Cameron Crowe Can Write
Well hello friend, it’s been a long time. I haven’t really sat at the keyboard to type in a format that isn’t for screen in a long time. Most of my hours over the past few months have been spent writing short films and attempting to write a feature length script; the formers succeeded whereas the latter has failed continuously for two years now. Not even just that, I’ve also been editing stories – film and otherwise. I’ve been trying to prove myself and trying to find myself. Every time I think I come close to drawing some sort of firm conclusion on the matter a message like this comes up:
While it’s important to find someone who genuinely gets you, your desire to merge with a partner may cause you to become lost in other people. At times it’s hard to know who you are – it becomes based on who you’re with.
Now that may seem true from the outside looking in, just ask me about myself and I’ll open up like a poorly wrapped summer roll talking about how “perspective is the spice of life,” but even if that may be truth (the perspective thing) it’s far from the truth (me losing myself). It may have been true about me a few years ago, but that would also be at a time where I didn’t have a second to sit with myself and think for myself. I made every possible thought I had public for consumption. I lost myself in my relationship with studying, working, trying to stay healthy… All of these things that we deem necessary because people tell us they are. They’re not. They are to an extent because it is important to make sure you can breathe okay, that you’re constantly learning; that your brain is nimble; that you think critically and creatively. What is not necessary however is dedicating yourself to things that you do not know how to set boundaries for. This does feel like I am going off topic, so I should probably shut the fuck up and just say that sometimes it does feel like I’m losing myself. It feels like I may be engrossing myself in something that takes over my personality, not obsessively, but methodically. It is in the method where I can distinguish between the good and the bad to find the grey. The grey being the difference between losing yourself and gaining something. You never lose if you gain.
In losing yourself in something or someone, you do take things on, you start to listen to the same music; crafting bits of your personality around them. Sometimes this is irrevocably unhealthy, especially when something is unrequited and forced. However, there is the odd moment where that isn’t the case, where things can be right but poorly timed or just miscommunicated. It is in these times where I think of Cameron Crowe’s canon: a plethora of needle drops that make all disk jockeys wet, romantic comedies and coming of age stories that make you wish you grew up in a different era (even though you would’ve been mercilessly bullied), and moments of true personal courage. Sure, you can pull up Almost Famous and Jerry Maguire, they’re both great examples for the case I am trying to make, but the two examples I want to momentarily focus on are, Say Anything and High Fidelity (which isn’t Cameron Crowe, it is Stephen Fears, but it is written by John Cusack and helps me prove my point so shhhh). Both are films that are in my holy grail of romantic comedies, but asides from that they feature a protagonist who easily loses themselves in someone else. They start to put all the cards on the table, not knowing what life could be like without them. On the contrary, Crowe does force John Cusack in both films to figure that out; to realize what life is like without the romantic interest and that they are people without them. It doesn’t seem purposeful or vengeful that Cusack plays these characters as people who are at a crossroads—who are bursting at the seems to be themselves, but are lacking in a little something. Now, I’m not saying that that something is love or a romantic interest… I am saying that John Cusack does find that thing by falling, losing himself, realising that it ain’t healthy to do so, establishes boundaries, still falls but in a healthier way and gains enough courage to either chase Laura or Diane Court. He finds his courage to be himself by way of losing himself. Nothing proves this more than the last scene in Say Anything when Diane and Lloyd are on the plane:
Diane says, “Nobody thought we’d do this.” She pauses, grabbing Lloyd’s attention. She continues, “nobody really thinks it will work, do they?”
Lloyd, looking straight into her eyes, confident as ever says “you just described every great success story.”
I’ll tell you what, that Cameron Crowe can sure fucking write.
It takes a certain amount of bravery to acknowledge the need for boundaries; a courage to set your foot down and stand for what you believe in. Because there’s a difference in losing and being at a loss and losing and gaining. You can see that I’m going in circles, but I think that’s because I’m trying to tell myself that it’s okay. It’s not being desperate. Being hurt sucks, but opening yourself to being hurt is good. It’s not losing yourself if you end up standing up for who you are and what you believe in; in acknowledging mistakes, in trying to do better, you stand. It isn’t bad if you be brave for yourself. So, Nitin (and all readers) be brave for yourself (and for others) because every great success story starts with a shit load of doubt.