You DO Owe Other People...

This one is surely going to be one of my most divisive pieces. Not everyone is going to like it, and some are even going to hate it. The current progressive world mantra is "I'm going to do whatever it takes to be happy, and I don't owe anybody else anything." That's simply not true. It's a wonderful thing that people are targeting healing, self-care, and happiness on their priority lists. Those things have often been on the back-burner for far too long. But there's a self-revolved narrative that sometimes goes along with this thought process that needs to be checked and dismantled.

People tend to see power and independence in the "I'm doing me, I don't have to answer to anyone" idea, but it can be quite the opposite. If you sign yourself up for a responsibility, a project, or a social gathering, then it is your duty to communicate when the terms of those things change. Meaning: if you are hired by somebody to do a job, and you no longer like the terms of that job, you are obligated to inform the employer that you no longer can/wish to do the job. The same goes for a date. If you're going out with friends to dinner, or meeting your latest Tinder match for drinks, you are obliged to communicate with them if you can't/don't want to go anymore. Once you've promised something, it becomes your responsibility to either cancel it timely, or see it through. Ghosting or flaking out or something isn't cute, it isn't woke, and it isn't something that other people should have to respect or get used to. It's irresponsible, childish, and potentially harmful. 

Give some forethought to the people who now have to make up for the work that you're missing. What about your friends, who may now think of you as too flighty to be around anymore? Or your poor match at the bar who's now stuck doubting themselves and wondering if you'll ever show up? You have the power to affect someone's mood, workload, or sense of self-worth. Your actions matter, and they carry the massive weight of responsibility. Dismissing your poor lack of commitment and immaturity as just a part of your personality isn't empowering. You aren't entitled to come and go as you please, without warning or regard. 

Now I know there are cases when entirely ghosting someone is important. If your partner is abusive and you need to flee to safety, do it hastily, and without warning. If you get sick or injured, then by all means, focus on your health before filling people in later. If someone you love is hurt, then be with them first before finding a moment to send your friends a text. I'm also not saying that canceling is bad. If you're tired or stressed and you realize that you can no longer handle whatever you've agreed to, then backing out is totally okay. There's maturity in that. I'm simply saying that you should have the courtesy to take ten seconds to inform the people that are relying on you of your change of heart. As long as the communication is prompt and honest, THEN you have the right to focus on whatever you choose. But you can never denigrate the other people in question that also have the right to communication, honesty, and closure. 

Human compassion is a two way contract. If we expect people to give us the space to choose, and to respect our decisions, then we must respect them enough to tell them when something in our lives has changed. Once the communication is there, everyone is free to live more openly and fill their schedules exactly the way they see fit. 

Run Free

The title of this brief piece is called "Run Free", and it may be a bit confusing. Once we hit the age of twenty-one (and for some of us, a lot younger), we're thrown into a world of responsibilities. A world where nothing is really free. Managing adulthood never goes away, and often becomes harder as we age. So if you think this blog is going to tell you to forget everything and go off wildly without a care in the world, you're wrong. 

A lot of the problems in our lives are solved by facing things. Admitting we were wrong. Starting over. Accepting a painful lesson. But the next actionable step in that learning and healing process, is to be free of it. To train ourselves to unlearn the things we've been told by the wrong influences. To let go of feeling not good enough, or not attractive enough, or not successful enough. To let go of thinking that the path we once thought was perfect, was the only way we could go. It's a hard notion, and a daily struggle, but it must be done, for the sake of your happiness. 

When we start to forgive ourselves and stop insulting ourselves, the weight of our anxiety can sometimes tumble right off of our chest. When we become truly happy with who we are, we will then attract other positive things and positive people into our orbit, which continues to reinforce all the good that's inside us. I'm not saying to be blameless or complacent, because honesty and self-work is another part of healing. But we have to accept that we can't have everything perfectly in the exact times and ways that we want them. That's not what life is.

Once we get over the things that we were wrong about and the things that we don't currently have, we can feel better with the freedom that we do have. The freedom to move on, and try new things, and connect with new people, and cultivate our relationships. The freedom to love yourself, and recognize your blessings. The freedom to run weightless into your next adventure and to know that life has taught you that you're going to be okay. You will make mistakes, you will doubt yourself, you will have bad days. But you will get through them. It's all going to be okay. Keep running. 

The Highs and Lows of the 48 Hour Film Project

Boiling down the 48 Hour Film Project to its simplest nature, it's one of the most challenging and most rewarding forms of art creation that you can do. For those that aren't indoctrinated already, the 48 Hour Film Project is a film-making contest. You pick a genre out of a hat (some simple and some sublime) at random, and then you have 48 hours to write, cast, shoot, edit, and submit your movie. You are given a character, a line of dialogue, and a prop that you must work into the film. Two weeks later, all the films are publicly screened, so that you and your tired-but-proud band of brothers and sisters can appreciate what you (and the other teams) made. I've done nine of these contests now (taking into account the 3K and Horror 48s), and while they're draining, they are fascinating in the processes themselves. So I wanted to take a look through drowsy eyes at what it's like to make one. 

The first step to any 48 is the preparation. Everyone prepares differently for this beast. I'm usually a writer for this competition, and I believe "the readiness is all", as Shakespeare said. So I go through the entire list of genres every year, and create potential skeleton stories of every possible pick. I don't do any writing beforehand obviously, but I just go through my stack of randomly jotted ideas so that I have general arcs to pitch, no matter what type of film we pull. The more ideas you have for stories, the easier the Friday portion is. In my mind, Fridays are for writing, Saturdays are for filming, and Saturday night/Sundays are for editing. So as the writer, you end up chugging Coke or Pepsi all night to stay up until the writer's room is happy with what you've written. Anyone that knows me as a writer, is well aware that my biggest challenge on this day is not to over-write. You have a 7 minute limit on these films, so my intricate backstories and dialogue heavy style have to be hacked down quite a bit from my normal fare. After staying up until 3AM to make sure the entire cast has their finished scripts, I lay down fruitlessly and toss around like a flapjack until I wake up at 7AM to start the long shoot day.

Everyone that films anything knows that Murphy's Law is in effect. "Anything that can go wrong, will." That macabre proclamation is turned up to ten during the 48. You are exhausted before you even start filming (as the writer), and your time constraints are always in the back of your cranium. People show up late, locations change, it's 147 degrees, and every plane and train in the Tri-State area decides that the perfect time to roll by is as soon as you yell "action" on every take. I'm usually the Assistant Director on whatever team I'm on during this day, and I sometimes act as well. So now it's time to channel your combined energy to get the most creative and stylistic shots as quickly as possible. You always like to shoot for the edit, or even drop your SD Card files into your computer during the shoot if you can. Anything to save stress and time on Sunday. Generally if you start filming by 9AM, you'd like to get done between 6PM and 8PM, hoping that your coverage is complete and your story is coherent. By this point, you feel like you've had four bottles of cheap tequila in what I like to call "film drunk". 

With my disabled body (I've got cerebral palsy, spinal stenosis, and three spinal fusions), I'm usually a useless pile of sweaty newspaper by the end of Saturday night. So while I can edit, I'm seeing three of every screen. So I go home, and my portion of the process is over. It's not so for the poor editors though, as they sit in a quiet room and piece together hours and hours of footage into seconds of transitions, while their helper throws granola bars at them and shakes them every half hour to make sure they're still awake. This is the point in the process where everyone who's not editing is either passed out for twelve hours, or feverishly wondering how the edit is coming along.

Then comes Sunday around 4PM. The announcements for teams turning their films in begin to be posted, and everyone else starts chomping off their fingernails. Four turns into five, and five turns into six. Rendering your film feels like waiting in line at the DMV. The "film drunk" haze wears off for a few minutes as everyone is glued to the group chat, anxiously awaiting that famous "the film is in on time" message. The "film drunk" doesn't really fade for a few days though. I'm writing this on Tuesday (three days after the process), and my sleep schedule is backwards and my ankles still feel like James Caan in Misery. But alas, the film is done and you and your crew have made a whole movie in one weekend!

Now I know I've had fun poking at the generalities and satirized the stereotypes of the negative side in this blog. But while a lot of those feelings are genuine, I want to end on the aspects that truly matter. You got down in the trenches with people you like, and you made something organic. You bonded together through discomfort and exhaustion and created something in three days that most people don't do in a lifetime. You were inspired by other creatives, and you probably made new connections for other work in the process. You accomplished something very difficult, and you overcame obstacles that probably made it seem impossible at times. Now you get to sit in a theater and watch your once-embryonic vision come to life on the big screen, and perhaps win awards for it. You get to appreciate the other teams' work and grow as an artist from their stories. You get lifelong memories and lessons that will help other films get made a lot easier in the future. 

THESE are the reasons why we do this. These challenges build us, shape us, improve us. You won't always remember that exact stress or tiredness, but you will always remember fighting to make a movie. In these scary days of 2021 that we live in, art matters now more than ever. Using your energy to create, and give back, and make statements, matters now more than ever. That, my brothers and sisters in art, is the 48 Hour Film Project. I hope I see you all at the next one.

Love Yourselves, and Each Other
-Jason Burke   

Focus On You

I'll say this right at the start, and it'll be one of the stronger statements that should be taken away from this blog: If everyone focused on being the best versions of themselves, most of the world's problems today wouldn't exist. 

Human nature seems to fall back into the form of looking outward instead of inward. What I mean by that, is that we all spend a lot of time looking around at what other people are doing. When we do that, we often lose sight of our own journey. But introspection, not comparison, is the key to a better life. So often, the mentality is "Why is this person doing this?" Or "I can't believe they made that choice!" But in reality, unless it's directly affecting you, does it really matter what someone else chooses to do?

I'm not saying to bury your head in the sand. It's important to be apprised of world events, and to keep a protective and courteous eye on the extremes of those around us. We must watch to see if anyone needs help, and we must make sure nobody is purposefully hurting someone else. But we tend to look down on others as a mechanism to prop up our own lives. But instead of using someone else's doldrums to make ourselves feel better, we should use this time to patch up our own pits of despair. 

By focusing on what those around us do, we're not only judging them (often times without knowing their full story), but also adding things to our crowded minds that don't need to be there. Free up space in your mental capacity and your emotions by discarding your over-investment in the wrong areas. Celebrities fighting on Twitter, someone's sexual/gender preferences, or a comment made on a podcast fifteen years ago don't concern you. Take this valuable time to surround yourself with the things and people that make you happy, and work on the things that make you sad. 

If every person had as much time and care invested in their own battles and renovations instead of their opinions of other people's inner demons, a lot of the conflicts (locally and abroad) would simply work themselves out. Continue to heal and live your life, better today than you were yesterday. Let your neighbor do the same. Focusing on you can make you feel a whole lot better about the blessings that you have. In doing so, you'll look at the world as a better place as well.   

If They Win, You Win

 So often, we hear the adage of "It's a dog eat dog world", and "survival of the fittest". Most of our families taught us to look out for ourselves because life is a competition and the world around us is up to no good. But why exactly is it like that to begin with? Because we make it that way. Not everything in life has to be a competition. More often than not, you and your fellow humans can all succeed. 

Being self-revolved is human nature, but it benefits us if we escape our own personal bubble. It's not just about our struggles and our achievements, because we don't live on this planet alone. When you're celebrating reaching your goals, you want others to appreciate what you've done. When you're mourning a loss, you want others to comfort you. But part of having a friend, is also being a friend. If you can do this for others, they will usually remember it, and do it for you when your time comes. 

People often see competition in places where it doesn't have to exist. How does it hurt you when someone else's art does well? How does it reflect badly on you when someone else raises funds for a project? It doesn't. In fact, it often helps you. Here's how...It gets more eyeballs on the region or the field that you're in. It motivates you to create more and step up your own quality. It galvanizes relationships when someone sees that you've taken the time to support them. And it's good for your own health and well being to know that you've done something to help someone. So it's a win all around. 

For example, I'm heavily involved in many artistic communities. I'm a filmmaker, author, YouTuber, blogger, and journalist. Does that mean I should only share my own work and shut out everyone else's? Of course not. By elevating others, you're not only spreading good messages and building deeper relationships, but also studying what makes others' work such high quality. Now I'm not saying you have to put yourself last, and I'm not saying there can't be a healthy competitive gene here. Sometimes it will be a competitive situation. If you win, wonderful! If you lose, you've got a great lesson and experience to build on, to work harder for next time.  

The more people that are watching the field you're in, the better it is for you. The more quality work and quality people coming out of your area, the better it is for your field. After all, it's all about spreading quality art and getting good work out to the masses. If their work happens to be more successful this time, so be it. Don't be bitter, be better. You can all win at the same time. Support your friends, spread the seeds of art, work harder together, and let's all grow as creators and humans. 

Love Yourselves, And Each Other
-Jason Burke

Train Your Brain

 

My brain always goes to the darkest conclusions first. I assume we're all guilty of that on occasion, but man, mine does it every time. Even on the smallest things. Let me give you an example. Last week, I opened my main door, looked outside, and saw that my garbage can was gone. I only have one garbage can, so I was instantly upset. What should've been a minor inconvenience turned into my inner-macabre being unleashed. Where was I going to put my garbage now? What if the neighborhood animals got into the bags and made a mess? Who would steal someone's garbage can?

I started wondering if my property wasn't safe anymore. I was going back into my security camera footage to find out who took it, but I couldn't place a culprit. Were people emerging in the middle of the night to steal my stuff? Was anything else missing? Was it someone I knew? As I started furiously logging into Amazon to buy a new can, my ride pulled up. When I went outside to leave, I saw my garbage can, twenty feet away. The wind had blown it down the steps and off the landing. 

This type of quick, dark, doom-thinking applies to me in many areas. How long will I have to wait for my rides? Am I going to be on the phone all day with the gas company for their billing error? I have a client deadline that I'll never make on time. We often sensationalize things to be worse than they are. Sometimes, that thing you've put off for six months actually only took ten minutes to do. Maybe that hangout that you had been dreading going to was actually quite fun. Maybe that billing error will end in your favor. But human nature says that we tend to bellyache over the simplest things, and allow our anxieties to make those molehills into mountains that cause us self-loathing.

We (myself included) need to work more to train our brains upon the potential positive outcomes. Sometimes, simply attacking things head on will save us time and heartache if we simply start doing them. So the next time that something relatively minor happens, pause. Breathe deeply. Take a second to assess and start gathering the information you need. Ask yourself how much time it'll take. Maybe it's only one night of your life. Maybe it's only ten minutes. Maybe you can knock out one piece at a time, making the task into easily attainable, smaller goals. Training our brains in this way will save us anxiety, and getting these tasks done will give us a sense of pride and accomplishment. Now I'm going to check on my garbage can.

Love yourselves, and each other,
Jason Burke

Pick Your Good Days

 Right now, it goes without saying that we're battling a lot of demons in the world around us. A lot of us have anxiety and depression that tug at us in the back of our minds/bodies on a daily basis. That's exacerbated during this pandemic era, as we are kept in the house, away from the friends and events that break up the monotony. We're politically divided, and our schedules can't flow the way they normally would with the virus still at large. So how do we manage our mental health against our panic and our stacking to-do lists? Quite simply, we have to pick our good days.

During this weird time in 2021, we're not going to be fully functional every day, and that's okay. Some days, getting out of bed will be enough. Other days, staying in bed to rest is the wise choice. And then on occasion, our hyper-productive instincts will kick in, catching up on our work and filling us with the energy to move mountains. The key to wading through that range of emotion is two-fold. You have to listen to what your body is telling you, and you have to be content with whatever your results are. 

They say you can't pour from an empty cup, meaning you can't give an energy and an effort that aren't there. Your health is the most important phase of your existence, and your productivity doesn't define who you are. We've talked in the past on this blog about setting small goals/lists for yourself and rewarding yourself for accomplishing tasks, so I won't go over those again. But I will say this: don't judge yourself for having a day/week where you don't "get anything done". Sometimes your top task isn't to progress your art or clean your house, sometimes it's simply to get your mind/body back to a rested and peaceful state. 

So pick your good days. When you're feeling clear, throw that pot of coffee on, turn that music up, and chip away at your list. When the world is getting you down, grab a pizza and binge some Netflix, but remain guilt free knowing that tomorrow is another chance to be productive. When you're mentally drained and physically hurt, grab a long bath and bury yourself in a fort of blankets. You're doing the world a favor by recharging yourself, because your friends and family need you to care for yourself so that you can care for them later. Trusting yourself without judging yourself is so important in today's world. 

I hope that today is one of your good days. And if it's not, maybe it will be tomorrow. 

Love,

Jason Burke