fictionsmith

Unless a good reason brings itself to my attention, I am taking a break from public Twittering (In these brackets was originally my twitter account name… I’ll get back to my personal issue with self-promotion in a bit).

Something I’ve been wrestling with a lot lately has been related to pride and self-promotion.  Recently I saw someone retweet a sentiment about how sick they were of everything they see from people being something for sale.  The irony was that the retweeter (don’t we have fun words now?) was on an account used to promote products…

.:The Rub
I have an issue.  Actually, I have a film coming out. Ok, I have an issue and a film.  I have also been mostly unemployed for the last 8 months.  The sale of this film to a distributor (or directly to others) is kind of a big deal for me and my family.

I have family and friends who have invested in me both time and money to see this movie get made, and I want to see them repaid… and I wouldn’t mind being able to put bread on the table either after a couple years worth of work poured into this project.

But lately I’m finding the promotion of this film becoming all encapsulating.  My conversations drift toward the movie… my status updates drift toward the movie… people find and friend me on Facebook because of the movie…

…and so I promote it… and thus I’m also promoting myself by trying to be someone fun and worth watching.

I’m sick of it.  My compass is off-kilter.

I guess this is more of a confession that I’ve been using my life and my online presence to point to myself than I have been pointing to Christ.  I haven’t been trusting like I should, and instead have been trying my hardest to get people to notice and accept me and what I spend my time creating.

(NOTE: I still feel like Greyscale, Leave Me, and other bits of creativity hold eternal merit and I’m in no way saying that they are all selfish bits of narcissism and should not be watched)

.:The Gift
Nobody should brag about what they were given as a gift.  It’s not like they’ve earned and purchased it.  I can’t in good conscience try to get others to think more highly of me because of the things I haven’t worked for (granted, I shouldn’t be getting others to try to think more highly of me at all).

In the Old Testament, God is having the Israelites build Him a temple.  It’s rather dense reading to go through it cubit by cubit, but there are little snippets that talk about the craftsmen that God endowed with the ability to excel at their craft.  It was a gift.

I won’t go so far as to say to what measure I possess such a gift (or an eye) for filmmaking (as I don’t find it to be my place to say), but if ever you look at something I produce and enjoy it, please don’t let me take credit for it, because I can’t.  I may thank you for a compliment, but anything remotely close to Truth or Beauty that winds up on the screen isn’t something that originated from me.  I don’t say this out of any amount of pride (even the phrase “God worked through me” feels wrong to say to others about myself).

So there it is.  More public wrestling.  I’m not here to entertain, and I’m not here to point to myself.  Thanks for making it this far if you did.  I hope you got something from it because I know I did (I don’t always set out to write what I end up writing when it comes to blog posts).

vcD,
-R