The Ocean
The Ocean is frightening.
To define: We live our early lives in a fairly linear fashion, ascending grades, going through high school, and then maybe college… all the while we have the next year on the horizon mapped out with a goal in sight.
I liken it to riding down a river with familiar landmarks where the current keeps taking your further down your path. You don’t have to look at the end of this proverbial ride (death) directly, because you’re not looking at the horizon, you’re looking at the next logical step.
After college, I started looking for a job. The linear, river-like nature of life had dropped me off in The Ocean… so much possibility… I could meander wherever I wanted to go within reason, just paddling along.
I began working for a big corporation. I started to imagine working for them for 40+ years… which was a long look at the horizon.
.:Movies
I think one of the reasons working on films appeal to me aside from the artistic side is that they begin, live, and conclude within a reasonably short span. They don’t take 40+ years of your life, and you have something literally to show when you’re finished.
As I’m reaching the end of Greyscale, I’m also reaching the end of the currently untitled feature documentary I’m doing for work… after 7 months it will have begun and finished, and I will in the foreseeable future move on to another project.
Granted, I don’t know what that next project is, but I am blessed to have the security of a full-time job to either develop it or have it handed down to me to complete.
Even with that in mind, I’m looking out at The Ocean of possibilities, not knowing what the next segment of my life is going to hold…
…which is a little frightening.
I know I’ll get to the end of the ride when I’m supposed to, and I know I’ll eventually grow enough as a person to not let projects define and measure my life, but if college was college, then Greyscale was grad school, and this documentary is… law school?
I’m running out of school analogies… probably because I haven’t really been in school for 5 years now and need to stop missing the boundaries of the lazy river and remember that my ship has nice big sails.
vcD,
-R
