Happy New Year, Let's Set New Horizons
Now that we are near, it's time to look to new destinations
Happy New Year!
I’ve never been one for new year resolutions. I did try out the challenge once, many years ago. It was disappointing because all my friends disappointed themselves. Twelve months later they said, “next year.” What? Why make a resolution then? It’s just a game, I thought.
Setting New Year resolutions is a tradition. It started about 4,000 years ago1 by the Babylonians. The Roman Emperor Julius Caesar moved it from March to January 1st around 46 B.C. But this is not the story I am here to share with you, my friend.
I am here to tell you that I don’t make resolutions.
But before I share what I do instead, I took a few hours to look back at 2022 and what I learned about myself.
I decided to go back to writing freeform? I used to write more often before I started my podcast. Then, between the festival and podcast (and other projects), I only wrote articles and informational copy. Still, I felt a hole in my being like I was missing something, and finally realized it was this style of writing.
Finally, after contemplating it for about a year, I created an account on Substack on August 4th. I began to write again.
Writing on Substack this year has helped me find out about myself through my own thoughts. When I look back to 2022 I am grateful for many things. A lot of the things I am grateful for have to do with the things I am most passionate about. The work I do with our mobile filmmaking community, which I am thankful to be able to do work I am passionate about.
With Substack, I finally shared my personal origin story of mobile filmmaking. I sort of talk about it, but had never gone into too much detail about it before.
I did so with a podcast episode, The Word On Storytelling. I produced a story about 9/11 and how it shaped my vision of the future of smartphones, film, and storytelling. I’m glad I finally recorded and shared it.
It’s always been hard to talk about that horrible day, but it held the origins of my own story in a niche industry that I am so passionate about. It’s how our International Mobile Film Festival in San Diego was conceived in 2009.
There are personal reasons I am grateful for this year. But in order to move forward to 2023, I realized recently that there is this one more thing.
One more thing I needed to do before I can set the new horizon for my journey into 2023. And it has to do with my journey through 2022.
I need to go back to the frazzled eight year-old me. By the time I was eight, I had been informed that everything I dreamed of becoming was an illusion I made up.
I wished to be an artist. I wished to be a magician. I even wished to live in movies. Trust me, I believed in magic, and I did not realize people in movies were actors. I had no clue people needed to earn money to have a place to live, buy food, and all those things.
It was at that moment and for many years after that, that I felt disarrayed. My dreams, and everything I envisioned for myself, tattered. I had to go back to being eight years-old so that I could share a message with that version of me. I wish someone had shared it me during that time. This year, it kinda sunk in. That’s because I’ve spent a lifetime on the journey and can look back. I think my writing has helped me stitch the pieces together.
My message: I would find my purpose if I was willing to always refuse to give up. The ground, would at times, shake beneath me. But I must continue to put one foot in front of the other and keep moving. The skies above me may throw lightning spears in my direction, and the earth would open large craters along my journey. But as scary as things got—I had to keep moving.
The only time to ever stop moving was at a crossroads. But even then, only to get a grip on my intuition with optimism, and a belief that either path would lead me toward the same horizon.
People who’ve accompanied me on my journeys have said words like “tenacity” to describe my efforts since 2012. The year we finally held the first film festival after three years trying to create a live in-person film festival in which all films had to be shot with mobile phone cameras—for the cinema theater sized screen.
I appreciate the people who utter those words, but I quickly dismiss them when I hear them. That’s because even though I get what they’re saying, it’s not personally constructive. I’ve been on this journey far too long to contemplate on what others say about me, good or bad.
It’s important to be credited for seeing something through, something that had many ups and downs. It’s good to have been at the initial point of putting a vision into action that has spread its wings around the world, providing opportunities for so many storytellers to fulfill dreams of making films. Even if some of those films don’t meet the exact criteria for our film festival, I embrace every one of the filmmakers behind them. They all inspire more people along the way. That’s very important.
The eight year-old me would never have imagined this. The 17-year-old me remembers a dream I have not shared in public before.
It was a dream of me sitting in the living room of a house I lived in, talking with friends about my work. I was excited, and happy, sharing my work with them. I don’t remember the details. But I remember their reaction telling me I was lucky. I remember I felt privileged to be able to do the work I was describing, whatever it was. I remember it had to do with the arts industry.
In 2007, many years since then, I was sitting in my living room with new friends. I was sharing my work with video and film, and my thoughts about the industry and storytelling. I received the reaction I had dreamed about. I paused. I suddenly remembered the dream. I even mentioned it to my new friends.
It’s 2022 now. That dream has come and gone. That time has come and gone. I had not realized it then, but that dream was just one moment within a long timeline in which I travel on to this day. It was all the experiences I had, that led me to who I am today.
My childhood is always with me. It speaks to me sometimes. It reminds me that I was once lost. But that it was looking toward the horizon that brought me here.
When it comes to resolutions…nah. Don’t do those. When it comes to setting a bunch of goals…nah. I set only three and move along with my priorities. They’ll lead me to them. Goals evolve on a moving horizon. The one up ahead. They serve as a place to come back to when it’s dark. The fewer the better.
I don’t do resolutions. I set a new horizon.
The horizon has been set for new year, and it’s looking ma-a-a-arvelous, guys! Join me on my journey, there’s a space for everyone. This journey is a real treasure when I share it with those who want to come along, and have some fun along the way. Who’s coming?
“The red carpet is in your pocket™” —IMFF official slogan.
A historical look at the New Year’s Resolutions: https://people.howstuffworks.com/culture-traditions/holidays-other/why-make-new-years-resolutions1.htm