Common sense is ringing out loud

DoaMS: See them long hard times to come

Here's an interesting thing. For once, the subtitle is entirely accurate.

I have a problem at the moment. The problem with the problem is that it's a fairly petty issue; I'm deeply aggravated with someone who thought it was appropriate to rip off my work and not make any pretense that they were doing otherwise. It's affecting my days; I can't bring myself to talk to the person (a remnant of being taught that if you don't have anything civil to say, don't say anything at all) and I feel extremely uncomfortable around them.

But when it comes to the Filmmakers Of The Future, as nobody in particular refers to our class of practical students, feeling uncomfortable is not unknown.

As I think I mentioned in the last thrilling installment, there is one person who I like, I think of as a friend (mostly), and whose technical ability I rate extremely highly and who I do not even remotely trust.

This was not strictly accurate. There are several people like that who I have to work with over the next eight or so months on the understanding that if something better comes along, I can most assuredly go fuck myself.

This is not unusual in life, obviously. I'm not saying anything or telling anyone anything that they didn't already know to be a truism.

It's just...

I didn't expect it to be so prevalent and so entrenched. Silly me, I thought eighteen to twenty-one year olds were relatively unformed clay, at least in personality terms. I certainly was, at that age, different in many ways from how I think of myself now. And I wouldn't even presume to want to mould the personality clay of the now quickly-escaping metaphor. I'm keenly aware that I have no right other than to perhaps provide some advice, now and then.

So when it feels like I'm constantly telling people how and what and when to do whatever, that makes me worry. For I Am Not A Leader Of Men, Nor A Maker Of Pompous Statements.

At my core, I'm just someone who wants to get things done.

And that's the issue; in order to get things done on this course, other people mostly have to be involved, and involving other people means involves this constancy of dialogue of sorts, this bizarre give-and-take where everyone is always trying to get out more than they put in, except for a few good people.

When I'm driving, I sometimes feel - if the road conditions are right, i.e. a slight downhill on an open, 60 or 70mph road - like I'm picking up speed, or more accurately inertia, without having to add any more acceleration. Unchecked, that kind of momentum leads easily to a crash, so you have to put in a little brake, check your speed and direction, and adjust what you're doing.

Right at this stage in the course, I feel a lot like things are picking up inertia without me having to do anything, and that feels really, really dangerous, like suddenly everything will pile up suddenly and uncontrollably. And - if you want to continue with the Speed metaphor - half the passengers on the bus are trying to work out how to slow it down, but the other half are just trying to work out a way to get the best outcome for themselves.

My personal favourite theory at the moment relates to four people I know on the course, who, at the moment, are not working together but instead trying to use each other and at the same time not realising that the others are trying to use them. I stare on in wonderment at this, quite frankly, because it's an example of meritocracy gone wrong in action; each one of the four seems to be thinking that they'll win some nebulous prize at the end of it and not have to worry about the others. I'm also guilty of this mentality, to some extent, but I actively worry about it to the degree that I try to give more than I get, which is nice, but dumb, in all kinds of ways.

Let's give this a nice summation, shall we? People are strange. But more than that, people are stranger to themselves sometimes than they are to each other. In the weird little fishbowl of student life, sometimes being an older fish can make you see things that are just that much stranger...