“Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.” ― Ira GlassI've been giving it quite a lot of thought. Ever since I got in, I've been joking that it was a mistake that I was admitted to the Film MFA program at Columbia University. I was 21 when I received the acceptance letter (actually, I got an acceptance phone call first) and 22 when I began classes. I was young and consequently a dumbass. Recently, I've been seeing that as a bad thing. I've realized that being so young and cocky, I didn't fully appreciate that I was enrolled in one of the best film programs in the world, didn't take advantage of the incredible resources I had at my fingertips and didn't consult the fantastic faculty nearly as much as I should have. In short, I took it all for granted. Now, I am beginning my fourth year in the program and I feel lost. I just shot a short film that my advisor has compared to a bad first year project. I've been considering the possibility that I might be a failure. Sure, the film isn't THAT bad, but it certainly isn't perfect. Shouldn't I know better by now? Shouldn't I be able to make something great by now?
Me, minutes after I found out I was accepted.
And so while wallowing in self-pity, I came across this quote. And it made me feel better. Not only because it assured me that everyone goes through this period of self-loathing, but also because it made me see that I am incredibly lucky. If I were to apply now at age 25 to this program, I don't think I would get in. I got in precisely because I was a dumbass 21 year old. Well, no. Not because I was a dumbass. I applied to this program on whim. They didn't ask for a reel and I was applying to the Film Studies program anyway so I told myself, Why not? Wouldn't it be cool if I got in? Yes it would be and yes it was. That naïveté, that willingness to dive in head first with nothing to lose is why I got in. I didn't care that this was a difficult program to get into, I didn't care that I didn't have a reel or that I wrote the scripts the application requested mere weeks before they were due. I didn't give a shit. I had nothing else to do at the time but apply to grad school, so why not aim high? I'm not sure I would have had that fearlessness if I had applied to Columbia these days. I probably wouldn't have applied at all.
Ira Glass's quote talks about the struggle we face as we try to bridge the gap between our work and our aspirations. Earlier this week I was telling myself maybe I shouldn't try to create anything too ambitious anymore, unsure as I was of my actual abilities and though those insecurities remain, I think it's time to go back to my 21-year-old self's mentality and simply ask myself, Why not?
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