Real World Blues
Published Thursday, August 03, 2006 by Dan Gainsford.
Welcome back to the REAL world.
You can’t live like that, c’mon get REAL!
You’re going to have to get a REAL job now.
REALLY?
What is this real world that everybody evokes when they talk to someone who is doing something different from them? Caught between life as drifter-for-hire/ bum and a 9-5 grinder, I really wish I clearly understood because maybe then I’d be able to make a concrete decision about a new direction.
I’ve heard these sayings in the context of both friendly pep talks and serious, stare-you-right-in-the-eyes, guidance-councilor-to-the-messed-up-youth chats. The tone varies between I’m-on-the-right-path-and-you’re-not condescension, you’ll-learn-someday bemusement, or simple you’re-screwed-you-poor-bastard sympathy. Though, not everyone is like this - some actually listen and advise with sincerity.
There is no doubt that since returning I’m in a culture shock-induced limbo that I didn’t expect: a simultaneous acknowledgement of the way things are in the “real world” (not to say that I ever left it) and a refusal/inability to choose how to proceed in that model. Do I pursue interests or do I focus on making money? Do I lay a foundation of understanding in something that I have barely any interest in, just to secure future opportunities, or do I make a stab at doing something meaningful to me?
The three-plus months that I spent on the road with Dan provided me with the luxury of a constantly varying array of stimulae that I had no hand in choosing; they were just a set of circumstances to be dealt with. We need gear? Let’s round up some sponsors. We need to find an Internet connection? Let’s ask that person. The difference between that life and my life now, is that there was a purpose to that method, and now my life seems to have no clear purpose.
Let me give you a metaphor for how I feel: it’s like drowning in a sea of life preservers of all sorts (survival suits, life-saver rings, those old puffy orange vests that my dad used to have on his boat filled with some kind of foam that probably causes cancer, life jackets, etc). All around me are these things that can save me; they represent my interests, aptitudes, and skills. The fatal problem is I don’t know which one to choose.
Dumbfounded, the people on the coastguard boat (my family and friends) tear at their hair and say just pick one! ANY one!
But will just any one do? Glug! Splutter! Glug! Too late.
At the funeral, people quietly file by. They look at my absurd mannequin-like make-up job provided by the discount mortician. Someone asks, “How did he die?” “Drowned in his opportunities is what I heard,” answers someone else. Heads shake all around. What a shame.
What an idiot!
Just pick one.
So what does this have to do with SFD or what it’s like being back to point “A” of the SFD project?(Am I back to point “A”? If you return to where you started, is it the same place you left from? Are you the same as you were when you left it?) Well, the strange thing is that although the time that I spent on the SFD project was such a monumental experience and wasn't so long ago, it now seems so far from me; it’s further in time and space, than I am physically from Dan and the van.
I'm worried that I'm withdrawling into my own egotistical concerns, closing the doors of understanding that I opened on the journey, and leaving the path of catharsis and revelation behind because it's too hard. Perhaps this is an old habit, not just fo me but most humans. In our time, it takes conviction and discipline to not focus on the self.
Still, I’m trying hard to not lose the lessons I learned while working with/for Dan. I’m trying to remember what I learned about filmmaking, photography, art, instinct, and nature. I’m trying to absorb the examples of all the people I encountered in big cities and small towns, living their lives and making a positive contribution to the world. I’m trying to retain the awe I had for those people, because what they were doing seemed to come to them so naturally. I’m trying to remember all the isolated and unrelated insightful things different people said that revealed yet another part of the big picture to me. Finally, I’m trying to roll all those things up into a soft lullaby cooed to comfort an infant or into the mantra of a wise monk. But, like I said, all that’s a hard to do.
Nevertheless, if I can hold up one lesson to remember from SFD, if I can assert one clichéd goal for us all to achieve, it is this: our (humanity’s) place in nature has as much to do with being balanced and at peace within ourselves, as within our environment.
Success could be a lifelong process, but I know Dan is out there working towards it and I’m back to wherever I am and doing my best.
You can’t live like that, c’mon get REAL!
You’re going to have to get a REAL job now.
REALLY?
What is this real world that everybody evokes when they talk to someone who is doing something different from them? Caught between life as drifter-for-hire/ bum and a 9-5 grinder, I really wish I clearly understood because maybe then I’d be able to make a concrete decision about a new direction.
I’ve heard these sayings in the context of both friendly pep talks and serious, stare-you-right-in-the-eyes, guidance-councilor-to-the-messed-up-youth chats. The tone varies between I’m-on-the-right-path-and-you’re-not condescension, you’ll-learn-someday bemusement, or simple you’re-screwed-you-poor-bastard sympathy. Though, not everyone is like this - some actually listen and advise with sincerity.
There is no doubt that since returning I’m in a culture shock-induced limbo that I didn’t expect: a simultaneous acknowledgement of the way things are in the “real world” (not to say that I ever left it) and a refusal/inability to choose how to proceed in that model. Do I pursue interests or do I focus on making money? Do I lay a foundation of understanding in something that I have barely any interest in, just to secure future opportunities, or do I make a stab at doing something meaningful to me?
The three-plus months that I spent on the road with Dan provided me with the luxury of a constantly varying array of stimulae that I had no hand in choosing; they were just a set of circumstances to be dealt with. We need gear? Let’s round up some sponsors. We need to find an Internet connection? Let’s ask that person. The difference between that life and my life now, is that there was a purpose to that method, and now my life seems to have no clear purpose.
Let me give you a metaphor for how I feel: it’s like drowning in a sea of life preservers of all sorts (survival suits, life-saver rings, those old puffy orange vests that my dad used to have on his boat filled with some kind of foam that probably causes cancer, life jackets, etc). All around me are these things that can save me; they represent my interests, aptitudes, and skills. The fatal problem is I don’t know which one to choose.
Dumbfounded, the people on the coastguard boat (my family and friends) tear at their hair and say just pick one! ANY one!
But will just any one do? Glug! Splutter! Glug! Too late.
At the funeral, people quietly file by. They look at my absurd mannequin-like make-up job provided by the discount mortician. Someone asks, “How did he die?” “Drowned in his opportunities is what I heard,” answers someone else. Heads shake all around. What a shame.
What an idiot!
Just pick one.
So what does this have to do with SFD or what it’s like being back to point “A” of the SFD project?(Am I back to point “A”? If you return to where you started, is it the same place you left from? Are you the same as you were when you left it?) Well, the strange thing is that although the time that I spent on the SFD project was such a monumental experience and wasn't so long ago, it now seems so far from me; it’s further in time and space, than I am physically from Dan and the van.
I'm worried that I'm withdrawling into my own egotistical concerns, closing the doors of understanding that I opened on the journey, and leaving the path of catharsis and revelation behind because it's too hard. Perhaps this is an old habit, not just fo me but most humans. In our time, it takes conviction and discipline to not focus on the self.
Still, I’m trying hard to not lose the lessons I learned while working with/for Dan. I’m trying to remember what I learned about filmmaking, photography, art, instinct, and nature. I’m trying to absorb the examples of all the people I encountered in big cities and small towns, living their lives and making a positive contribution to the world. I’m trying to retain the awe I had for those people, because what they were doing seemed to come to them so naturally. I’m trying to remember all the isolated and unrelated insightful things different people said that revealed yet another part of the big picture to me. Finally, I’m trying to roll all those things up into a soft lullaby cooed to comfort an infant or into the mantra of a wise monk. But, like I said, all that’s a hard to do.
Nevertheless, if I can hold up one lesson to remember from SFD, if I can assert one clichéd goal for us all to achieve, it is this: our (humanity’s) place in nature has as much to do with being balanced and at peace within ourselves, as within our environment.
Success could be a lifelong process, but I know Dan is out there working towards it and I’m back to wherever I am and doing my best.