How Do I keep Getting Myself Into These Messes?

A creative individual has no ethics when he first starts. He doesn’t judge or think or compare. He doesn’t know a good idea from a bad idea, a good opportunity from a bad opportunity, he just wants to express and utilise his creativity, he follows his naïve instincts of self-expression. Once he gets experience, he develops what could be known as ethics. He begins to implicitly know a good idea from a bad idea, he begins to know a good opportunity from a bad one. These experiences mould the creative individual into what is often referred to a professional. But maybe being a professional isn’t necessarily desirable. In becoming a professional what is often lost is that first flush of enthusiasm, that first flush of wanting to be part of something or create something greater than yourself, and its that enthusiasm that is the by-product of hunger and desire. When you’re new it’s that hunger that makes you take any idea, good or bad, any opportunity and want to do the best job you can possibly do, and you don’t handicap that enthusiasm by criticizing everything or anything before you begin. You just jump into it, because what else are you going to do?

It’s the professional attitude to say, “Look, it’s a job. Let’s just do it the best we can. It’s not a good idea, the budget is too small, we’re not getting paid enough, etc.” but the guy who is hungry, who has that desire, who has that enthusiasm, he says “No. No I’m going to do it! I’m going to do it better than anyone else would do it! I’m going to do it better than anyone else could do it!” and he’s the guy that wins, because his dream is stronger than just making a living. Maybe it’s not the greatest thing in the world, but the result is the best thing possible with what he had at his disposal at that point in time. If he jumps in enough times, he’ll get better and better at maximising those resources. It’s the guys who sit and wait around for the perfect “professional” conditions that go nowhere and say nothing.

This BLOG is indebted to John Cassavetes.

Anecdotes from the Debris

/Jeremy