Time for rebirth…Today is my 36th birthday. It’s also Jesus’ rebirthday. No, I’m not comparing myself to Jesus. And yes, I chose the picture because it’s so ridiculous.
I just love the idea of MEGAJESUS, looming over Earth like a hypoglycemic Galactus, pissed off at our stupidity and failure. He’s so angry, the back of his head has exploded outward, forming some awesome new nebula. The moon is this painting’s version of Jackie O., and it’s getting drenched in MegaJ’s cosmic brain splatter.
The tear rolling down The Boss’ cheek? That’s his burgeoning sense of retribution, the volume and pressure of which is so great it has begun leaking in liquid form from his improbably blue Jewish eye.
Just look at his brow. It’s telling you the entire story. That’s the brow of a man who is about to take a bite out of a planet.
But I digress…
I want to talk about endings and beginnings. Those of us who write are plagued and blessed at once by an overexposure to cycles. No, I don’t believe in reincarnation or the divinity of Jesus or some of the hippier notions about how we’re all one with Gaia, etc. I do, however, believe that all human experiences begin, then progress, and then end.
I’m a writer. I’m soaking in that. And because I write, I find myself constantly beginning stories, places, ideas, people, moments…then experiencing them progress…and then watching them end.
And when they end…they end as finally as anything can. I do not know what Keyser Soze did after he got into the car with his lawyer at the end of The Usual Suspects, and I’m pretty sure I never will.
Just like that….(poof)…he’s gone.
All this beginning and ending stuff can start playing with your head. Like mathematicians who started noticing small recursive fractals as compositional blocks of larger recursive fractals, you begin to see the cycles in your own life on multiple levels. There’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then there are multiyear arcs, like movements of a symphony.
Maybe you don’t see this, but I do.
Curiously, my cycles seem to take on four year spans.
I won’t bore you with childhood, but high school was an interesting four years. College…four years. After college, I spent four years trying to make my way toward something I could do as a career…a search for permanency, perhaps.
And I found it.
I spent the next four years establishing myself as a working screenwriter as well as a husband.
I spent the next four years establishing myself as a solo working screenwriter, as well as a father.
And I’ve spent these last four years establishing myself as a…for lack of a better phrase…successful screenwriter.
Ding! Four years are up.
And now?
Last week, I had lunch with a friend. Another writer. I look up to him in a very pure way; there’s no creepy jealousy or competitiveness or resentment to infect my relationship with him. I’m not particularly prone to those things, but I’m not inhuman either–I’m lucky that circumstances are such that I can admire someone as cleanly as I admire this guy.
By the way, he doesn’t blog or comment in here, so don’t bother guessing.
Hint…it’s not Josh Olson.
So anyway, we sat at lunch and this guy lectured me. He actually said, “I want to lecture you about something.” And then he did.
I just love the idea of MEGAJESUS, looming over Earth like a hypoglycemic Galactus, pissed off at our stupidity and failure. He’s so angry, the back of his head has exploded outward, forming some awesome new nebula. The moon is this painting’s version of Jackie O., and it’s getting drenched in MegaJ’s cosmic brain splatter.
The tear rolling down The Boss’ cheek? That’s his burgeoning sense of retribution, the volume and pressure of which is so great it has begun leaking in liquid form from his improbably blue Jewish eye.
Just look at his brow. It’s telling you the entire story. That’s the brow of a man who is about to take a bite out of a planet.
But I digress…
I want to talk about endings and beginnings. Those of us who write are plagued and blessed at once by an overexposure to cycles. No, I don’t believe in reincarnation or the divinity of Jesus or some of the hippier notions about how we’re all one with Gaia, etc. I do, however, believe that all human experiences begin, then progress, and then end.
I’m a writer. I’m soaking in that. And because I write, I find myself constantly beginning stories, places, ideas, people, moments…then experiencing them progress…and then watching them end.
And when they end…they end as finally as anything can. I do not know what Keyser Soze did after he got into the car with his lawyer at the end of The Usual Suspects, and I’m pretty sure I never will.
Just like that….(poof)…he’s gone.
All this beginning and ending stuff can start playing with your head. Like mathematicians who started noticing small recursive fractals as compositional blocks of larger recursive fractals, you begin to see the cycles in your own life on multiple levels. There’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then there are multiyear arcs, like movements of a symphony.
Maybe you don’t see this, but I do.
Curiously, my cycles seem to take on four year spans.
I won’t bore you with childhood, but high school was an interesting four years. College…four years. After college, I spent four years trying to make my way toward something I could do as a career…a search for permanency, perhaps.
And I found it.
I spent the next four years establishing myself as a working screenwriter as well as a husband.
I spent the next four years establishing myself as a solo working screenwriter, as well as a father.
And I’ve spent these last four years establishing myself as a…for lack of a better phrase…successful screenwriter.
Ding! Four years are up.
And now?
Last week, I had lunch with a friend. Another writer. I look up to him in a very pure way; there’s no creepy jealousy or competitiveness or resentment to infect my relationship with him. I’m not particularly prone to those things, but I’m not inhuman either–I’m lucky that circumstances are such that I can admire someone as cleanly as I admire this guy.
By the way, he doesn’t blog or comment in here, so don’t bother guessing.
Hint…it’s not Josh Olson.
So anyway, we sat at lunch and this guy lectured me. He actually said, “I want to lecture you about something.” And then he did.
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