I'm asking all of you who already get it to please indulge me continuing to try to be clear for those who don't. Because it seems a lot of people who profess to hate me read what I write.. They really don't or they wouldn't be so attracted. There's something here for them and I know that that very statement makes them cringe and they would point to it as the quintessential reason why they think they hate me. But I don't care. I was and am sometimes still them and what can I say, I'd don't quit.
But I promise to mix it up a bit more after this writing. I promise. So just hang in for one more day and then I'll feed all of you who have been nodding your heads going, "I know, I know. Come on E, let's get back to it." But this is important and I know you know that.
And for all of you concerned about me, know that I really, really mean what I write and I am grateful for all the weather in my life. I truly thank God for everything that happens regardless of appearances and know that pain is the touchstone to spiritual growth and ultimate happiness.
I often feel most comfortable it seems heading the opposite direction than the many. When I was on the 8th floor of the St. James Hotel in LA on Martin Luther King Day when the earthquake hit and most were heading down the stairs, I went up. My friend Donny was on the 10th floor and I needed to make sure he was okay.
I didn't consider my act. It wasn't a thought process. It was just instinct. It wasn't until we were both safely on the ground and he remarked how odd it was to see me coming up the stairs to find him when everyone else was rushing down that it occurred to me I had done something most hadn't.
I'm sure most of them, had they had a friend above them, would have gone up as well. I don't think I'm very unique in that regard.
I really don't think I'm very unique in any regard. I don't consider myself. I don't consider my actions. I just exist. I just do. I mean I consider what to eat and when to eat. Who to call, who not to call. Obvious necessary life choices I consider. But my writing, my movies. Never. I just behave.
As I've said many times before, I do consider being kind instead of mean. Generous instead of selfish. I have to since my predisposition is to be mean and selfish many times and I don't want to act out on those impulses. So by constantly considering the choice before me, I can chose generous and kind. If I just existed I would be mean and selfish way more of the time.
I really am grateful for this latest storm. It is crystallizing so clearly the absolute truth of the concept of emptiness.
Half the letters I have gotten my whole career but especially these last weeks have been intense love letters. Not in a romantic way but a deeply human way. They all say the same thing. They thank me for being honest and bearing my soul, bearing myself, good and bad, pretty and ugly, successful and failing. They applaud my bravery and selflessness and lack of ego. They say because of me being myself in my work, I inspire them to be more themselves. A lover of people. I'm hot, sexy, cute, real, open, and generous.
The other half of the letters say I am completely disillusioned and blinded as to my true character. A hater. A misogynist. Untalented. A narcissist. The biggest egomaniac on earth. Full of myself and a fraud who uses spiritual dogma as a device to selfishly feed my insatiable hedonistic hunger. Ugly, disgusting, selfish, malicious and dangerous.
So who's right?
It's so clear. It's 2+2 easy.
People see what they want to see. They see themselves in me. And as with me, usually they see parts of both descriptions and that to most people is profoundly untenable to them. They want good or bad. The idea of both and a million colors in-between is much too scary for most. But it's real. At least for me and everyone I know and respect.
How could they not be seeing themselves in me? Why else would anyone get angry at what age I want to have children? Unless at what age they have children is a burning source of discomfort for them and they can't stomach the choices they have made for themselves.
And if the argument is that I am somehow the ringleader of the conspiracy involving other like minded men to continue this awful trend of wanting babies when we're 50 (as if that's a destructive thing) and that's why I incite such rage and it has nothing at all to do with a woman's internal choices about her own life I would say that I only have the power to awaken a person's awareness about themselves, not supplant their beliefs with my own.
If they didn't like cookies, my giving them my cookie recipe would not make them like cookies no matter how good my cookies were.
If you love asparagus. And you tell me you love to eat it morning noon and night. I would have nothing but love for you and your relationship with asparagus. I would love that you love asparagus. As long as you weren't hurting yourself by only eating asparagus or somehow hurting anyone else with your asparagus eating habits I would support you in eating as much asparagus as you enjoyed eating.
I don't care about how much you eat asparagus. Your asparagus intake does not threaten me. You know why? Because I am content with my own relationship with asparagus, therefore your love of eating truck loads of asparagus only fills me with joy for you because I know what happiness it brings you. I revel in your aparagul bliss. I joke, laugh, love and honor you in your asparagusness. I rejoice in every stalk of your asparagosity.
On the other hand, if you made a movie that has been met with wide spread unilateral praise and love and catapulted you from film school to being a your-shit-doesn't-stink-with-anyone three picture deal filmmaker, I can be, not always mind you, but can be prone to envy, jealousy, hatred and vicious condemnation of everything about you from your looks, your tastes, your talent, (lack thereof) your character, you upbringing, your luck, your privilege, you worthiness as a person and though it rarely comes out, in my mind I will character assassinate you in speeches that I invent all night long for days that I plan to write, shout, film, and sneer from the podium when I win my first Oscar.
And why is that? Because I am hurt by not having achieved some of my career goals and scared that I never will.
So instead of sitting with that fear. That hurt. Having a good cry, a batch of brownies, a mediation, a talk with a friend, helping someone in need, making proactive choices that will help me achieve some of the goals I want to achieve, I.e. writing another script, making phone calls to raise money to shoot my next film, etc, because all that is scary, I do the easier thing, the thing I perceive to be the easier thing but of course really isn't in the end, and hate the person who has what I want.
They're just who they are, doing what they do, the best they can.
I'm just me, doing what I do the best I can.
I eat asparagus. I don't eat asparagus. I make a movie. I take a piss. I help an old lady with her bags. I envy like a pig. I succeed. I fail. I try. I have a baby at 50. I have a baby next year.
You want babies tomorrow, you want babies in ten years. Since I'm completely comfortable with my choices around fatherhood, I'm completely comfortable with your choices around motherhood.
You eat a lot of asparagus. I don't. Can you handle that? Is that okay? Can you still love me? Or at least respect me for that choice? Right.
I love snow and cold. You don't. I'm driving into the storm tonight so I can be where 3 feet will fall. Everyone else in driving South. Have fun in the sun. I'm going to have the time of my life is the blizzard.
Next time I promise I'll give it a rest. I just wanted to try one last time for now.
P.S. Please remember to always check my MySpace page for updates as to my work and how to reach me. There's a link here now on the menu to the right at the top. Thanks.
Posted by Eric Schaeffer at 12:27 AM