I WANT To Make Mistakes

So the last month has been a little crazy for me. I've just been in this weird funk after my first script reading. I just felt lost afterwards. I didn't really feel I was getting much guidance for the movie. Same for work. I felt like I was wandering in the woods. And it didn't really hit me at how lost I was until this past week.

So this past week we had a leadership training workshop on the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Even if you haven't read the book, you've probably heard of some of the habits: "Be Proactive" and "Seek To Understand, and Then To Be Understood." I found it amusing how the mini-movies exotified non-White cultures, like Native Americans, Africans, and Asians, and of course all the White folks seemed to just nod their heads. But anyway, being the former UCLA student advocate that I was, I did what came naturally, I questioned. In particular, I questioned whether the company truly fostered an environment where the 7 Habits could be exercised. So I brought up the questions like a good heymaker should, and the trainer responded right back to a question back at me: "Well, what have YOU done to change yourself? Because you can't change your environment unless you embody the change yourself."

My first thought was "leave it to corporate America to take a quote of a Civil Rights Leader to reinforce the status quo." Second, I wondered whether it really was me, or if it really was the company, or just both. I'll admit that my own pride does get in the way of a lot of things, and my first instinct is to alter the environment to my desires. But third, and most profoundly, I asked myself if I was really being true to my movie project. I whined about how I didn't feel supported about this movie project; was it because people saw that, deep down inside, that I wasn't giving it my all? Did they see that I was clinging on to other safety measures, like my job and my current circle of relationships, and that just maybe I was too scared to do what was necessary to see this movie through? Did others see that I just didn't believe in myself, or in them, as much as I should have?

I realized that I was confronting my perfectionist tendencies head-on. A conditioning groomed since as long as I can remember. A belief that something wasn't worth doing unless it was done perfectly. An assumption that I shouldn't get involved in anything unless I could be the very best at it. A fear in making any mistakes.

But after some reading and reflection, I realized that in order for that philosophy to hold, I had to make two assumptions: #1 I knew what perfection was, and #2 I knew what a mistake was. Did I really understand what a perfect movie was? Or a perfect high school or college career? Or a perfect lifestyle? Probably not. And did I know what truly made a mistake? Were the actions that I thought were mistakes really mistakes? Many of humanity's greatest works were created from "mistakes". Penicillin was discovered when a Petri dish was accidentally contaminated with fungi. Chocolate chip cookies were invented when Ruth Graves Wakefield ran out of baker's chocolate for her chocolate cookies, and instead replaced it with semi-sweet chocolate, hoping the chocolate would melt into the batter. Maybe all internal checks and balances that were meant to protect me were the very structures that prevented me from discovering new ways to think and live.

One last epiphany comes from a book I just finished reading by Ricardo Semler called "The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works". The book charts how his company Semco has implemented a structure of workplace democracy where workers are allowed to set their own hours, define their own job responsibilities, set their own wages, select and fire employees, and basically have access to any and all information regarding the organization. You can imagine that such an environment would create such chaos, and to some extent it has. Semler literally has no idea of the direction that his company is going, and his ideas can just as easily be voted down as anyone else's. Neither is Semco impervious to mistakes, and Semco's employees make plenty. But because Semco is structured so that the employee's self-interest is directly tied to the company's performance, and that the employees have all the tools available to shape Semco's performance, there is enough flexibility within the organization so that hazardous "mistakes" are not fatal, and creative "mistakes" are opportunities for growth. Which poses the question what is better: making numerous mistakes which are constantly and consciously addressed, or following one idea you take for granted because a superior told you so, only to find that it's a mistake several years down the road?

So it's in that spirit, with the knowledge that changing a behavior is far more challenging than changing knowledge or a belief, that I pray for the strength and courage to make MANY mistakes, and an open mind to navigate me through the chaos, in order to travel a path I could never have dreamed possible.

It's Snakes on a Plane!!!

So it's been a while since my last update, and I have a lot of things to catch up on, but first, I must provide a movie review of what be the best movie of the year, SNAKES ON A PLANE.

Yes, Samuel L. Jackson does not lie; Snakes on a Plane is the best movie of the year. Period. However, your experience cannot and will not be enjoyable if you simply sit back and relax. No, more than any other movie you see this year, SNAKES ON A PLANE derives it's appeal from audience participation. And lots of it. In fact, it DEMANDS it. If you don't scream at this movie, the snakes will kill you.

Let me give you an example: when I saw the film with my family at Union City, we were doing our part: booing at the villain, cheering when Samuel L. Jackson came on and kicked ass. When this guy, maybe in his 20's, I don't know, turns and says to us: "Can you quiet down? I'm trying to watch the movie!"

I only have one thing to say to that guy: What kind of a FUCKING IDIOT are you?!?

This is SNAKES ON A PLANE. If you need to hear the dialogue to figure out what's going on, then it's obvious that your parents dropped you once too many times.

And just in case you are still too dense to figure it out, let me explain the plot to you:

1. They put SNAKES ON A PLANE.
   
2. The people go crazy, because there are SNAKES ON A PLANE.
   
3. Samuel L. Jackson is a bad-ass motherfucker, and beats the crap out of the SNAKES ON A PLANE.
   
4. THE END

Now that I've ruined the plot for all three people who couldn't figure it out, let me give you some advice to maximize your SNAKES ON A PLANE EXPERIENCE:

#1 WATCH THE LATEST SHOW POSSIBLE IN A CITY OR COLLEGE TOWN. This will maximize the opportunity to you will be watching people who "get it."

#2 WHEN THE SNAKES APPEAR ON SCREEN, HISS AND, IF AVAILABLE, THROW RUBBER SNAKES IN THE AIR. You must give respect where respect is due.

#3 CHEER WHENEVER SAMUEL L. JACKSON APPEARS. You must give respect where respect is due.

#4 COUNTDOWN AS THE CLOCK WINDS DOWN TO ZERO. AND THEN SCREAM "SNAAAAAAKES!!!!"

You can find more ideas of what you can do here. Note that some ideas are better than others.

So has anyone else watched SNAKES ON A PLANE? Post your experiences here!!!

Bouncing Back

So it's been a week since the reading (and big thanks to everyone who came, by the way!), but since then, I haven't been myself lately. I think I overexerted myself the past month trying to get it off the ground, and now I'm left a little exhausted, a little lost, and to be honest, a little lonely.

I'm not sure what it is. It's not like I've been living as a hermit. My roommates have been the best, and I've been going out practically every week re-uniting with my college buds, the legendary SPFUN. By the way, if you want to see how much we've changed, here's a pic of most of SPFUN back when we were 1st years:


And this is SPFUN now:


Aren't we amazingly beautiful?

I received a lot of words of encouragement from my friends and family, as well as the attendees at the reading, but I still felt empty. I've still been frustrated on the production end. I was hoping to generate interest in a possible director or a producer, or a writer, basically someone I could share the work with. Someone who can inspire me and pick me up when I'm out. I try to get my mind back on the project, but the prospect of having to fight and claw to just get people somewhat interested in the script, let alone be willing to commit themselves to make this happen, is, well, intimidating. Thank God I can still pay the bills. I can only imagine how full-time artists get by.

I hate when I get like this, because then I start to feel guilty about feeling so helpless. People help people who help themselves. People are attracted to people who exude confidence. Sulking won't get anything done. Learn from your mistakes and move on.

So what face do you show? Do you show the happy one where everything is going as planned? The depressed face, hoping someone will give you sympathy? The frustrated one so people can see how passionate and important this project is to you? Or, as I've been doing the past week, the poker face, because you don't know how you should feel?

You prepare to get beat, expecting it, knowing that successful people fail all the time, that it's not a question of whether you get knocked down, but whether you get back up. But knowing the path and walking it are two different things. And just because you know the routine, it still takes a lot of guts and a lot of heart to bounce back.