Indulgence

apprehensions of a fall...

Tom Clancy
The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

For some strange reason, despite it being the eleventh hour (again!) and we are all at the end of our ropes; the TXTube team manages to pull off another miracle shoot for our reality segment. Maybe that is why they haven't hired more people. Why get more people if the 5 of us can do the work and put out episode after episode...

I don't get it it, really. I remember this line from Thelma and Louise; it went something like this they are either really smart or really lucky, but brains can only take you so far and luck always runs out. It's bound to happen and I wonder if we will be ready for it. Can we handle failure after having been able to pull through for 6 months?

I can handle rejection. This afternoon, I was once again not chosen for another commercial. This time, it wasn't that I didn't have the look they were looking for, this time, it's just that the others were better. It was an acting thing.

I remember my first taste of rejection. I must've been 12 or 13 and I approached my Dad with 9 pieces of paper, each containing what I had thought were poems. I had just written an essay which my parents both thought was very well written. I was trying to see if I could make a repeat performance. My Dad put down his book when I showed them to him and he read them. He took his time with each one. Then he asked me, do you have this saved in a diskette? I nodded yes. He then proceeded to tear each page apart. They're cat farts, he told me. He showed me the one line, the one verse in the whole collection which was poetic and the rest he said were amateur and pedestrian.

Stick first with the essay, he told me.

A lot of people marvelled at that story and asked me if I thought it was cruel. It probably was but after that point, I can take rejection. What I liked about the situation was that he treated me like a professional, like I was capable of better. He didn't baby me. At 12 or 13, I was already taught to be the best I could be. He told me to read more poetry (not Hallmark cards) and to try and understand what is the difference between poetry and prose. He gave me specific instructions not to return with one rhymes and the other doesn't. At 12 or 13, I was taught the important lesson of standards.

I guess, after that, I could handle rejection from all things. I won't deny the fact that it hurts, it always does. You really have to learn to not take it personally. It's not you they are rejecting but the work. It has nothing to do with you. I learned that after time, studying creative writing in college. It's not you, but the work, the creative idea. And yes, you may have poured your whole heart into it but there has to be a balance between feeling and thinking in the creation of art. Feel all you want and let it all out; then let the mind remove what is unnecessary. Let the mind remove what is not art.

Yes, rejection hurts. Especially if it involves the sordid topic of love; yeah, rejection is a bitch. But it's not you, it's the situation or the match. Hey, who knows? Maybe it is you that is being rejected but it doesn't matter. If I learned anything about standards in college taking up creative writing -- everyone follows their own standard. What is good for you may not be good enough for him/her. I'm not sweating over it. No point. I can't change what he/she thinks or feels. A person's standards are the summation of all their experiences, of what they know of what is right and wrong, beautiful and ugly, valuable and worthless. They may not like me, but it doesn't mean I'm ugly or worthless or wrong. It just means they don't think so.

So if it happens and the TXTube fails for the first time; then it happens. I pick up the pieces and move on. Learn and fight for what is right. We could probably do this for another 2 months, maybe even 3. It's a pretty amazing team.

But it won't be any sort of defeat on my part, at least, that's how I think. It's not a rejection of the work, it's a symptom of their inability to provide us with what we need -- a bigger budget and a larger crew. At this point, we are bound to fail and if we fall, we will fall hard. But that is what happens. All things run out of steam and burn out.

I'll just be glad to know that I ran out and didn't leave with some fire left. I am giving it my all. And that's more than anyone can ever expect from me.

posted by wanggo @ 12:04 AM