Good Ideas

You know, I don't recall who it was who said it - I'm certain it was either George Lucas or William Goldman (and hopefully it was the latter) - but someone once said of their thought process, and I'm paraphrasing here: "I get ideas and I tuck them away. And if the idea comes up again a year later, and it seems like a good idea still, it probably is, and I pursue it."

They were, of course, referring to fiction writing for film. But that seems to me to be an ideal way of approaching pretty much anything in life. Which is why I'm moderately concerned at my rekindled interest in pursuing graduate studies in the area of law; I can't seem to find a good reason NOT to go back to school.

With film school having been a unique and yet rather unfulfilling experience, I feel compelled to move on to something else that's interested me for years. Now, I know what you're saying: "Well, if you feel like your time was wasted at film school, why would you pay more money to go back to school without being certain it's what you want to do?"

Well, to that, I say: one, I never said my time was wasted at film school. I went to a prestigious private university and earned a BFA with honors. Ideally, that sets me up quite well for graduate studies. Two, ignoring the notion of paying money, as I'm already doing that for my first degree and would HAVE to do it again for a second, I'll skip straight to addressing my level of certainty regarding the study of law.

When I think of the things about which I might also say, "Hey, I want to go study this," - like botany, culinary arts, architecture, medicine or geothermal studies - I realize that there are so very few. By comparison to the many, MANY things I would NOT want to study - like botany, culinary arts, architecture, medicine or geothermal studies - there are only a handful that pique my interest enough to warrant investigating my options (say, through Princeton Review and discussions with other people who are currently pursuing those fields of study).

Off-hand, I can name only two (now that I've attained a degree in film production): politics and law.

Now, I have seen my fair share of people who spend four years in college and leave no better off than they were before, except in that they have a degree in hand at the end of their time at Generic American University. How many people go to school for a specific field, then choose another highly specific field afterwards to study as a follow-up? While I cannot attest to the numbers in that regard, I'd wager highly that anyone counted into that group is highly motivated and interested in their professional success.

I have a BFA (with honors) and I wait tables. It is good, honest work. But it's not enough.

And I could get a job with that degree. I could get a good job, even. But it's not enough.

I need to do more. I'm not content with what I'm doing and where I am. It's not enough.

Pursuing a degree in law wouldn't even constitute giving up on my desire to be creative; in all likeliness it would further enhance my focus on artistic endeavors, as a successful lawyer is as much a dramatic performer playing to an audience as he is a driven wordsmith, crafting sentences to sway the arbiters of men's fate to their side.

I want more for myself, and I intend to get it.

A friend of mine said to me recently, "Don't let your time in New York be your only experience away from here ..."

I hadn't intended to before he said that, and I mean to even less now that he so perfectly stated the one reason I really want to go back to school: because it's not even about where you are, but rather what you're doing. The time I spent at NYU shouldn't be the only time I spend investing in my future. If it left me feeling unfulfilled then it probably was unfulfilling.

Our perception is our reality, and I perceive that I have a ways to go yet before I'm done with my education.