Month: July 2025

Choosing to Step Back and Wait

I always saw myself as a laid-back, easy-going person. That was until my first year of teaching remedial English to 8th graders in a California inner-city school. My carefully composed lesson plans were sabotaged daily by 13 and 14 year olds who derived perverse… Continue Reading “Choosing to Step Back and Wait”

Choosing What I REALLY Want

I first smoked a cigar in college. Somehow, I had managed to avoid all tobacco before that. When I joined several other film students in a project to tell a story set during a poker game, we decided our set needed to be filled… Continue Reading “Choosing What I REALLY Want”

Choosing the Process Over the Product

I loved to do pencil drawings when I was a kid. I received so much affirmation from my sketches that I decided at an early age that I should learn to paint and become a professional artist. But the problem was that for every… Continue Reading “Choosing the Process Over the Product”

Choosing to Avoid Avarice

A good story almost always requires a villain. Everyone loves to detest and blame that guy who is despicable. And what is easier to despise than a creep motivated by pure greed? In movies, a hero commonly struggles against a filthy rich tycoon or… Continue Reading “Choosing to Avoid Avarice”