Behold, Strength in Vulnerability

I finally quit my job. My last day is this Friday. It feels good to know I'm leaving. But what's next?

I am going to try and be brutal now. Brutal about the state of things. Our generation, the people who read this blog, the people who have blogs at all, I think generally we are lost. Or, in limbo? We are transfixed between what was and what might be. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? It isn't just me. And, to be honest, it isn't just you. But maybe it isn't you at all. But if it is you, if you feel like you are moving in all directions and yet moving in no direction, then know that you are not alone.

I hear it in songs. John Mayer sings: "I wonder sometimes about the outcome of a still verdictless life. Am I living it right?" Snow Patrol sings: "With a name I've never chosen, I can make my first steps as a child of 25." And there's more I can't pull off the top of my head. I'm seeing it in movies now. Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, while not an Oscar winner, is about two college graduates, not about two college seniors. There's a new movie called Waiting, about a bunch of people stuck in a TGIFridays type place, waiting to move on. We can all feel the shift, because it's tugging at our hearts. A mass migration of the young sliding around on the ice, trying to find solid ground.

But look, we've got to help each other. We've got to shout down the naysayer inside us and realize that those dreams we keep under a bushel are possible. More than that, they are within our grasp. We need to plunge. I envy the people who have a track they're following. I envy those who have jobs they love and are already independent, married, satisfied. But that's not me. I'm stuck on the ice, I'm sliding around.

But no one is going to help us. We have to help ourselves. We have to help each other. I have some of the wisest, funniest, and coolest people I've ever met within a phone call or an email. We want to stop AIDS, we want to end poverty, we want to shine justice in the darkness, we want to make magazines, and movies, and write books, and draw art, and teach, and protect the unprotected, and love the unloved. We want to make people listen. Alone, we are a breath in the wind. But together we are a hurricane of force. This dream is real.

Can I tell you my secret? I will trust you. I am telling you now. This is my deeper heart: I want a website that can be a center for short films and skits, both by myself and submitted by people I know and people I don't know. I want a website where ideas can be shared and developed and people can respond. I want to make my own short skits that are funny or ridiculous, or, if I ever find the audacity, skits that are dramatic. I want this because I want to find out if I'm funny enough, and creative enough. And if I'm not... well, I guess we'll see. But if I am, then how much better to have touched what I wasn't sure was there to begin with. I even have an idea for a name and a logo. Isn't that insane? It has been brewing for quite a while, but I am afraid to let things out.

That was hard. Ok, I'll make a deal with you guys. If I ask, will you help me? And I'll do the same for you. If any of my skills can help realize your dream, then they are yours. If you need someone to give a 10 minute review of the history of French Revolutions, I can do that. If you need someone to advise you on which mutant power to have if given the choice, I have studied. And I can do a pretty mean T-Rex.