Faith and Proof of Life

So...I've not written over here in over nine months and over at ClicksFlix for over five months.  Why is it that these breaks come and go in such long periods of time?  And I'm reminded of everytime my mother wishes that I see a doctor or go for walks every afternoon after work.  My response to her pleas is, "Sure, I'll do it" and then I never do or plan to follow through with that lifeless shrugging response.  I mention to people that I meet in life that I'm a blogger and then, afterward, momentarily wonder if they actually check me out.  But the thought process stops there; I don't get lightning-struck with the fear that I'm not writing, I just know that I have written in the past and that I'm not writing now.

When I do exercise some fitness activity, it tends to be walking briskly for a half-hour in the afternoon in the park near my apartment.  So, if my mother asks me to get out and walk today, the excuse would be that it's too hot or humid, or that I have to do something else that needs doing or that I just don't feel like walking today because what good does it do me in the end.  And the same could be said of this blog: I don't feel like writing today because I share my home with someone else now, and they may or may not want to watch that film tonight, or because I'm afraid the review doesn't make sense or I don't know who reads them anyways or that the people I hope will read them may or may not read them and does my way of thinking matter and any other fears that come up.  And I know I don't have a writing problem, I have a faith problem.  And I have recently lost my faith.

Faith is defined as confidence or trust or belief in a person or a thing.  I've always loved the films or scenes that overwhelmingly swell with faith in something, someone or the mission at hand.  These always attach me emotionally to the film or scene and I'm inspired.  But life is harder and I'm reminded that the messages in the faith-full scenes and films that I love are messages meant to ring true in the lives of the audience members who are seeing them.  And I'm reminded of a few scenes regarding faith.  One being from an episode of CW's Supernatural called, appropriately, "Faith".  The episode deals with a faith-healer who heals one of our heroes and, in the end, loses his ability due to the loss of the creature doing the actual healing.  Our healed hero speaks with one of the congregation who failed to have her illness cured by the faith-healer, she tells him: "If you're gonna have faith, you can't just have it when the miracles happen, you have to have it when they don't."  So, the chips are down right now: I'm not being hired to be a critic for an entertainment magazine nor am I surrounded by people who sincerely want to hear what I think about the latest movie to come out and I still fail to reach out to parts of my family who aren't interested in stories the way that I am.  But I need to go on, for no other reason that I believe that my talents need to be used and that I still love fiction and I still do want to be a film theorist and critic.  I need to believe in myself and my talents and write because I want to, not because it'll make me famous or popular and that other people following are only the blessings that come as a surprise.  One of my favorite shows of all time, The West Wing, says it well in the episode "Two Cathedrals," when the ghost of Mrs. Landingham is discussing with President Bartlett the answer to the question of him running again: "You know, if you don't want to run again, I respect that.  But if you don't run 'cause you think it's gonna be too hard or you think you're gonna lose -- well, I don't even want to know you."

Vacation's over.  Time to get off the mat and write, because my skills need sharpening and I'm tired of being on the floor.  I begin next week with Wall Street.  See you soon and happy watching.