite the fact that she is breaking off an engagement, she's still concerned about not being cliche, which makes it great when Nate just throws the ring at her.

I look at some people, and I just see a cliche, I feel like I can break down everything about them, but the thing is, they all seem to be really happy. At college, I can see stereotypical Frat guy and he seems to be having a great time. Should he feel guilty that he's just a stereotype, or is he beyond worrying about being original, and instead just worries about having fun while he's here in the moment.

Lately, Jordan's been on about the breakthrough he made to live in the now, as discussed in the book, The Power of Now and other places. I'm sort of ambivalent on it, because at once he does seem happier, but the very idea of living just for the now seems to imply neglecting plans for the future. I have a lot of big things that I want to do, and while they frequently get thwarted, I do have goals and a mission in life. I think you can enjoy the ride that is life, but the ride should have some destinations, rather than just being an aimless procession forward through space, living purely for the moment.

I think an essential question is, would I rather be happy and unaccomplished or accomplished and miserable? I feel like being a filmmaker would make me happy, but you look at someone like Kurt Cobain, he achieved a popularity beyond his wildest dreams, and yet he still commits suicide. What more could he want, what is it that he couldn't have? To some extent, it feels like the best art comes out of desperate feelings, and unhappiness. So much of Buffy clearly comes out of Joss Whedon and the other writers' personal problems. If they were happy, would there be a series? Probably not, in fact the series began largely as a way for Joss to come to terms with high school and basically rewrite his experience back then. It's not a stretch to compare playing D&D to the slaying that the nerdy Buffy characters do. As he became more successful the issues under discussion changed radically. Buffy and co. became more powerful and in control of their lives, and, most notably on Angel, had to deal with vast power infastructures that they struggled to co-exist with. You can see the issues that mattered to Joss change as he became more successful.

That's why I think it would be hard for someone like Morrissey to remain relevant. Happiness and success would ruin his image, and reduce his ability to connect with unhappy, unsuccessful people. It astonishes me that Wong Kar-Wai has been married for 17 years, just because his films are about an emotional longing that can never be filled, yet he seems to have filled it in his own life. I guess part of writing is to create characters, and use them to explore aspects of your personality that you might have filed away and left in the past.

So, I know that my theoretical movies or TV shows would probably contain a lot of emoitonal angst and longing, and if I was happy, would I be able to create? I think I would, but it would be a different type of work. I know this is a vast generalization, but you can tell there are certain filmmaers who clearly own life, and have never had any problems. People like Michael Bay, it doesn't seem like they've went through a lot of problems in their personal life, whereas Alan Ball or Whedon clearly have been through a lot of stuff, or they're just really good at faking it.

But, in the end, I think that I would take unhappiness if it meant accomplishment. Making films, making art, is more important to me than simply going through life happy, because out of that creation, even if I have to go through some bad stuff to get it, would come a deeper happiness. Kids are happy because they don't have deep desires, they are content with very little. The older you get, the more it takes to be happy. In Dogma, there's a speech about how faith is like a glass of water. When you're little, the glass is small, so it's easy to fill, but the older you get, the bigger the glass gets, and you need more water to fill it. While this may apply to faith, it also applies to happiness, and I know I need a lot more to be really fulfilled and deeply happy than I did when I was younger. But, this might actually be a good thing because it forces me to do things I wouldn't have done before, and it expands my world.

That's why it's worth it to be a little bit unhappy, because in the long run, if you're content with things as they are, you're not going to make them better. Life has to give you little nudges of unhappiness to get you to change things up. Eventually, you can't ignore the problems, you confront them, and hopefully you resolve them. A lot of the time, it's just recognizing the problem that's tough. Once you do, it's not as tough to find a solution.