WOW!

I'm calling it now: this has been a really, really good year, filled with unexpected happenings. It's a bad case of "ohmygawdthishasflownbysofast syndrome" and I'm at something of a crossroads. an exciting crossroads! So I'm going to be sharing lots of fortune cookie advice.

I'm feeling hellishly optimistic about an uncertain future and find myself turning in all these unexpected new directions. it's like I'm faced with multiple pathways from which to carve out my future life and am taking every. damn. one. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Let's restate that: I'm EXCITED, positively giddy in a "Julie Andrews dancing like a mental patient on a mountaintop kinda way" (props if you get that reference -- no, not the Sound of Music :) ) about not knowing what will happen next.


2012: Who knows? Will I be the same Devin Barnes? I'm already a radically different person than I was, oh, a year ago, and yet I'm still myself. Strange. Paradoxical. Want to read more?

Actually, I've got a slew of goals for the immediate and not-so-immediate (few years down the road, perhaps?) future. Here's a sampling:

- Finish the movie I started filming last month.
- Start some kind of band (this won't be for another couple o' years, likely) and sing in it. Or play piano. Or both. Preferably both.
- Become much better at piano. Lots more practicing!
- Finish writing series of novels. I've got three in mind. Trippy fantastical mind-benders. Here's hoping you like!
- Make many more movies post-"that one I still need to finish, and will."
- Go to a college -- likely Fanshawe -- after Western for either Theatre, Journalism or Television Broadcasting as a pre-req. to get into the Advanced Filmmaking program. Will probs. take Broadcasting, then Filmmaking.
- Go travelling post-Fanshawe.


I WILL ACCOMPLISH ALL THESE GOALS, MAKE NO MISTAKE.


But what I'm most looking forward to is -- incomingonslaughtofsappymelodramaticcheeriness -- unexpected little moments that make each day special. Aww, isn't that sweet?

Actually, though, I'm learning more and more that it's an absolutely futile exercise to plan out your life like you're shopping from the Sears catalogue, despite all evidence to the contrary above. You can absolutely map out goals, go after them, and develop some kind of impending "life plan," but be warned: doing so can force you to miss out on the here and now (fortune cookie buddhist wisdom!). What's actually shocked me about my life, in retrospect, was how unexpected most of the touchstones were. I didn't ever find myself thinking "you know, that turned out exactly the way I planned it," and my life was all the better for it. I'm excited about this uncertain future! I'm bursting with excitement! Positively bursting!

That's all, folks. Epistemology readings await moi.