To start on a positive note, I've regained the will to live. Yay! For a while there I was wondering if there really was any point to it all and then I finally found my 'point' (or at least the latest in a long series of various 'points' I have aggravated my friends and family with from becoming a civil engineer to joining the US army and becoming a doctor).
This latest idea is not a new one. I had it towards the end of my third year at uni. During that year I was meditating everyday and I had a pretty good handle on what I should pursue to make me happy, as well as what my natural skills were most suited towards. This idea ladies and gentlemen was to become a documentary film-maker.
After I finished uni, I meditated less because I was no longer as miserable and I had for some reason thought that I only need to meditate when I am miserable, as a coping method. But without meditation I lost touch of what I wanted most of all, or what would make me happiest and so because I knew nothing about making documentaries, because I knew no one in the field who could help me, because I didn't have any decent film-making equipment, and because my friends scoffed at the idea, I shelved that idea along with the others.
Here in China I toyed with going for a PhD in Anthropology, then Sociology. Then I stopped toying with any kind of future and tried to live in the 'present'. But because I wasn't meditating, this was pretty difficult to do. Eventually, I was inspired to start meditating again by a little comment I read on a Hindu chanting video that was posted on YouTube. 'No one can hurt you if your mind is trained'. I started remembering other reasons, besides getting you out of misery, that meditation could be useful and the fact that it strengthens the mind and allows you to become the master of yourself, was enough to get me back into it.
So, I was doing a few days of meditation when the idea to make documentary films resurfaced. This time, I didn't let the fact that I do not have very good equipment stop me. I found a stick that I picked up from under a tree (originally intended for unclogging my Chinese toilet when the poo just got too much) attached it to my little point-and-shoot (but indestructible - this thing can survive deserts, snow, water, being thrown off tall buildings...) camera with a number of elastic bands, and off I went. I was going to make a short documentary film, but I didn't know what it would be about. All I knew is that I would film interesting things and worry about putting it together later.
[I'd like to interrupt this riveting read with a small observation. When I have food ready to eat, I NEVER do anything that doesn't involve me directly eating said food. The fact that I am here on this computer, typing this blog post shows a marked change in my character of late. I have noticed that the intensity of my obsession with food is positively correlated with how miserable I am, so this lessening of food-obsession is happy days indeed.]
My travels took me to the 2 main areas in Jinan, Quancheng Square and Daming Lake. I got a few clips, strung them together in Windows Movie Maker, added the theme song from the Office and voilà. My second film was born (the first one I made when I lived in Egypt for 8 months. But sadly I think I lost that one. It's particularly sad because it had footage of my grandmother who passed away in February).
This latest idea is not a new one. I had it towards the end of my third year at uni. During that year I was meditating everyday and I had a pretty good handle on what I should pursue to make me happy, as well as what my natural skills were most suited towards. This idea ladies and gentlemen was to become a documentary film-maker.
After I finished uni, I meditated less because I was no longer as miserable and I had for some reason thought that I only need to meditate when I am miserable, as a coping method. But without meditation I lost touch of what I wanted most of all, or what would make me happiest and so because I knew nothing about making documentaries, because I knew no one in the field who could help me, because I didn't have any decent film-making equipment, and because my friends scoffed at the idea, I shelved that idea along with the others.
Here in China I toyed with going for a PhD in Anthropology, then Sociology. Then I stopped toying with any kind of future and tried to live in the 'present'. But because I wasn't meditating, this was pretty difficult to do. Eventually, I was inspired to start meditating again by a little comment I read on a Hindu chanting video that was posted on YouTube. 'No one can hurt you if your mind is trained'. I started remembering other reasons, besides getting you out of misery, that meditation could be useful and the fact that it strengthens the mind and allows you to become the master of yourself, was enough to get me back into it.
So, I was doing a few days of meditation when the idea to make documentary films resurfaced. This time, I didn't let the fact that I do not have very good equipment stop me. I found a stick that I picked up from under a tree (originally intended for unclogging my Chinese toilet when the poo just got too much) attached it to my little point-and-shoot (but indestructible - this thing can survive deserts, snow, water, being thrown off tall buildings...) camera with a number of elastic bands, and off I went. I was going to make a short documentary film, but I didn't know what it would be about. All I knew is that I would film interesting things and worry about putting it together later.
[I'd like to interrupt this riveting read with a small observation. When I have food ready to eat, I NEVER do anything that doesn't involve me directly eating said food. The fact that I am here on this computer, typing this blog post shows a marked change in my character of late. I have noticed that the intensity of my obsession with food is positively correlated with how miserable I am, so this lessening of food-obsession is happy days indeed.]
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| A woman selling dried flowers for making tea |
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| I am on the far left, dressed in a red coat and green trousers (not Santa Claus). Reminded me of standing in Times Square and being filmed on the big screen. |
My travels took me to the 2 main areas in Jinan, Quancheng Square and Daming Lake. I got a few clips, strung them together in Windows Movie Maker, added the theme song from the Office and voilà. My second film was born (the first one I made when I lived in Egypt for 8 months. But sadly I think I lost that one. It's particularly sad because it had footage of my grandmother who passed away in February).
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