"The true way goes over a rope which is not stretched at any great height but just above the ground. It seems more designed to make people stumble than to be walked upon."
- Franz Kafka

Today, Mandy and I watched the World Cup. I never used to watch sporting events because I always saw it as a waste of time. There are so many things I want to do before I die (so many more than I have time for), and watching sports was never very high on that list.

But the older I get, the more interested I am in understanding what other people find interesting, and the more willing I am to participate in the rituals of our culture. I think this is partly the result of greater humility, partly the result of greater curiosity, and partly the result of the realization that "all things are of God."

As a result, I have become less interested in changing the world and more interested in being part of it. It's also the reason why I am more interested in narrative filmmaking than ever before. It may not be what I gravitate to naturally, but it's where most people live, and I would like to live (and eat) alongside them. It's lonely on the margins, and I desire companionship and community just as much as anyone else.

It's a tricky catch-22, because as a filmmaker one needs to be true to oneself, and to make the films that one finds personally inspiring. But one also needs to make the films that other people find inspiring, and there's the rub. If one goes too far in either direction, one loses one's way. One has to walk a tightrope, as it were, between the Scylla of ivory tower hermeticism and the Charybdis of filmmaking-by-committee. And it's very easy to fall off that delicate tightrope.