What Kind of Person Are You?
Where I Am
I spend time holed up in my hotel room the night before I leave, editing the handful of interviews I obtained while in Los Angeles. Some of them I'll use, and some I won't. I can't figure out which are which, just yet. I look over my notes about each person as I watch, try to remember what it was like to see them in the flesh, and see if they reflect that back at me. It's a slow process, but not one I mind doing. I've always been patient, used to waiting for what I want.
You know, in all the time I've been doing this--meeting people, asking them about themselves, filming and editing--I've never stumbled across a concrete answer as to how people define who they are. And, really, I doubt I ever will.
Because, the more I ask and the more I see people identify an event in their lives that they believe most accurately illustrates what kind of person they are, the clearer it becomes that there is no common answer. There's no basic principle, or ideal, that people settle on.
The answers are as varied as grains of sand, and part of me thinks that's the way it should be. Finds the beauty in the differences, appreciates them.
Part of me is annoyed at how this makes it impossible to create a unifying theme. And, yet another part is laughing that I ever thought I would be able to, that I ever thought of people as less-complex than they are.
When I do complete this project, and submit it, I want it to be given the consideration it deserves. Because it's important to me, and I want it to be important to other people, too. I also want, in a small way, for it to make people leave the theater quiet, caught up in their thoughts of what kind of person they are, and what kind of person those strangers on the street are.
I doubt that will happen, though, and I doubt anyone will remember it for longer than it takes their eyes to adjust to the light. With all that goes on in people's lives, it wouldn't surprise me.
It may seem slightly cynical, but as I've said before: That's just the kind of person I am.
You know, in all the time I've been doing this--meeting people, asking them about themselves, filming and editing--I've never stumbled across a concrete answer as to how people define who they are. And, really, I doubt I ever will.
Because, the more I ask and the more I see people identify an event in their lives that they believe most accurately illustrates what kind of person they are, the clearer it becomes that there is no common answer. There's no basic principle, or ideal, that people settle on.
The answers are as varied as grains of sand, and part of me thinks that's the way it should be. Finds the beauty in the differences, appreciates them.
Part of me is annoyed at how this makes it impossible to create a unifying theme. And, yet another part is laughing that I ever thought I would be able to, that I ever thought of people as less-complex than they are.
When I do complete this project, and submit it, I want it to be given the consideration it deserves. Because it's important to me, and I want it to be important to other people, too. I also want, in a small way, for it to make people leave the theater quiet, caught up in their thoughts of what kind of person they are, and what kind of person those strangers on the street are.
I doubt that will happen, though, and I doubt anyone will remember it for longer than it takes their eyes to adjust to the light. With all that goes on in people's lives, it wouldn't surprise me.
It may seem slightly cynical, but as I've said before: That's just the kind of person I am.