Dr. Me, Or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Unknown Future (2009)

Getting back into the blogging thing has been difficult. Another reminder of how arduous it can be as we get older to get back into the swing of things when we have been out of practice for a while. And this all relates to me slowly exercising my writing/creating muscles again.

The above title aptly summarizes my life right now. For whatever reason today, I started thinking about Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove”, had an “aha” moment and the title came forth. I’ve been thinking for months lately about my knee-jerk, almost self-sabotaging reactions when it’s revealed to me in a crystal clear way that my life is seriously about to change. I’m thinking most right now about February, when I found out that I was accepted into a PhD program in Anthropology. The woman who is now my advisor emailed me about my early admission with info about a Fellowship I would receive, and asked that I call her at home that weekend to discuss further.  Basically, in Academic terms, this woman handed me the keys to the city; an opportunity that many fight, scratch and bite over and would fly to the moon upon receiving such an amazing opportunity.

But what did I do and how did I feel? My stomach dropped to the floor and I instantly forwarded the letter to one of my best friends with the line, “We need to talk ASAP tonight! I’m freaking out and think this could be a mistake.” WTF you may ask? I had just started second-guessing the whole year process I had put myself through; GRE prep, taking the GRE twice, numerous grad applications and fellowships, requests for recommendations, writing 7 drafts of my Statement of Purpose and countless editing my 20 page writing sample. Was grad school really the right option for me? Did I really know what I was getting myself into applying for a DOCTORATE program when I initially started out looking for Master’s programs? A very smart acquaintance, who is getting his doctorate in Sociology and shares my interests in media and music, had nudged me the previous year along the PhD route.  I had called him freaking out that I was not finding programs that would let me combine creative practice and theory and his query, “What about PhD programs in Sociology or Anthropology” was the inciting moment that lead  me to where I found myself that February afternoon, 2009.

I was about 7 months in working at a film production company for a notable celebrity, and had finally felt like I’d landed the job I’d been searching for in film 4 years out of undergrad and working in various capacities in film and media. I had access to Hollywood, information and scripts that I hadn’t had before working mainly in the New York indie film world.  The problem was, after the initial euphoria of YES! A gnawing thought that I had been suppressing for about 2 years finally popped up and refused to go away. I had been saying since I was 18 that I wanted to work in film, and after internships and jobs, decided that writing and producing was what I liked most, and only wanted to direct if they were serious passion projects, like the documentary that I am working on now. But lo and behold, I’d finally gotten a front seat view to what working as producer in Hollywood looked like and I was not particularly thrilled by the view.

This was NOT what I was expecting and disconcerting on many levels. For many years, people knew me as a person who wanted to take the film world by storm, and here I was starting to question whether this life and industry thrilled me in the same that it had in years before. I found myself slowly easing out of my Quarter-Life crisis to landing in a spot where I had to re-think my career path.  And the feelings of unease and fear that engendered in me are a whole other conversation.  I felt insecure on many levels because I hate giving up on something, and not seeing things through from beginning to end. I was looking at the fact that I spent more time and energy working on other people’s projects than my own, which fed a vicious cycle of masochistic dialogues on how I was NOT an artist because what did I have to show that supported that statement? And wasn’t going to grad school for Cultural Anthropology going to be another distraction away from doing that which I needed to do?

From February-April, I was the definition of angst and self-made confusion. And I say self-made because the thing is, I was listening more to my head than to what my gut and my heart was telling me. And if I listened more to my intuition, I would have admitted much earlier that it was time to face the music and admit that the idea of JUST being a film producer depressed me and I was no longer passionate about that. Whether I’ve always been aware of it or not, I was raised and groomed to be curious about the world, my role in it, and to actively take part in shaping the world to fit my visions of what I’d like to see. And the truth was, working on projects for film and television was too small of a container to fit my ideas that at times seem too big and unattainable.

Yet, I was given an opportunity to see if I could indeed explore the places, people, things and idea that quicken my pulse and excite my mind. I’ve been shown these past months that I’m about to enter a program that will indeed, let me be both creative and theoretical. More importantly, I’ve been given the chance to work on anything and everything that I want to do, which is what I have been searching to do from the very beginning.

And I still stop in the street at times, in shock, that I almost said NO to that. Simply because it meant that I would have to alter the path I initially set out on, to disrupt my comfort zones and move to another city with few friends, and essentially, start from scratch again as I forge another path and another career that I still cannot tell you what it will look like. I’m not fully there yet, but each day I feel lighter as I accept that I don’t know what the future holds, and not only is that okay, it’s part of this adventure that I’m excited to take.

July 9, 2009 | Categories: 20s, Careers, Education, Life | Leave a comment