is your backpack too full or too empty...

i went to the movies yesterday with my mom, darlene...it's a great way to spend a lazy sunday afternoon with mom...especially when it's below freezing outside...

we saw 'up in the air' with george clooney... clooney's character leads a seemingly empty life out of a suitcase, until his company unexpectedly grounds him...it's a movie worth seeing...clooney does a wonderful job in his role as a man hired to fire...

for clooney's character...home is in the air...in a different place every evening...sometimes even with a different woman...whatever the case, 'up in the air' gets us thinking about how 'home' or the concept thereof...is a survival tool...something that makes us feel at peace...or 'at home'....

while an outdoor guy like myself would go mad living exclusively within the stream of modern artifices...from the car...to the hotel...to the conference room...to the airplance...and all over again...we learn that clooney's character goes mad if not dieting on cultural articifices...this was his pocket of inner peace.

though pockets are sometimes places to postpone addressing our deeper fears...with clooney's character...we see that he's averse to commitment...when not firing people...he speaks to conference goers about lightening up their backpack...saying that it infringes upon their ability to move...and thus live...a speech he really is giving to himself...with others just listening in on his internal self-fulfilling dialogue...

he soon realizes that his backpack metaphor is catching up with him...it's a great lesson because for every person who has too light of a pack like clooney's character...there are hundreds needing to lighten their pack...

it's like independent filmmaking...you are automatically light...why...because you don't have the funds to put a lot in your filmmaking back pack...as a result you're able to move quickly...and adjust on the fly...

yet you see people who try to make movies all by themselves...a completely empty backpack...and yet to me this would be an unfulfilling endeavor...because while too many relations (a big production, for instance)...may be cumbersome...too few relationships...or none in the case of somebody who thinks they can do it all by him or herself...misses the opportunity to engage with other creative people who have similar interests...

it is about striking a balance in our relations...from family to film...and we only know when we have went too far...when our backpack is too full....or too empty...when we have risked living and lived risk...