My Million Dollar Blog

Norman Vaughn died today.

Not only did the man die at 100 and at 89 scaled a mountain, but he left us with one gigantic, amazing, inspiring, dream-lifting audio bite:

“Dream big, and dare to fail.”

Thanks Norman.

Spent last night at a farm celebrating the longest night of the year. Personally I’m glad to see it go.

Had a really interesting conversation. Basically, a friend and I were discussing the compulsion to make a story when documenting, but through the process eventually you understand that what you want at the outset is, at best, a hypothesis, and the story assembles itself.

The hardest part of the documenting I’ve found is deciding when to be withholding judgement - it’s really easy to be disappointed with whatever you’re documenting because it’s not going as planned, but at the end of the day the story is telling itself. And if it went as planned, how much fun would it be anyway.

I was very kindly and graciously taken out for several martinis tonight to toast this project by a local artist. It felt weird to hear this whole thing described in terms like “BALLS!”. A lot of people have told me that this type of thing takes balls the likes of which are rarely seen, but honestly I’ve never really thought of it that way.

This whole thing just seemed logical when it first came up and even though it’s driven me round the bend and back again it doesn’t feel like I’m doing anything particularly brave. If anything, I feel like I’m constantly missing the mark of “balls” and falling below it.

Maybe it’s a matter of perspective. From here it doesn’t feel like that big a deal, it feels like anyone could be doing it. And anyone could, really. Maybe that’s the difference - that not everyone is.

A lot of times when I hear people talking about this project it sounds like they’re talking about someone else, it’s hard to equate myself with the ridiculousness that’s gone on.

I’m off to Montreal for the holidays tomorrow. I’ll still be posting.

I spend a lot of time stressing myself out these days. A lot.

I stress myself out with all the things I should be doing that I simply don’t have time to accomplish. I run moments over in my head analyzing all the ways I could have reacted differently that might have resulted in different outcomes.

But it’s useless to what-if things to death.

It struck me tonight that maybe a more productive approach to these last days is just to enjoy them and savour the lingering threads of this process.

I have no idea how I’m going to keep myself occupied as soon as all this is over. I do have plans to do a one-minute short every week next year, so at the end of the year I have a near-feature length film of one-minute slices of life. I’m also working on another documentary which I’m planning for 2006 or maybe 2007 (depends on funding, I’d start January 1st if I could!). I’ve got a movie to cut. So I’ve got Things To Do starting the first of next year … but I also will have a big void where this performance and documentary that’s been such a huge part of my life for nearly a year used to be.

I’m watching this process wind down like a sandcastle being washed away by the tide, and it’s sad but beautiful in itself. No matter how much I want to trap and hold onto it, it’s going.

So today I resolve to enjoy watching it go.

December is presenting me with all the things I haven’t done.

I swore at the outset that I would not, would NOT, leave this year with any regrets.

Yeah, I knew that was stupid. I guess it’s part of the process though; I knew that even if I did everything to the absolute hilt I would still be left thinking of all the things I should have done.

Part of the process, kids.

Check out http://www.apprentice-auction.com/, where they’re auctioning off props and artifacts from the show.

Interesting. I wonder how much they’ll go for.