I feel like...

...writing a blog about how I feel.

Which is not, typically, directly what I write about.

So probably, you should not read it. Probably it will bore you.

Probably, later, when I realize that I've been more self-disclosive, or simply too rambly, I will regret this post and remove it. So -- probably, if you want to read a blog which will very probably be ephemeral -- you should check this blog out.

So I'm at this academic conference where people are making all kinds of short films: documentaries, narrative films, experimental films, animation...

Good stuff. Stuff I like. Stuff which may or may not get seen by anyone except the classes at the particular film school where the film got made and here at this conference which is full of films that will not get seen by enough people.

A year ago, half a year ago, something like that, I sort of said: You know what, self? You're probably not going to have a second career in Hollywood...and maybe that's okay. Given what careers in Hollywood typically look like and what a purist you are about the kinds of stories you would not like to tell: A hollywood career would probably not be the place for you.

Besides, self, you have a good career that allows you to make little films for small audiences and even spend some of your professional energies developing creative projects. You should *embrace* the goodness of that opportunity.

And I'm trying to do that -- but there's another part of me -- a complex part that's motivated by ugly ambition, an evangelical / missional zeal and a profound discontent with the way-things-are...

that makes me want to spend my life energies making change. doing something to make the world really significantly better.

My friend Matt says that its the profound desire to MATTER.

And as I moved through graduate school people kept affirming my academic writing saying that I'd make a great academician.

But three parts of me felt ambivalent about such praise.

PART ONE: The preachers kid who won Preacher Boy Contests who had his hand pumped incessantly in the church foyers by goodhearted wellwishers who praised him saying: “I just know you’re going to be a good preacher, just like your daddy. “

PART TWO: I secretly still wanted to make movies or write books or something…

PART THREE: I had a deeply rooted and abiding suspicion in the frequent isolation of academic discourse from real pragmatic issues…and thus, felt ambivalent about how much I wanted to commit my life to gaining the STATUS and SOLIDARITY needed in the discourse – world of Academic Writing.

So…I decided I’d give myself a few years to see if I could gain sufficient VOCABULARY and VOICE in some creative writing venues and make a difference / matter by doing that work.

I (capriciously) set a deadline of 35 years old to have achieved said mastery and after that, I said, I’d try to employ other gifts. Ones that had been affirmed by people in the worlds I live in. And see if I could still make a difference or matter in Academic Circles.

So I’ve been feeling like I could back away from that dichotomous thinking (lately) by embracing BOTH my academic career *&* creative work completed on a smaller scale for smaller intended audiences.

So then when today I was struck by the relative isolation of this audience….of these films…I had this flood of conflictual emotions again.

My friend Jay suggests that American Higher Education and especially evangelical schools are too influenced by the Missionary Impulse. (You know – one way to quantify how you matter is by holding up the pelts / souls that you’ve managed to collect during your tour of duty -- )

And so I feel…a little confused.

I suspect that such liminal speculation by a man in his mid-thirties – and entrenched in multiple institutions is a little – well, boring.

And I’m absolutely certain that such public navel gazing by a man at any age is – well, dull. So I’m off to fraternize at the Toledo Zoo with filmmakers from all around the country…maybe I’ll bump into someone with some big answers there…

Peace~