Disinhibition is a long road

For me, at least.

I was pondering my efforts to become less inhibited today. I know that I have a really big personality ready to burst forth and amaze the world, but lacking any true capacity for transcendence via transformation, it has to be this slow geological process that only seems transformational at the very end, when the volcano finally erupts and adds a layer of magma to the island.

Or in my case, removes one. This is most definitely a subtractive process.

One of my problems is that I am just too focused on results, or at least, the results I imagine are happening. I am too worried about whether something will “work” or not, like a true pragmatist, and that makes me far too focused on controlling outcomes. And there is only so much control anyone can exert in this world.

Less pragmatic people get, ironically, better results because they are capable of faith. Faith in themselves, faith in the world, faith that everything will be okay. They believe in themselves by default, and they resist change in their positive self-image. It takes significant evidence to get them to change that positive self regard. And that skepticism about negative ego input keeps their self worth stable, instead of the wild variance experienced by people like me.

I’m not talking narcissism here. That would be the equal and opposite error to what I have. I am simply talking about a positive self-image that is a priori to any need for additional evidence.

Those of us with unstable self-worth are the ones who end up needing constant reassurance and validation in order to keep their ego afloat. Positive self-worth has a very short half-life in people like me, and that’s why we end up in careers in the entertainment industry.

If we didn’t hate ourselves, we’d be happy with a normal life.

So ironically, in order to meet my outrageous ego needs, I need to be more confident in myself…. which is the problem I am trying to solve in the first place. Just goes to show that seeking validation outside yourself can only take you so far. You have to be willing to give yourself credit before you’ve earned it, kind of like using your credit card to buy higher self-esteem.

Richer people do that with shopping, I suppose. I can’t afford such shallowness! Sigh.

I suppose it’s this need for external validation that give people something to prove. We might tell ourselves we’re out to prove ourselves to the world, and that’s true as far as it goes. But the real deep truth is that we are looking to prove ourselves to ourselves. To generate the evidence we need before we can give ourselves permission to accept ourselves as valid and worthy.

But if you don’t already believe in yourself, where are you going to get the energy and drive to go out there and get that evidence?

But I am beginning to repeat myself. Moving on now.

Today was an average day in school. Got my first draft of my short film script evaluated for formatting. I have a bunch of adjustments to make, but they are mostly minor. For the most part, it’s fine. And the prof gave me a 90 percent on it. So, that’s pretty good.

One of the benefits of tending to write mostly in conversations, I guess. I am a talky writer. I am going to work on that, though. Not so much in the sense of reducing the verbosity (although I will be doing that too) but in adding more visual content. I don’t naturally think in terms of the visual, but that’s going to be kind of important if you want to write for television, a visual medium. You can probably get away with more non-visual thinking in TV than in film, but I am still going to need to learn to describe things so that the people in other departments know WTF I’m on about.

Anyhow, here’s a link to a PDF of the latest version of my short script, entitled Waking the Demon.

Waking the Demon

As you can see, it’s basically a skit. And it takes the form of a long conversation between two characters. Looking back on my novels and short stories, a lot of them are mostly conversations as well. I don’t consider that to be a damning problem because a lot of great writers have written that way as well. You just don’t notice because a lot is going on in those conversations. It’s not just idle chatter or abstruse philosophical ramblings or whatever. Plot, exposition, character, and even setting can all be conveyed in conversations.

But people still need something to look at!

Right now, the thing could be done as a one act play. Costume and makeup might be a bit tricky, but still. So part of creating my second draft (due Wednesday) will be to add more action. As my prof said today, what are the characters doing while they have this conversation? Surely they are not just standing there stock still while they converse.

So basically, I have to give the actors some business. At the very least, it will make the whole thing read better because it will break up the blocks of conversation. And the actors are free to completely ignore anything I put in there.

I should put that in writing somehow.

So yeah. Add action, try to condense the dialogue, murder some darlings. I was wondering what to do to truly make it a second draft, and having the verbosity of the script mentioned was just the nudge I needed to get me over the cognitive threshold so I could see what needed to be done.

Sometimes, all you need is someone to break things down into smaller pieces for you.

I hope you find the skit slash short film funny. That was the idea. And I feel like it’s very “me” to have given it a happy feel-good ending.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

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