Never Give Up
At the Frameline QT brunch, I was surrounded by a number of women and trans folk—filmmakers from all over the world—directors, producers, and actors who brought their films to the Frameline film festival, I couldn’t help but ask, “what is the most important piece of advice you would give to a budding new filmmaker?” One of the filmmaker’s, who had her first feature film included in this year’s festival replied, “never give up, never, never give up.”
For those who are not aware, filmmaking is not the simplest venture to pursue—it involves expensive equipment, a great deal of technical skill, lots and lots of money, and most importantly—a great story. Filmmaking is an arduous enterprise, and the opportunity to visit with filmmakers not only provides a certain amount of privilege but also the ability to ask questions about their paths and challenges in making films.
The filmmaker’s response reminded me of an attitudinal buoyancy necessary for thriving in life—to never allow failure to stop one from pursuing a goal or outcome, whether it is a project, a passion, or an objective—the critical part is to stay diligent and focused on the result. Granted there are many times in pursuing a goal one comes up short, and indeed in many of my classes, I have failed a number of academic projects—tests, papers, and it is always disheartening each time—because I like to succeed, I want to move forward, but it seems so many times that the path to success involves setbacks and course correction along the way, and I forget that it is the setbacks that help me reimagine a different outcome or process, to approach an obstacle with a different perspective.
One such setback was an incident that derailed my career six years ago this June, there was a mechanical malfunction that resulted in an injury that changed my livelihood, and my life—I needed to start over again at a young age of 56. Everything I had done previously was predicated on being able to move my body and lift things—something I would never be able to do again—I needed to develop a skillset that involved my mind, and not my body.
I felt like I had failed. Everything I had done, came to an end, and so going to school was one of a few options available. Fortunately for me, I have an abundant relationship with failure and coming up short, and over my many years, I have adopted a certain mental buoyancy that allows me to recover and thrive once again even after the most disappointing results. I have failed many times in life, and each time I get back up again and start moving—it’s rarely pretty, but it’s movement, it takes a while to get my bearings, moving through feeling like a victim, to surviving, but things begin to make sense over time, and ultimately land in the realm of thriving once again.
Going back to school late in life wasn’t the most natural thing I have ever done, but it has proven to be productive. Ultimately, I like learning a great deal, I always have, and not going back to college would have shorted my own growth and abilities, so even though the experience has been quite painful—breaking down into tears frequently over a poor performance on a test, or a paper, the result was generally positive, even though the path itself many times was not.
One of the things I’ve learned in life is the buoyancy trait the filmmaker referred to, “never give up, never, never give up.” This is not to say that we don’t make course corrections in life, because the ideas and plans we have may not always work out the way we imagined, or be a practical outcome, but a productive life does require that we become steadfast in our hopes and dreams, but also within that, some flexibility that allows us to circumnavigate obstacles and snags. Even though the direct experience of the filmmaker and myself may be completely different, her story resonated with me—the idea not to give up, but to persist through difficulty, failure, and even through poor decisions. We may fail, we may fail multiple times in our pursuits, and even though failure is part of the process of life, quitting doesn’t have to be.
