As The Journey Continues…
It took me about 20 years of existence on this planet to finally understand what a journey is. I always thought it was a physical endeavor of going from point A to point B. Well, needless to say, I was way off the mark.
There was one thing that always perplexed me:
How do we start a journey? That question ate at me every time I thought of doing something completely out of left field.
Is it born out of an idea? A situation? An experience?
Well, it can be all three, and none of them. Let me explain.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and I found myself graduating from my parents’ couch, I realized that this will probably be the first and last time the world ever shuts down the way it did. This situation invited me to question and reflect on my trajectory in life.
Do I really want to pursue a career in marketing?
Where do I see myself in the decade?
Am I happy with where I am currently?
Will I ever learn how to separate the lights from darks when doing laundry? (Spoiler: probably never.)
After a few months of interrogating myself and going through an early-life existential crisis, I finally peeled back the layers of these questions like an onion and I figured out what I yearned for in my life. It wasn’t money. It wasn’t glamor. It wasn’t fame.
It was creative fulfillment.
The one thing that I enjoy the most in life (right after Arabic food) is creativity. Being able to express myself in a way that is uniquely mine and doing things differently is what gets me out of bed every day. Whether creative expression takes the form of filmmaking, photography, writing, or drawing, I strive to tell stories by letting my brain run wild in terms of how to tell that story. The endless possibilities that exist in storytelling make it one of the most enjoyable and creatively challenging tasks anyone can encounter. You are only limited by your imagination, so let it run wild.
As I embarked on my filmmaking and photography journey, I had no idea where to start. From choosing my camera and lenses to understanding the differences between frame rates, it was incredibly overwhelming to learn about all of these things in a short amount of time. Only then did I understand that the more we learn about something, the more we realize just how little about it we actually know. It’s also important to point out that not all journeys are created equal. They range from the simple, the complex, to the downright absurd (like my goal to create my own comic book at some point, but that’s a topic for another day). The beginning stages of any journey can be some of the most difficult.
That is what almost gave me cold feet and prevented me from getting started. This feeling was compounded when I started comparing my work to the people I look up to like Peter McKinnon, Johnny Harris, and Yes Theory. Naturally, impostor syndrome went to work making me doubt myself and my skills. I thought that I wasn’t good enough and that I should quit while I was still early in the process so I don’t embarrass myself any more than that. What I slowly realized was that while it is good to draw inspiration from people who are great at what they do, it destroys our self-esteem when we compare ourselves to them. That sentiment is especially true when we’re just starting out. Comparing our page 3 to their page 738 is not a fair comparison and only serves to demotivate us. It’s like a 10-year old being angry because they can’t cook as well as Gordon Ramsay.
It is very natural for us to be awful at something when we first start. While natural talent is good to have, it pales in comparison to putting in tens of thousands of hours honing your craft and improving your skills. That’s the only scientifically proven way to improve at anything in this world: whether it’s smoking a perfect brisket or building a house.
Steven Spielberg didn’t win his first Oscar until he was 47 years old for Schindler’s List. It took him decades of trial and error to improve his storytelling and visual direction to captivate an audience enough to earn him the coveted award. Like Thomas Edison famously said:
“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”
Okay enough with me being too preachy. What’s with the “As The Journey Continues” title of this blog and on my homepage? Well, that accidentally ended up being the phrase I use to best describe my mindset and it is how I end all of my YouTube videos. It was born of my realization that this journey I’m on has no end goal or date. It’s something that I will engage in every day for as long as my passion for this medium keeps burning. I will wake up every day looking for new ways to improve my storytelling, filming, editing, and writing (through these blogs!). While I won’t be winning a Pulitzer Prize any time soon for them, they serve as a means to continuously improve my writing. They force me to always document my experiences and share with others to relate to them through my stories and hopefully inspire them on the way.
What’s the end goal of my blogging? I honestly don’t have a clue. It’s just really cool to write something and put it out there for thousands of people to see, ya know? I’m just excited to see where my blogs, photos, and videos lead me in life and what kind of opportunities they will present me. I just gotta take it one step at a time and trust the process, because that’s how legends are born.
Thanks for reading, and I’ll see you next time - as the journey continues.
