Weird thing : turns out they had planned to shoot tomorrow, Tuesday, before I got the good script in. Makes me wonder if they were going to shoot the bad one, the one that was way too wordy and repeated itself and basically sucked so bad it put me into a depression for like ten days.

Or at least, that’s how I saw it.

Now about that shooting of things tomorrow : I only found out about it recently, and I am trying as hard as I can to convince myself to go. I am still kicking myself for throwing a hissy fit and skipping the filming of the short move my group did in VFS.

And I know damned well that the most important kind of credit is one that include on set time. The industry needs to know that you can be on set without freaking out or getting in everyone’s way or otherwise being a detriment to the operation.

So I have to go. But its a struggle to convince myself to do it. To talk myself into it. My gut level response to something with so many unknowns – including this all taking place in a restaurant I have never been to that serves a cuisine with which I am not familiar.

This is the place : Hapag Ihaw Ihaw. 

Even the name intimidates me.

And the thing is, I know that I am not needed there. Well, not in my official capacity as a writer. Sometimes writers are on set for quick rewrites and things, but that can be done over the phone or the Net without having to force us introverted writer types to be on a set which is loud and chaotic and full of novel social situations and bright lighting.

But I am getting the feeling that my official job of writer is not going to be needed much. So I am angling to be a producer and director as well. In fact, I want my job title to be Creative Producer. It captures what I want my role to me : someone who oversees the creative side of things and keeps the big picture in mind so that others can concentrate on their individual jobs.

And, ya know, makes sure things are done right.

I have trust and control issues.

So what I want to do tomorrow, once I convince myself to go, is to meet everyone, be pleasant and helpful, look for little jobs I can do, and generally broadcast what an asset I am to have around.

I am dying to see what it’s like when people who know what they are doing are doing things. I have yet to be in such an environment. Seeing that magic coming together, in all its chaotic and crazy splendor, will make it worth the trip even if I end up just sitting by the sidelines while more competent people get shit done.

My paranoia is that I will once more find myself sidelines and slowly pushed out because people just don’t want to deal with me. Nobody actually makes the decision, because that would mean admitting to themselves what they are doing instead of maintaining plausible deniability and letting the herd take the blame.

To some, that would sound like raving paranoia brought on by depression. But this has happened to me many times in my life. I try my best to fit in and get along, and be nice and funny and pleasant to be around, but the body social rejects and ejects me nevertheless and I end up feeling highly unwelcome and then, because I am all about making things easier for other people, I throw myself out.

I am not of the body. And I never will be.

Oh well, Worst case scenario, I just end up inventing my own job and going my own thang. Perhaps that’s what hardcore individualists like me have to do. People who insist on being themselves no matter what. People who refuse to change themselves just because the pack mind says so.  People who are themselves first and everything else second. People who refuse to compromise themselves.

Assholes, basically. Socially maladjusted misfits who somehow never learned that everyone has to give in to fit in, at least a little, and that fitting in brings a plethora of benefits invisible to the uncompromising ego.

Feeling like you belong, for one. Like you are part of something. That it doesn’t have to be you against the world in a battle to define yourself. Feeling safe because you have people who will go to bat for you when the time comes. Feeling comforted by the closeness of others, especially on the emotional level. Feeling warm because you are on the inside now instead of always being on the outside looking in.

In other words,. not being insane.

But oh, it’s so much better to be mentally ill, miserable, and “free”. Everyone should envy how much autonomy I have. After all, I am living a life according to the very individualist principles on which democracies are founded!

That must be why I get so much respect and why all the chicks (with dicks) dig me

Oh well, part two : the wellening. It’s people like me who create things which are truly fresh and unique. The things that change the landscape of art by breaking new ground. And why? Because they are so incredibly themselves.

At some point, though, I am going to have to figures out a compromise between my unrelenting need to be myself and actually being able to be close with people.

Aren’t the comforts of normalcy worth a little compromise of self?

Would it really be so bad to let my identity dissolve into a group now and then?

Billions do it every day and they don’t feel like they have been fatally compromised. They don’t feel like to let that happen would be the equivalent of death because this super stubborn self is the only one they have ever known. They don’t feel ice-cold apprehension and red-hot panic battling it out in a cage made of claustrophobia taken to an existential level when they even THINK of being part of a group identity.

I am one deeply broken unit.

Luckily, that leads to great art.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.