Why I Do the Things I Do

If you asked me right now where I am in life, I would say I was in a happy place. I love my job as a chess instructor. Last week I started another part-time job teaching an ACT prep course, and had a great time. My living situation is beginning to gel. Overall, life is good. However, despite the good times, I feel like my life has lost some direction, if only because my initial purpose for staying in LA has taken a backseat. Of course, I am referring to my film project.

I remember just six months ago that the film was all I could talk about, and thankfully the effort paid off, because now my friends have been grilling me about the project's status. I receive an email every week or so from them, wondering where I am with this project, and I say I'm just putting the project on hold as soon as the other parts of my life get settled. But now that these other aspects are beginning to settle, I think about going back to my project, but these ugly emotions creep back into my psyche. I feel like I'm returning to this dark corner of my life, and I'm not ready to go back.

Realization comes with perspective, and it wasn't until I took myself away from my film that I saw the blanket of sadness and isolation with which I bundled myself. Why I would submit myself to such abuse seems ludicrous, until you consider my creative space. I wanted to convey this constant theme of coping with isolation; it was an important topic for many of my friends who had just graduated, and I was right there with them. You can only write what you know, and if I wanted to write a great story, I had to feel the story first.

However, in my efforts to "feel" a great story, the process had bled into the actual filmmaking process. I WAS alone, in all aspects. I had no writing partners. I was saving money on my own. I bought all the equipment. While I had received great advice from other filmmakers and actors, with a few of them becoming friends, the project was still mine ALONE. I was reinforcing the very demon that I myself was trying to escape.

So why was I making this stupid film in the first place? Was it to make a great film? Was it to contribute to the Pilipino community? Was it to etch my name into something permanent? I had to go back where it all started: 1996, my first high school play, a stage adaptation of George Orwell's "1984". It was then when I first fell in love with storytelling, and maybe I’d find clues to my motivations today.

I remember that year was also one of transition. It was the year my grandfather died, and I was still coping with his loss. I elected to change schools, hoping to start anew and learn more about Catholicism and my faith. I also needed a place to channel the emotions I couldn't express in public. After that first audition, I felt like I found my place.

But as with any affair, when the infatuation ends, love must take its place if the relationship is to survive. The respite from the burden of unexpressed emotion may have got me into acting, but it was a special group of friends that kept me there. While I had a deep respect for their passion for the performance, our friendship grew beyond the stage. We found that we spoke the same language of video games, cartoons, and cards. We laughed together, and they helped me loosen up when I needed it. Most importantly, we were all in the same boat together, weathering the turbulent waters of adolescence, navigating the currents of personal expectations, first relationships, and the quirks of the high school micro-society. I wasn't alone, and it made all the difference.

So what does this say about myself and my film project? Am I really the right man for this film? Have I just been going about this whole project all wrong? Am I really just looking for a group where I belong? I don't know what donating this long-winded essay to the mercies of cyberspace will accomplish, except for the slight possibility that I might realize that my feelings are not mine to bear alone.

Reflections on an Old 9-5

Earlier this afternoon, I was at my old employer's office. It was my first time there since I had resigned. I used to work at a bank, and I still had an account there and was depositing some checks. I saw some old colleagues of mine and we made some small talk. It had felt like years since I had left. And yet, nothing had changed.

It wasn't an easy decision to resign by any means. I had worked in the call center for about a year, and I had become good at my job. I was a top performer. I had the respect of my colleagues. I was already involved in the training of newcomers. The higher-ups were already looking to give me a promotion, and had I waited a few months I would've got one.

However, in spite of the bright future that my superiors were selling me, I was restless. You see, after three months in a call center, you're a veteran. Really, after three months, you've heard every type of call you would ever hear. And when you become a top performer, there's no where to go. But you know what happens when you stop growing. And I was far too young to stop growing at 24.

Now I didn't quit on them just yet. I tried to fight through the system and find my own niches to grow. I'd scan my emails every few minutes, hoping to find some opportunity to leave the phones. Want to help mentor a new hire? I'm on it. Rotation to a different department? I'm there. Leadership development workshop? Count me in. If they had offered a workshop on pottery, I would've taken it. Anything to get my mind off the phones.

But all the side projects ended up being temporary, and I always ended up back in my cubicle to take calls, so I had to help myself during those precious moments of silence between the next client and the last. I tested the limits of our web filter to find all the most amusing websites my company would allow us to browse. My early favorite was The Onion. When the filters finally caught up and blocked the site, I visited Morningstar, hoping to make a possible crossover into financial advising. Out of all websites, however, Wikipedia gave me the most solace. Where else could I refresh myself on both Star Trek and Star Wars universes, learn about the controversy over water fluoridation, and discover that Tom Cruise's birthname was Thomas Cruise Mapother IV?

Despite my efforts to amuse myself with diversions, I couldn't get over the feeling of being held back. My calling was not to answer phones. My calling involved educating, motivating, and inspiring. Just a year ago I was in college strategizing on how to secure funds for student retention and outreach, developing agendas for leadership development retreats, formulating suggestions for organizational restructuring, constructing and testing simple electrical circuits using resistors, capacitors, and diodes, directing and acting for a student-theatre company, and mentoring students on the opportunities both on-campus and beyond. Every hour of my day I was engaged, and I loved every moment. Now I was paid to disengage, and just be a working cog in the machine.

Now I understood that you had to put up with the entry-level BS a few years before a company started to give you more interesting work, but as the months passed, the price I was paying started to exceed any possible reward. I came home exhausted. Not like "sleepy" exhausted, but more like "don't-bother-me-couch-potato" exhausted. Maybe if I had an hour, even half-hour commute on the freeway this would have been understandable, but I lived two blocks away, and walked all of five minutes to and from work. I would come home so mentally brain-dead, I didn't even have enough imagination to work on my screenplay. My SCREENPLAY, my primary reason for living out here in LA, away from all my family. When you go home and you are too tired for your dreams to take flight, something is seriously wrong.

I remember vividly the day I decided to resign. I had applied to be a trainer, the one job I felt had the most potential and I could really shine. I made my presentation the day before and felt I did well. My supervisors called me in for the results. As you can guess, I didn't get the job. It wasn't so much their decision to reject me, per se; they chose an excellent candidate who would do the job well. It was their reasons for rejecting me that bothered me.

Here were there reasons in order:

#1 "We asked you to make two five-minute presentations, and you ran over time."
#2 "We were concerned about how you could positively spin a company policy with which a new hire disagreed."

I was dumbfounded. All this time, the one position I thought was about teaching and development, and the company's biggest concern was if I could stay on time and if I would sell the company line. No personal growth. No new ideas. Just follow the chain of command. It was that moment when I realized that it wasn't just the trainer position, but ALL roads within the company ultimately lead to those two requirements: be on time, and tow the company line.

Toward the end of the meeting, they told me how they still felt that I was special and that new leadership positions would become available and that I was sure to get one soon. I smiled politely and excused myself. I wasn't going to make the same mistake with my degree, and just stick with it in the hope things would get better. That night I drafted my resignation letter and submitted it the next day.

Now I don't regret for one second for working there, and many times I would think back and wonder if things could have been different. Maybe I could have bonded more with my supervisors. Maybe I could have gone part-time instead of quitting outright. I would have been much better of financially, kept my benefits, not have been as stressed during my period of unemployment. But back in that space again, I was reminded of what the company had expected of me, and what I expected of myself. And I realized I made the right decision. I needed a change of scenery.