PERSONAL HOT SHIT #1

Yesterday I saw the movie Boyhood. For a lot of it, I thought it was pretty much the best movie ever. But by the end, I absolutely hated it. As I jokingly said afterwards, "I don't have a violent bone in my body, but I want to stab that kid in the face." Why did I have such a strong reaction? Good question. Today I scanned through the DVD to try and pinpoint where, for me, things started to go wrong.

Without putting too much effort into it, I think I started hating the movie when the boy is talking to a girl at a party after a high school football game. They have what to me is a gloomy, judgmental, obnoxiously flirtatious, pseudo-philosophical conversation that includes lines such as "You're kinda weird" and "Words are stupid." If anyone saw the movie and liked this scene, that's fine with me. To each his own. But I fucking hated it. And I hated pretty much everything that followed. The main character goes from being a simple, relatable, lovable boy to being a self-satisfied, pointlessly analytical sadsack who likes to listen to himself talk despite claiming that he doesn't. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but seriously, what happened to the "boy" in Boyhood? By this point it should be its own separate movie called Shit-hood. Or maybe Shit-boy, but that's only if we're being generous. I don't know. The word "shit" should definitely be in the title.

But enough about that. In a way the whole movie is good, because it's true that a lot of kids become less lovable as they get older. And a lot of kids become less happy as they get older. I think the general idea for the movie is great. I just found myself disappointed in who the main character turns out to be. I stopped liking him. I wanted to be watching a movie about someone else. Someone I found less annoying. Someone I could consider an inspiration rather than a cautionary tale.

Like a lot of people probably did, I also found myself thinking about my own childhood. I found myself thinking about how I was as a kid and how I am now, how I've turned out so far and all the things that have added up to get me to this point. Granted, I think about that stuff a lot anyway, but the format of the movie made the whole human aging process a little more vivid to me. A little more tangible. A little easier to visualize and work with in a straightforward, intentional, and hopefully constructive way.

One thing I know about myself is that it often comes most naturally to me to express myself indirectly through art. Another thing I know is that I'm naturally a thinker and a dreamer, and that I don't naturally care too much about, shall we say, "doing things." But, by the time my life is over, I want the story it has told to be an inspirational one rather than a cautionary tale. And I think a good way to do that might be to try to start expressing myself more directly, as well as training myself to become the kind of person who cares about "doing things." After all, no one has ever inspired anyone or accomplished anything merely by thinking and dreaming about it.

As the title of this post suggests, my plan is to start writing in a personal way about my own life. People can either read it or not, but the idea is that if I'm open, honest, and direct, maybe that will make me feel more accountable for what I do with my life and how I spend my time. As for the term "hot shit," I mean that in the sense of how I think it's used in the old Nelly song: as an upbeat, general expression of positivity. And although it may only be funny to my brother and me, I sometimes say to him in a Jimmy Stewart voice, "What's your favorite type of shit? Is it hot shit, or is it horseshit? It better not be horseshit, fucker." I hope it goes without saying that our favorite type of shit, hands down, is hot shit.

But either way, no matter what happens, the word "shit" should definitely be in the title.