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.