muse and mentor

I'm back! Fought my drowsiness and finished my online Spanish assignment. This was the most constructive work I've done at a stretch in a long time. I fear my drowsiness may be a withdrawal symptom from cutting back on my excessive intake of pepsi.

I have some good news! RH told me he would give me his 8mm film camera for the summer when I go to India! Yayyee!!! I'm so excited! I have no idea what I'll do with it yet, but I will decide soon.

Another good news is that I am organically beginning to look beyond myself for help! Yeah, I am that egocentric, but my recent dilemmas make me think I should find help in people with similar experiences. This goes against my strong belief in learning by making my own mistakes, but this time I may give in. At this point of time I lack the energy and willingness to fight by myself. I haven't started looking for people yet, but even the thought is a new thing for me. Maybe I find answers outside, or inside, or not find them at all - as long as I have questions, it's all good, isn't it?

RH and his films constantly come up with new and important questions for me. One of them is - who is my mentor, and who is my muse? Stupid me didn't even know I need them!

Mentor. Well, I have an ignorant over-confidence in myself which takes up so much space in my head that it leaves no space for anybody else. I honestly believe that no one knows more than me. How conceited am I...right? Well, this happened so gradually over the past few years that I couldn't detect it. I couldn't stop it. Didn't know any better. And stopped paying attention to what others thought about me and my attitude to them. I know this is wrong. I know I should heal my scars and trust more. This is especially crucial in my chosen field of work. I find it hard to work with a crew. I tend to take over. And that is so wrong! Anyways, coming back to having a mentor, as you can see, it won't be easy for me. I think the only rational next step is to slowly get rid of my obsessive control-freakishness, and look outside of myself once in a while. What a noble idea!

Muse. The same problem. But this time I really thought about it. Who is it that inspires me? Where does my creativity come from? What makes me feel strongly? I thought maybe it is the whole world. Can the whole world be my muse? Not really - it's too vague a muse. My head was full of the correct answer - but took me a while to get there - my muse is moi! Okay, don't give up on me already, its not really as bad as it sounds. What I mean is that its not the whole world that inspires me. Some out of all the things/people/places that I interact with leave an impact on me. Those become my muse. I don't think I can ever have one muse - a person/place/idea that completely takes over me. Or maybe I will. I think my ramblings have gone too far this time.

I may not have the answers, and I may sound horribly self-obsessed from the above, but I'm still grateful to RH for giving me the question, and for constantly complicating my life in the right direction :)