We almost always want more for ourselves – more money, a bigger home, better life conditions and what have you.  Why can’t we normally be satisfied, take the moment for granted and leave it at that?  It seems that good enough is no longer good enough, not for us.  

My friend Ryan and I were both thinking of switching school before eight grade year, he didn’t but I did.  No report card, project, or dance has gone by without me questioning – what if I hadn’t?  How much better would things be had I not switched?  He asks the same questions just as often. We’ve both gone through rough things at our respective schools, and we both wish we had made the others’ decision.  The grass is greener on the other side for both of us.

Why can’t the grass ever be green enough?

It has been said that the difference between us and the other animals which share this Earth with us is imagination, our capacity to dream and it is that which makes us human.  So is it just human nature to imagine more, to inherently never be satisfied because of what could be?  It is not and never, ever will it be wrong to dream, to hope, or to aspire beyond our means.  But, especially as advertising becomes ever more prolific, assaulting us even on our cell phones, it feels like our society is getting too much caught up in what could be, the things that we could have the places we could be the successes we could create.

There is a lot to be said for the here, the now.  There is more that is being lost in the here, the now.  “Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it’s about learning to dance in the rain,” expresses the sentiment I’m going for, here. 

Yes, the future holds great things – as a high school senior I am as acutely aware of this as anyone.  But our world has a plethora of creative ways to escape out of any given moment – nintendos, texts, iPods, it never stops growing.  And as that growth continues, our culture seems to forget, more and more almost like a teenager robbed of months’ worth of sleep, that life is in the present tense.  The moment, the here and now, they are losing something. 

That said, I think that “why can’t the grass ever be green enough?” is a terrible question.  Far more accurate, far more pointed, far more insightful: why can’t we believe the grass is green enough?  How do we know the other side is greener?  A bigger house could mean more painfully empty space.  A better job could mean more stress, less time with loevd ones.  Anything could be, but right here and right now we only have what is in the moment.  Ha, “only,” what is in the moment.  If only everyone noticed the wealth of sensation, emotion that each moment contains: yeah, dreaming is great.  Just don’t forget: we’re only conscious while we wake.

Sometimes all we ever needed was for someone to care about us enough to know that a push into the dark would help us find a brighter light

Based on both my firsthand experience and what I’ve heard from friends and in the comments since that last post, many more of us have those long downs than I had ever thought.  Bad breakups can come in threes, fives, or more; natural tragedies such as Katrina, Haiti, the Indian Ocean tsunami have far-reaching repercussions even after the grassroots funding for relief grinds to a halt; even being a student, according to a new study, is linked to depression and all that implies.  The scary part isn’t that these happen; it’s that few people notice.  It is so, terribly, fantastically easy to project a façade of emotional calm and control, to pretend not to feel the near-critical mass of emotional baggage that one is carrying around.  The truly hard part is that, where we live, releasing that baggage isn’t as easy as it could be.  Crying is usually an option, but what if get caught and someone makes fun of you?  What if they think I’m weak?  Talking about feelings is another viable choice, but what if that cute girl I saw the other day walks in and thinks I’m weird for having all these issues?  I’m probably oversimplifying here, but my point is this: holding it in, for many, is easier than facing the answers to these questions.  I’m more guilty than most in this respect.

So, while Wolf Blitzer laments the lack of change in Copenhagen’s wake, Glenn Beck attacks every facet of the existing power structure, Thomas Friedman discusses the shortcomings of US foreign policy, it would seem that we’ve all been ignoring the real elephant in the room.  People, perhaps like you and most definitely like me, can get away with crying alone.  What, please, is the point in saving the polar bears if that victory’s backdrop is a societal emotional crisis?  A social climate that forces fear into the hearts of the broken-spirited, brokenhearted – this is a crime against humanity.  Unlike many instances of this allegation, each of us as individual human beings in our day-to-day lives can do our part to right it.

When my friend said what she did about darkness and light, I replied

Sometimes all it takes is a push in the dark for someone you care about to realize the light they’ve been looking for all along is already inside of them.

This is a power that all of us, as human beings, have.  The power of compassion: it is the superhero to the villain of lonely tears. Next time you hear about yet another corporation going green, hear a herald of a revolt against the government, stop and think.

Ask yourself, in this moment, whose life can you bring out the light in?  Who’s life can you be a hero in?

Credit where credit is due: friend’s comment on my first post helped inspire this one…do me a favor and drop in any ideas you may have, yeah?  This writing thing isn’t as easy as my 4^th grade teacher made it sound…

We’re powerful, humans.  From the Kennedy’s declaration of our aspiration to space to the Apollo 11 landing, a mere 8 years passed.  Let me say that again: it took us less than half my lifetime to put a human on the moon.  In our history, our brethren and predecessors have toppled tyrants, unified nations, and held relentlessly our highest of ideals.  Events like those in Haiti always prove the pessimists, skeptics, and cynics, soundly wrong; the global unity and compassion that humanity has shown to the Haitian survivors and refuges is incredible.  Red tape, slashed, litters the ground; our pockets, empty in economic downturn, are lighter still as we show our support; heroes have departed from all walks of life to donate their hands to pull survivors out of the rubble. We saw people in need; we gave them, as a species, our help.

We’re powerful. From the pyramids to the twin towers, great depression to great recession, eternity to here: human society has shown time and time again that we will prevail. There has yet to be a circumstance or tragedy, even those brought upon us by ourselves, that we’ve failed to overcome: segregation: struck down; the iron curtain: lifted; the British Empire’s grasp on India: released.  Any strife inevitably gives way to triumph when humans are involved.  History is a series of success stories.

And we are all powerful.  In blatant defiance of the face of terrible circumstances, humanity’s innate ability to positively impact the world around them shines most brightly.  Whether you text Haiti to 90999, produce a film to raise social awareness, or simply give someone a hug, know.  You are powerful, you are good.  You are human.

Please feel free to leave any ideas, responses, anecdotes that you may have in the comments section!

David Brooks says in his article The Odyssey Years, that Odyssey is also the name of one of the new life phases and the least understood. “The decade of wondering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood.” As a person who went through this phase experiencing cultural changes, and in the midst of an existentialistic flare, I find the name Odyssey very relevant and indelible.

Several years ago while recovering from a long and painful hospitalization, I turned the TV on searching for uplifting content that could help me forget about the pain that I was experiencing. An anchor on the daily TV news was reporting a tragic event: a woman was attempting to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge. Ordinary citizens saw her suicide attempt as a mere interruption to their daily routine. An inconvenience.

Still experiencing pain I began to think deep about the complexity of the human condition. It was hard to comprehend that someone would want to die at a moment when I was fighting to live. But two years later, after battling deep pain in the hospital for several weeks, I was able to experience a similar feeling. I was left with the only choice of undergoing major surgeries in order to survive. Existential questions visited me daily, hitting a wall of intangible resources that couldn’t produce any answers. Then I asked myself if living was worth it. And for a moment, I found peace knowing that death might be a way to find relief. It was only a couple of minutes before going under the effects of the anesthesia that I realized I actually wanted another chance at life.

But for some people suicide is not a choice but the inevitable outcome when the pain exceeds their resources for coping. Many people have asked me why I want to produce a movie about suicide. I could say I had a friend who committed suicide in high school. Or that I was in love with the life and work of a famous musician who committed suicide. Or that a victim of a suicide attempt reported by the media, and the unexpected response from viewers, made me question the way we view other people’s struggles. But the real answer is that all of the above are only part of a bigger answer: acknowledged or not, suicide is all around us and no one is talking about it.

By letting fiction draw out the ordinary aspects of our human nature, we want to offer a broad space for dialogue and reflection on suicide. With a magnificent city like Seattle serving as the main set for our film, our cinematographer’s camera will surrender to the most ordinary, yet unique moments in the lives of the main characters. Nothing Against Life is not afraid to dig into the ugliness and sadness of the subject without forgetting that even in life’s most painful moments, we can find beauty and redemption.

Today, I want to ask you to be an active member of a respectful and open dialogue about the subject of suicide. Bringing a closeted subject to an open space creates freedom for individuals struggling with problems associated with this terrible epidemic. Our silence is cruel. And suicide affects far too many people around the world to be ignored.

We also invite you to become a friend of our film and help us make it a reality.  In the midst of an economic recession, and in a world where bureaucracy affects even the finest and most noble arts, real independent films deserve an opportunity to stay above water, and breathing. Nothing Against Life is a powerful, important story waiting to be given life.

Welcome to Nothing Against Life Community!

I will never forget that day. It was a cold night in the winter of 2001. I was just getting home from Christmas shopping with my mom. I returned to several phone calls from my best friend’s mother, asking if I had seen Mary. This was one of the rare occasions I hadn’t spent all day with her. Slightly concerned, I dialed her number. Megan, her 14-year-old sister, answered the phone. In the few minutes we talked, she gave me some fuzzy but chilling facts. Mary had been in an accident. She was in the hospital. That was all she knew.

My dad rushed me to the hospital to see Mary, and to find out details about the accident. Arriving at the ER, I told the receptionist I was there to see my friend Mary who had been in an accident that evening. My feelings of dread were not made better when she motioned me to a small room and told me to wait for the doctor. When the doctor came to meet us, he had a somber look on his face. He spoke to my dad first. The two of them discussed, for what seemed like an eternity, in whispered voices, every once in a while casting a frantic glance over at me.

My heart nearly stopped when my dad sat next to me, and gently informed me that I was not allowed to see Mary. She had tried to kill herself that evening. I had no idea she was even unhappy. We spent nearly every second together, always laughing, talking, and sharing things. What made it worse is that I was not allowed to see her. I had to get up, go to school and live a normal life knowing she was in a hospital somewhere. But it wasn’t normal. I drove alone to school. She wasn’t sitting next to me in 1^st period. I actually went to class because she wasn’t there to skip it with me. I struggled daily with her absence. She hadn’t succeeded in killing herself, but I had still lost my best friend.

I called her mom every couple days. How is she doing? Where is she? Can I see her? When will she be back? Always I received the same distant reply. She was doing better. She’s at a psychiatric hospital somewhere. She will be gone indefinitely. And I would not be able to see her. And life went on. I got used to going on without her, but she was always on my mind. I was plagued with the question, why? Why wasn’t she happy? Why didn’t I know? Why didn’t she tell me? And, selfishly, why wasn’t I enough?

I’ll talk more about Mary and what followed in upcoming posts. But I am thankful to say that today she is alive, and doing very well. She even went on to earn her Masters in Psychology and is helping people who are going through the very thing that she survived.

Suicide, successful or not, leaves quite the wake. It affects more than just the person involved. My friendship with Mary changed my life, before the incident, and after. Nothing Against Life is a powerful film following the lives of individuals dealing with feelings of hopelessness and despair, leading up to suicide. It captures the emotion and the aftermath of something so prevalent and so ignored in today’s society. If you have a similar situation I would love for you to post comments, ask questions and share your story.

Nobody should have to deal with that much pain, sadness, self-doubt.  I will admit, I began to question this conviction, 6 hours later at 4 am.  After getting the runaround from a couple different suicide hotlines, I finally ended up finding the right police officer’s phone number.  While convincing my friend that I wasn’t going to report her in an instant messaging conversation, I was both reporting her and trying to keep her typing so I would know she was alive.  That is stressful, even more so because as a minor without a car I couldn’t just drive over and stay with her.

She stopped talking to me after I called the hotline, 4 am that morning.  I understand why: our society is a judgmental one.  Reaching out for help is hard enough fearing the changes in life that will accompany, “Yeah, we’ll get you some help.”  The fear of both yes and no, of change and rejection simultaneously, is nearly insurmountable.  The only thing she said to me, for months, was how much she hated me.  She wouldn’t have even gone that far, but her therapist told her to.  Despite that, I know I did the right thing: right now, at this very moment she has a pulse.

It was worth it.  This is a passion of mine.  This is what I want to combat, the universal judgment against suicide, the taboo of asking for help.  This is a chance to become a root in the grassroots war against suicide.

This is Nothing Against Life.

We also want to thank all the great friends and supporters that Nothing Against Life has gained from the moment the project was conceived, particularly during the last year and half while we were in the process of creating our campaign. Without your time and friendship we wouldn’t have been able to finish this stage of the project.

Today, we want to share with you the joy that we feel as we launch Nothing Against Life’s Official Website.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Carl Adelson, Chris Duerkopp, Keith Kemp, Jesse Gunderson, Heidi Eng, Kay Bullitt, Dorothy Bullitt, Kemp IT, Kirk Portman, Darien Portman, Laura Kastner, Philip Mease, Valentina Montecinos, Northwest Film Forum, Lyall Bush, Dave Hanagan, Philip Dawdy, The Actors Group, Jamie Lopez, Philip Andrew Peterson, Jennifer Patrick, Kevin O’Brian, Megan Winston, Rick Stevenson, Suzanne Bouchard, Hilary Pickles, Sean Rawson, Jimmy Lyons, Andrew Lewis, Aaron Barker, Kathleen MacGuire, The Community from Grace Seattle, The Staff at NWIRP, John Abramson, Dale Sherrow, Elise Burger, John Haralson, Michael Subracko, Bauhaus Books and Coffee, Jacob Strange, Jana Moseley, Ashok Chandwaney, Paola Hernández Moreno, Anna Wetzel, Emily Darling, Brittany Kaye, Deb Matthews, Carol Molchior, Amy Pennington, Jennifer Brown, Carmen Alcala, Nahomi Hiramoto, William Hamer, Lori Stein, Wig Master Dennis Milam Bensie, Rose Hurley, Britanny Powers, José Osorio, Sonya Lea, John Siegel, Scott Logan, Ross Haverlah, Malala Mahoney, Kathryn Cornell, Margot Kenly, Bill Cumming, Carolina Forero, Megan Griffiths, Paul Hurlihey, Audra O’Dell, The Neighbors at Federal Ave E, Saint Mark’s Cathedral, University of Washington, Serafina Restaurant, Horizon Books, Vu Boutique, Joe Bar, Dave Sharkey, The Quite Ones, David Totten, Herbert A. Wetli, Olga Lucía Ramírez, Brandon Herbel, Dojcak, Jon Del Toro.

Happy New Years!