C3PO

Bismillah-ir-Rahman-ir-Raheem.

Assalam alaikum wr wb!

On hitRECord, I called myself C3PO recently. The analogy is more fitting than I'd like to admit. Yes, I feel like a gold-plated robot with a high-pitched British accent - mine is acquired, of course. Yes, I feel like I'm very annoying, neurotic and a burden – but I am useful and that is the only reason why anyone keeps me around. Yes. I feel inhuman. I feel sexless. I feel emotionless.

I suppose all of this started last week when I was at film boot camp. I had the bad fortune of being chosen to play this psychiatrist whose schizophrenic patient thinks she's her mother. I've never acted before in my life, but I didn't think I would be that bad.

I was that bad. I just could not emote. The director was tearing his hair out. And the boom operator said, "I pity your daughter."

That touched a nerve. I've wanted kids all my life and to even think that I would be bad at it, that I would be anything less than loving just killed me. It still kills me. I heard my voice and saw my face on the rushes – I was cold and businesslike. Would I be like that with my children? I know it was a throwaway comment from someone I had just met. But sometimes little things hurt a lot.

Film bootcamp. An interview with a filmmaker. A way forward. It seems like God is giving me lampposts on this long and arduous journey to filmmaking.

But I cannot muster any joy. Not even a little. I held a camera in my hand for the first time. We made a film. We helped edit it. I boomed, I directed, I acted, I even rewrote a little, though not as much as I should have.

I am not happy or hopeful. I cannot muster any gratitude to God. That feels ten different kinds of wrong, like some part of me has died.

And at the same time, there is this nervous energy that is just driving me crazy. I'm not excited or motivated - I'm just tired. I want my heart to stop pounding so hard. I want some peace and quiet in my head. I want to sink to the bottom of a deep calm blue ocean and eventually I want everything to be carried far far away from me where they can't reach me. Yes, even my feckless ambitions. To write and film my first comedy. To fall in love, raise a family. To be honest, that second one seems even more far-fetched than me being a successful filmmaker. I can't dredge up any feelings of mild affection for anyone, let alone love. Would I love and marry someone like me? The truth is – no, I wouldn't. I'm boring and socially awkward. I have no hobbies really. I don't even have a real job right now.

At least C3PO could power down.


Wassalam and Fee Amanilah,
Zed.