Comes a point when you realize no one gives a crap about you. Outside your own circle I mean, outside your family. In the big bad world, no one gives a crap.
Everyone else is the star of their own movie, and you're just a supporting character, an extra, background. To that end, no one is ever going to step out of their spotlight to help you, to offer advice, to standby and watch you step into their spotlight. Some people will even go to great lengths to stop you from advancing, for fear you might take that spotlight away from them.
The only way to move forward in life is to take control of your own fate. There is no "What will be will be" no "if it was meant to be it will be". I don't believe that, I believe if you want something, you go after it, you choose. You don't wait for a bunch of random, seemingly connected events to maybe fall in the right order, and if they don't then... "Oh well, guess it wasn't meant to be."
A phrase I've heard a lot since coming to America, one I never heard back in Ireland, is: "It is what it is". I heard it the first time in Indianapolis while working nights. My manager would say it all the time. Every time we would get screwed with a ridiculous amount of work. When the bosses were taking on way more commitment than we could handle. Rather than stand up to it, argue against, ask for help or more workers, it was just a shrug and "It is what it is". And I've heard it everywhere since. I hear it at work, at the end of a 14 hour day, "It is what it is!"
I mentioned this to a co-worker the other day, he ask what the Irish equivalent was? I thought for a second, and the only thing I could think of was: "Would you ever Fuck Off!" You see, back home we never took it lying down. We would argue, fuss and fight, we moan, we complain, we plot revenge against the manager who made us work 20 minutes over our scheduled time... be we never shrug and say "It is what it is".
It's an acceptance of fate and station that hands over the control of your life to someone else, someone who doesn't give a crap about you, someone who's the star of their own show, where you're just an extra, background, nameless.
It's a new concept to me, and the reason I've always done my own thing, in film, in work, why I tried to build something back in Ireland. Wether it be to make films, hold screenings or exhibition, why I tried to create community programs.
But when it wasn't working there, I immigrated, and it when it wasn't working where we first landed, why we moved across the country again. And it's why I will go on to make my next film against all odds. Even though I work a demanding full time job, as my wife does, while we look after the kids, pay our rent and bills and loans and credit cards and car payments, just like everyone else, seemingly with no extra time at all. We will do it, my wife and I, because it is not what it is, it is what you make it.
Do not hand over control of your destiny to someone else, someone who doesn't even see you, with a shrug of your shoulders and "It is what it is", that phrase are the handcuffs that chain to the gate, while everyone else passes through.
