Complicated Life

I know I said in my last post that I'd be writing about Aldi vs Wegman's today, but I've got something else I want to get into. I'll save that juicy morsel for later.

I often teach character development in screenwriting with the following instruction:

What does the character want? What does s/he need? The tension between those two answers will provide the inner conflict line throughout the film.

Over the last couple of days, it's occurred to me that I am struggling with the same couple of questions in my own life.

I have Wants. Lots of 'em. Some of them very secretive, very sexy, very selfish, very, well, "wanty." Sometimes Wanting drifts into Longing, which results in listening to too much Tori Amos (but is there really such a thing?) and feeling like a 19-year-old girl/woman with an achey breaky heart. Oftentimes, Wanting devolves into Wishing, and Wishing has an implied sense of Wanting the Impossible, and is therefore a big fat waste of time and energy. Also it causes bruxism.

I have lots of Needs. Ways to be healthy in body, mind and spirit. Avenues through which I can express the greatest potential of my existence and be a Whole Person. Open my chakras, pay my taxes, clean the bathroom, see movies by myself, play the violin, write every day, etc. etc. etc. Throughout my life, I've allowed those Wants to interfere with the fulfillment of the more important, if sometimes less fun and exciting Needs.

Sometimes it's just easier to pursue the Want and ignore the Need. I know you know what I mean:

• It's easier to sit around, watch another rerun of Ghost Hunters on TV and order in a pineapple pizza than to get up and make a healthy, well-balanced supper.
  
• It's easier to have a fuck buddy than to pay attention to why you constantly relive your childhood demons that land every relationship you've ever had in the crapper.
  
• It's much more fun to get a pedicure instead of going to the gym.
  
• It's way more fun to go out and get blasted than to stay home and meditate.
  

Because, you see, you Want to eat, but you don't want to make the effort. You Want to be intimate with someone, but you don't want to deal with your commitment issues. You Want to take care of your body, but it's far more pampering to have someone else do the work than to get sweaty and stinky on the arc trainer. You Want to relax, but it's way more entertaining to pound mai tais than to stay still and be present.

Ah you see what I'm getting at now? Here's what's really tricky: sometimes what you really Need is to say "Fuck it!" and satisfy the Want. THEN what do you do? How do you know when to scratch the itch and when to smother it in Calamine?

Okay, I really don't know if that last metaphor really works here, but you get the idea: The tension between Want and Need might make a good screenplay, but it makes life fucking complicated.



Thing is, usually in the movies, the character figures out what s/he Needs and does the Right Thing, saving him or herself as well as whatever epic scenario is going on (use the Force, Luke = blow up the Death Star and become a Jedi like your father before you, until he went bad and Obi Wan dismembered him in a pit of lava).

And as we all know, life just ain't that simple.