The Planner

... when it came to filmmaking, Goro was a pro through and through, and he wouldn't begin storyboarding until the cast had been completely decided and the production had reached the point of starting principal photography.  It could be that Goro wanted to make this movie, but he thought it was impossible given the current circumstances, so maybe he put together this sort of detailed treatment as a substitute for actually making the movie.  That's what I was thinking, anyway.

I've been reading the latest novel by one of the writers I pay attention to, Kenzaburo Oe.  (I wrote that last sentence three times.   I was going to say "one of my favorite writers," but that's not true.  "One of the writers I enjoy," but that's not true either.  Oe's writing, which we always read in translation from Japanese, is not rhythmic or detailed, and his characters go through WAY too much exposition, mainly because nothing much is happening.  All of his work, for fifty years, has been about people overthinking their circumstances, thinking about how they think about what they might or might not do.  Which is one of the reasons I pay attention to him.)

When I was a young boy of ten or so, I dreamed of the future.  Given a pencil, a ruler and sufficient paper, I could keep myself busy for hours and hours outlining vivid and detailed plans.  I drew retail store facades, often, a center door bracketed by two display windows.  Sometimes they were record stores, and sometimes they were sporting goods stores.  But I never, as far as I remember, named any of those stores.  There was no text on the windows proclaiming "Herb's Records."

It could be that Goro wanted to make this movie, but he thought it was impossible given the current circumstances, so maybe he put together this sort of detailed treatment as a substitute for actually making the movie.  That's what I was thinking, anyway.

I've been asked, during a phone call with an important person, to put together a plan for a curriculum. The rationale, the lit review, the implementation plan, the partners, the timeline. I've done this many times, both personally and professionally. I'm a meticulous planner. No detail goes unconsidered. I can do a first draft that gives order-of-magnitude feasibility, then move into very fine grained analyses and projections.

Those plans are pleasing when I consider them and create them. I get to prospectively inhabit a lovely future for a few hours. But they more often substitute for action than launch it.

Nora's spent today out at Mom's summer house on Fire Island, coming to terms with what two feet of water inside a house can do. I spent the day proofreading curricular sheets, completing accreditation data reports, managing personnel strife. Neither of those are part of the plan.  The plan awaits the right circumstances, circumstances that will never perfectly exist.

Do, or do not.  There is no try.

(In case you didn't recognize that last quote, it isn't Kenzaburo Oe, though they share some similarities...)