One nice thing about being old is that the world has come to an end 50 times in my certain memory. The planets aligned - the planets misaligned - one or another religious coo coo has delved the unfathomable depths of holy books and has determined that he knows the moment of the end in spite of God's insistence that no man will know the end. The planet keeps on rotating and you and I keep trippin' along continually surprised by the fact that prophets of doom are in no way prophets. Death, doom and despair are easy. All you have to do is give yourself up to fear. You've got to be very old to remember Roosevelt exhorting "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." I'm afraid I might forget that.
Most of us lead our lives cemented to the ground in one place. We can imagine other possibilities, but we don't believe them. I've been everywhere - seen everything - waded through blood and stood at 20,000 feet and looked down the backbone of the world. My philosophy was simple: ants don't own what's under the anthill. There are those who bemoan every change in history or nature as a sure sign of the Apocalypse. Sadly they don't realize that for all of us on some unmarked day we all face a personal apocalypse. Don't fear the reaper - rather rejoice in the fact that you don't have to do this forever. Don't misunderstand. I find nothing bleak in my mortality - only mortality. It makes it far easier to elevate my children and rejoice in their success and work hard and pray for the success of all their brothers and sisters of various hues. Dates on a calendar page are arbitrary and manmade and way to finite to strike fear in any of our hearts. The certainty of life is its magnificent uncertainty. I wanted to be king. I don't think I'm going to make it. I wanted to be rich and famous. Also no hope. I wanted to be a husband and a father and a friend and a guide and a filmmaker and I was all of those things. There are those who will mourn my going but certainty convinces me that they will be outnumbered at almost a billion to one by those who will never know I was here.
The fact of my anonymity doesn't make my contribution to the finite any less important. Those who needed and loved me found me willing and competent, and those who did not know me will survive without my contribution to their well-being. What has all that got to do with making movies, you say. Everything and nothing, says I.
Time and circumstance may not allow you the luxury or inconvenience of great wealth and notoriety. Be aware that your notoriety is assured among those people you reach out and touch. If you make the great American movie and only 6 people see it, including your mama, and they all love it, is it any less the great American movie? If I die in the morning, was the apocalypse promised by the new millennium coo coos only delayed by 18 days (18th of January here)? Or were they only crying in the face of the inevitable? I can't align or misalign the planets. I can barely communicate with those who speak the same language as I. I've only fathered my own children and I made movies.