Well, I guess I have to write another blog. If you’re like me, and I hope you’re not in many ways, but also hope you are in many other different ways, you think, “How many blogs will I have to write before I’ve wrung every last drop of wisdom out of me? What more must I do to change the world via Blog?!?! How many times will I tell my family “Quiet, you! I’m writing a blog!?”
The answer is certainly not more than two.
And yet, the world sinks further into an orgy of horrors, folks keep making blogs, and I’ve been asked to write another one. Even though I really feel like anything good I could have said I did say one or two blogs ago, here I stand, blog in hand, welcoming you to my third blog.
You see, there’s an ice-cold fifty-dollar bill on the table and I’m in dire straits so here comes my fluff and filler. I’m cashing in, selling out, and blogging it up. (…to coin a very gross phrase.)
I designed and teach a class (brag) at The Barrow Group called “At Hand.” Well, it’s not called that online or in any official way, its title is “Short Film Creation Workshop.” (Very unsexy.) The class is quite simply an immersion in creativity and collaboration. Through a very ambitious cycle of deadlines, we override our concerns of quality – “Will it be/Am I/What if I’m not good?” – and just finish stuff. And we learn through finishing. The lessons, friends, learned through finishing could not be contained in this or any other blog, and I’m too lazy to write them all down if they could, but trust me, they are invaluable.
While I don’t participate in the assignments myself, I do write a tidy little speech or sermon each class, to discuss what we’re up to, to give myself a little space to house my thoughts or insights, and most importantly to finish something. Finishing feels good. At the end of each session, I have twenty essays of variable quality. They capture a time, some thoughts, and occasionally some wisdom. And they make me feel like an artist, because the artists I most admire finish stuff. That’s it.
This class makes us into finishers. Each participant in the workshop winds up with nine or ten short films. You’ve read that right: Every person in the class makes nine things. In ten weeks. It’s almost unbearable. The work is original, fresh, soulful, funny. I love it. And it doesn’t matter if I, or anyone, loves it. A finished thing doesn’t need love or validation: It simply is.
And so it is with the letters I’ve been writing to my classes. For me, in a fall that in many ways sucked ass, writing was a true friend. A deep, abiding, eternal calm and appreciation of life. I felt, at certain surprising moments, that if I had enough time I could write about every thought and experience I’ve ever had, and I’d feel like I was in a kind of heaven – an eternal grace available to us all through, basically, attention, with, thankfully, no talent required.
I have two young kids, so I am force-fed hundreds of “how to be a better parent” social media posts. Often they make me cry. One post said, “Children spell love T-I-M-E.” And I thought, don’t we all.
I guess the point of this blog is to encourage you to consider writing. Spend some time with yourself and your thoughts. Draw a picture. I don’t know. It is one way to show loving awareness for all that is around us and within – to be open and present, to include everything, to deny nothing. It’s a chance to briefly become curious beings thoughtfully engaging in the predicament in which we find ourselves.
So please take my class so I can continue to partially pay some bills and validate my self-worth. Thank you, reader. And thank you, TBG. And thank you for fifty dollars.
– Chris
Upcoming classes with Chris include the Short Film Creation Workshop (aka At Hand) starting 2/24 and Improv III: Advanced Scene Work starting 3/19.
Check out TBG’s full schedule of classes, including youth options!