At the Cross Roads of Desire and Responsibility

In this following article by Andrew Morris, I think he discusses a dilemma and a feeling many of us solo internet creators have felt. Let us know what you think below in the comments! Thanks!

“Follow your dreams.” “You can accomplish anything you set your mind to.”

Now it’s your turn… What’s the number one cliche that you so desperately want to believe, but a series of life experiences has soured you to the real possibility of it being true?

For me, it’s as simple as fact vs. fiction. Real vs. make believe. I have those parts of myself that lie in the dark spaces of my mind, where light is only shown in spare time. Those fleeting moments that happen between all the action that makes up “real life.” The podcaster, the retro video game enthusiast, the wannnabe YouTube content creator. I like to believe that creating makes up a large part of who I am. Trouble is, I set out to accomplish one of these creative endeavors only to give up shortly thereafter because of the responsibilities that my day to day gig requires.

I tell myself, “Why mess around with caring if people hear that episode, they won’t listen anyway.” or “Why put yourself out there like that? You that hungry for attention?”
I know I have limited down time and I let these thoughts creep up to tell me that I am wasting it, participating in self created piddly activities that people of my age should be well beyond. So I quit. I leave what I started with such great intentions sitting idle while I let a large portion of what satisfies me creatively get shoved back in those dark cranial corners.

Have you ever opened up to someone about your challenges, whether it be at home or at work? Given them a glimpse into how you feel only to receive a reply that goes something like,
“Well, welcome to the world of ?” Or, “Get used to it, dude. That’s life.” 
It only takes hearing it a few times to start to question whether or not your effort towards your work and life is really adequate and measures up to that of your peers. 

Usually my conversations pertaining to my challenges in the work world spin themselves around my desire to explore what drives me internally in creative endeavors. When I hear these sentiments described above, it further draws the big bold black line between my “real life” and the make believe fantasy world I waste my time with. All of the above leads me to what ends up becoming my daily motor to get by: guilt.

I work in a service field. I care for children and their families. It is an immensely huge responsibility and I place a huge amount of pressure on myself to do what I can to make that proverbial difference each day. Why do I need more than that? Shouldn’t that satisfy me? Yes it should but here’s why it sometimes doesn’t: it’s gradual and you don’t always see the fruits of your labor ever, much less instantly. Sometimes the work I put in is the type that plants a small seed that may or may not grow later in life, or it may happen behind the closed doors of a child’s home. I feel this guilt because I know myself well enough to know that I’m the type of person who wants a pat on the back sometimes and that’s ridiculously selfish.

So why can’t my desires outside of work simply be my release for this pat on the back I so desire? I obsess over what I love in my free time to the point that I burn out and that is where the real sorrow sets in. I have interviewed some great guests on my old podcast and the immediate satisfaction from that work is incredible. Then comes the frustration that it isn’t immediately listened to by the entire western hemisphere. I spend day after day promoting the work on social media to the point that I get sick of it and just stop recording. I forget almost immediately how fulfilling it was to talk to someone I grew up watching on my television screen and focus entirely on the fact that the work was not adequately appreciated for my own needs. I take the enjoyment directly out of the enjoyable experience. I simply make my interests and hobbies a second job that I just cant emotionally sustain with work and family life.

As a side note I also obsess over weekends. I am so fortunate to have the weekend to spend with family each week. Sounds pretty good, right? Trouble is, I plan out my Friday and Saturday nights mentally ahead of time. I tell myself that I’m going to play a pre-determined game and watch a pre-determined movie. Then I’m frustrated when I never get to playing or watching them, or only get to one, essentially making my leisure activity a chore. Once the kids are in bed and the night is mine, life has other plans and I don’t adjust. I can’t just let the world come to me and relax. I only get a set amount of time and I MUST squeeze everything out of it I can before giving in to Sunday night and another workweek.

I am seeking focus in my life and the peace this focus will allow. I believe the peace I’m searching for lies at the cross roads of my desires and my responsibilities. I desire to have a blog/podcast/YouTube Channel that is viable in some way. I also have responsibilities to my job and my family. Fighting this feeling of guilt, for having the desires I have creatively, will hopefully allow me to settle into some of my hobbies for long enough to see them take root and grow over time. Possibly even without my worrying over why I’m not the next Internet sensation, then giving up completely. 

I know I’m not the only one out there who has these issues? Right? Right?!

Let’s let work be work and fun be fun. And when fun becomes work, work on it, and when work becomes fun, simmer in it while it lasts. Or try medication.

Andrew Morris is the host of the Idle Chatter podcast.

Follow him on Twitter

Broken Circle Breakdown

Belgians, Bluegrass, Beards, Tattoos, Child Cancer, Marriage, Death, Birth, Life, Sex, Religion, Science, Politics, America, Birds, Stars and Suicide. The Broken Circle Breakdown is about all this and more.
It's a phenomenal, brilliant, difficult, depressing, heart warming and joyously musical movie from Belgium by writer/director Felix Van Groeningen starring the supremely talented Johan Heldenbergh and Veerle Baetens. 
Johan Heldenbergh was also a co-writer of and performer in the original stage play The Broken Circle Breakdown Featuring the Cover-Ups of Alabama and even learned to play guitar, mandolin and banjo to perform the lead role of Didier who is fascinated by America and bluegrass music.

The film tells the tragic story of Didier, the bearded bluegrass fanatic and passionate atheist, Elise/Alabama the head strong, mysterious, confused, emotional, sexy and lost tattoo shop owner and Maybelle their doomed daughter.

The film chronicles their lives together, through the good and the bad, in a nonlinear narrative. The emotions involved and the relevant life moments, though, flow in a perfectly understandable and pleasing way. It's not unlike someone, sat round a table, telling you their life story. It wouldn't go from start to finish, there would be moments where they'd have to go back and fill in the blanks for you, that's the nature of this film.

The characters meet, fall in love, find joy, get pregnant, face that hurdle, have a child, suffer that child getting leukaemia and passing away and then the rest of the film shows how both Didier and Elise handle that while also taking time to cover the religious, spiritual, political and scientific ramifications of that. Didier is thrown more passionately into his steadfast belief in science and the political, religious fundamentalists who would block its exploration, while also desperately, emotionally and lovingly trying to keep his marriage and music together and Elise begins to find beauty and solace in notions of re-incarnation or the spiritual realm but also retreats from a situation she sees no remedy to and slowly, tragically abandons everything.

Interspersed through all this tough life stuff is some of the most exquisite live performance of bluegrass, country and Americana roots music by a brilliant team of bearded Belgians. It's one of the best movie soundtracks of this kind, in my humble opinion, this side of O Brother, Where Art Thou? 

The director, Felix Van Groeningen, explains the inclusion of the music this way:
"Didier and Elise play in a bluegrass band and that is no accident. Bluegrass is integrated in a variety of ways into the story and forms the intrinsic link between all the main issues that appear in the film"
"We have tried to let the songs find their spot in the scenario in a more organised manner and by doing so, give them the greatest possible dramatic impact. Sometime a song is purely narrative and helps to tell the story... In other places, we select a given song because it underpins the emotions."

The music, overseen and, very often, written originally by Bjorn Eriksson is most definitely the soul of this film and where it really hits its stride in terms of displaying truth, beauty and raw emotion. The whole film could've been dialogue free and told in just that incredible series of performances such is the skill of the actors and musicians. It helps immensely that the two leads perform the songs themselves and so can imbue them with the emotional journey their character is taking.
During the rendition of 'Will the Circle Be Unbroken' We see attraction, amazement and the first flickers of love in Elise's face from the audience.
During "Cowboy" Didier connects with Elise, shows off, struts, feels confident and she responds with excitement, awe and lust.
During "Boy Who Wouldn't Hoe Corn", shown in a fantastic montage that goes from Didier practicing in the caravan, passed a beautifully photographed, fireside hoedown and up to the point when Elise finally joins her man on stage, you see her blossom and Didier unable to believe his luck. You even see the band buoyed and pushed forward by the way everything is gelling.

The band performing "In the jungle" to a returning home but sick Maybelle is as joyous as it is heart wrenching.
Elise's solo performance of "Wayfaring Stranger" is so powerful and perfect that it doesn't really need the intercut images of poor Maybelle's fate, as everything is on Veerle Baetens' face and in the words of the song.
This continues throughout the film with everyone hitting the right facial expression, hand gesture, camera movement and edit so as to make the emotions utterly raw and believable in a way that only the combination of great direction, editing, performance, music and film can.
In what might be one of the most beautiful performances of the entire film, Elise joins Didier and the band on stage one last time to perform a duet version of "If I needed You". It is the point where everything shifts and the two lovers are moving apart, Didier reaching out and Elise retreating. It's so sad, awkward and stunningly simplistic that it tells you all you need to know about the character's hearts.

These musical interludes and their deep, clever, subtle storytelling are not, in any way, too obvious, mawkish, sentimental, over wrought or manipulative. They are woven so perfectly into the broken narrative that they enhance the journey you're on with the cast.
It helps, of course, that I am already a fan of this music and it helps too that the film is photographed, directed and edited in such a wonderful way as to make even the slightest nod of a head, or the move of a hand poetic and rich.
The colours, the grain, the lighting, the sound and the shots are so full of detail, texture, shadow as to both be seemingly realistic, you can feel the warm fire in a cold farm house, and utterly artistic, vibrant and clearly a movie.

Is it a tough watch, a tad depressing and definitely melodramatic? yes. It wasn't the love story I was expecting by a long shot but whereas other films I have seen are just relentlessly dreary, depressing, slow and devoid of ideas and emotions, Broken Circle Breakdown can be watched over and over again for the depth, detail, performances and ideology it has. Also it's not obvious, simplistic or manipulative of your emotions like a Hollywood film might be. 

I took from the film that life is meant to be held on to and fought for, not given up on or run away from and while finding solace in the religious or spiritual is all very well, there is more than enough beauty, mystery, music and reason to keep living, as much as you can, day by day, on earth, no matter how hard it gets. You never know, one day you might be surrounded by awesomely talented, bearded Belgians singing bluegrass... we can all dream, right?

The Broken Circle Breakdown Theatrical Opening Dates:
New York: Sunshine Cinema – opens November 1
Los Angeles: Nuart – opens November 8
Boston: Kendall Square - opens November 15
Washington: E Street - opens November 15
Philadelphia: Ritz Bourse - opens November 15
Irvine: University 6 - opens November 15
San Francisco: Clay Theater – opens November 22
Berekely: Shattuck 10 – opens November 22
San Diego: Ken Cinema – opens November 22
Dallas: Magnolia 5 – opens November 22
Atlanta: Midtown Art – opens December 6
Denver: Chez Artiste – opens December 6
Austin: Arbor 8 – opens December 6
Phoenix: Camelview – opens December 6
Portland: Regal Fox Tower – opens December 6
San Jose: Camera 3 Cinema – opens December 6
Fort Wayne: Cinema Center - opens December 6
Santa Fe: Jean Cocteau - opens December 6
Monterey: Osio Cinemas – opens December 6
Santa Cruz: The Nickelodeon – Opens December 6
Ft Worth: Modern Art Museum – opens December 20
Columbus: Gateway Film Center – opens January 17

Trailer:

The soundtrack can be streamed on Spotify HERE