Its bittersweet that I reach my six month sobriety milestone today.
Its bittersweet because I would love to drink myself into a stupor or pop a painkiller to mitigate the dolefulness of depression and the withdrawals of sobriety. It would be so easy to just give up— and the thoughts have always been there. I am diametrically both immensely proud of myself for making it to 181 days sober, and ashamed it took me until I was 33 to wake the fuck up.
But, I will not give in to what the addiction inside of me wants.
Thankfully, this year I have discovered that the way I feel about film goes so much deeper than an insidious habit. I don’t feel (too much) shame around my addiction when I am mindfully studying the fine art of film. Expression is nothing short of pure magic. To make a film is to conjure from within our most tremendous vulnerabilities and lighting them up for the entire world to see.
It has been such a challenge for me to remember that we are not alone in our shame. Everybody struggles in one respect or another. That’s why the inability to empathize isn’t a virtue. Yes, I feel as if my life has been on pause for more than a decade but, thanks to film, I am finding a way to press play.
The director Stanley Kubrick put it best when he said “The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile, but that it is indifferent, but if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.”
After all, filmmaking is nothing except searching for the right amount of light.
In the mood for movies 