I Don’t Have a Passion For Anything.
Shane has been talking since he was very young about having a career in film. When he was a preschooler, he took videos non-stop with a Little Tikes camera. This lasted for years. He would point the camera at his toys, and then he would talk – barely loud enough for the microphone to pick up his voice, let alone his toddler-esque words.
So we got him a better camera. Inadvertently, I discovered that he also had a knack for taking still photos – I mean, he really has a knack for it. I wanted desperately to be a photographer when I was younger. I do not have a knack for it.
Years went by. Shane entered one photography competition – the county fair – and won THE Chairman’s Choice Award for his age group. He continued to make films for YouTube and Instagram. And he kept saying he was interested in a career in film.
So, at some point in October, Shane and I started planning a trip to see some colleges in California. Well, really, I started planning and Shane acted disinterested.
“You have to go to school in California if you really want to be in film,” I said – 6,000 times.
“Okay,” Shane would say. But he didn’t do any research on colleges. He stopped taking video classes in school (mostly thanks to the school) and he pretty much stopped making videos, too.
He started attending the local film club, Tryka, where high schoolers at all levels of filmmaking could talk about film. He seemed to like it, but he sure didn’t love it.
“Are you still interested in film?” I asked – many times.
“Yeah,” he said. “I don’t really want to be a director or anything, but film is better than any of the other choices of careers.”
“Son, do you have any real passion for working in film? I mean, is it something you really want to do with your life? California is a long way away, and that’s really where you have to be if you want a career in film.”
“I don’t have a passion for anything,” he said. “But I would rather work in film than anything else I can think of.”
Ah-ha! I thought. He just can’t think of anything else!
California is a long way away. We are still going to visit some colleges known for their film degrees, and I’m happy to see the Californian sights. But I’m not thrilled about sending my not-so-passionate baby 3,000 miles away so that he can study something he doesn’t even like.
“Would you like to read a cool book?” I asked him. “It really helped me when I couldn’t figure out what to do with my life, and they wrote one specifically for teenagers. It’s called, ‘What Color is Your Parachute?‘”
“No.”
Shane is not a fan of reading whole books, even though he used to love them. He is definitely from the 21st century, short-attention-span crowd.
So I made a booklet for him. I hopped online and researched occupations Shane might enjoy, and careers that he might find enticing. I found a website called Job Monkey that listed occupations he probably never knew existed – and then I plunked in information about the related majors and college programs for the various careers.
I printed it out for him.
And then it sat there, in a pile, for two weeks.
I’m beginning to think that the problem is not “passion for film” as much as just “finding a passion.”
Shane – always – prefers to just sit. He is a poster child for Newton’s first law.