Lets see if we can get to the bottom of why that is:
Productiveness
So! My short by the way, is coming along nicely. I'm currently doing backgrounds for all my shots. I'm taking the exact streets I walked through over and over again in the Lower East Side in New York and throwing them in the short. "Danny can we see pictures?" - Lol... good try.
I'm behind schedule right now but I'm always behind schedule. Here's something I wrote in my first week in New York about being behind schedule;
"..I've met some awesome people and I'm staying in the moment. Even if productivity is slower than I'd like, who cares. I'm in New York.."
Up to that point, the only productive thing I had done was pack my one suitcase and buy that one-way ticket out of California. I had told everyone I'm going to start working on my short. Isn't that such a cliche; "the artist procrastinates." I have my own theories about why that happens but I'll save that for later. I remember back to a time I would looove to blame everything else for my situation and unproductiveness. And it's all in-between the lines where you find the excuses. For example check out What I wrote when I first got to New York.
"Why does wine make me feel safe. Why does a drink make me feel so invincible. A shot or a sip gives me confidence... I need to shake this or embrace this." - New York 2016
Even then I was already starting to become aware of one truth that no one can ever teach you. It's something you have to realize on your own. What ever it may be that you want to blame: Fun, Friends, drinks, money problems, a busy job you hate, a shitty relationship.. Those things aren't your problem. Your predicament isn't your problem. I'll tell you what your problem is: Your problem is your attitude and how you look/think about those things.
To the self destructive procrastinator like me,:you don't know it, but you have a problem that's main symptom is that it convinces you that you 'don't have a problem.' It makes you think everyone else who has real problems are the ones that need help. The drinker, the sex addict, the druggie, the lazy person, The video gamer, the obese, the Netflix binge-watcher, all of them! Sure you are all those things too, but you do them successfully, right? ...because it's not a problem for you, right? You're fine :) Pop some ecstasy, drink a shit ton of water, make out with a few people and do a walk of shame on a sunny Sunday morning with the Los Angeles skyline in the distance. And boom, you're fine after an IN-and OUT burger and ready to run errands like any other perfect citizen. Oh and god forbid any one points out your problems! So as evidence that you can 'handle yourself better than the others', you point to all you have accomplished in life to prove your point. This is how you get addicted to the mindset, not necessarily the specific things you do.
Talk about a closed mind! I'm better now but FUCK did I have to go a long way. I thought my source of my problems was my location. So I traveled a lot but just like your shadow, this is something you can't shake. This stays with you where ever you go. You can't run away from yourself. I figured that out in Australia.
Man this sounds preachy. How lame hahaha.
Any way there's this dude called Brandon Novak. He explains all this much better than me but that's because he hit rockbottom way harder than most of us ever will. He inspired me to write this post. I'll end it with a Novak Quote
“I was a dreamseller, a medium through which my loved ones could project what they wanted to believe, what they dared to dream—that I would be well. I sold them a dream, something that never existed in the first place, their own idealistic vision of me.”
― Brandon Novak, Dreamseller
