Monday, September 2, 2013

A bitter pill, a brighter day

Weird title I know... I can already see you thinking what is this oke on? Is he trying to be clever or what? Nope, none of that; the man above knows I've tried to do that a couple times too many. No, this is just a sharing post, of an amalgam of experiences I have had in the recent past. I was called upon to answer the question: why I do what I do and how important REAAALLY is storytelling to the world? I'm a storyteller, be it in song or on a screen, i've been put on earth to tell stories and tell them well. Why do we tell them? Lets hope I can figure out the answer to that by the end of this post.

I used to make this blog all about me: when I am on tv, when i've appeared in a magazine or the like and something about that felt disingenuous. suffice to say, the posts slowed down and eventually ceased to exist cos I wasn't sharing what I wanted to and lost the passion to blog in the process. Someone told me a story the other day, which resulted in one of the hardest lessons i've ever had to learn: "scripts aren't works of art, but invitations to collaborate". Being a filmmaker I thought, hell, does that mean I am not an artist? once again making it about myself. But no, that isn't the point. The point is that without a whole lot of people, time and effort, a script is just a piece of paper with writing on it; its not reaching its full potential as only a few people have the time and patience to read a script and get it. But if people collaborate to transform it into something more, it becomes life changing, it becomes a film. that was the bitter pill I had to swallow and boy oh boy did it help my process. the concept of sharing bled into the rest of my life and hence me coming back to this blog. I know its not about me, what I do; its not about fame or recognition. Filmmaking and more importantly storytelling, is about changing lives, changing the world by communicating a message that may challenge or inspire or comment, etc. Hi my name is Lehasa Moloi and I am a story teller.

Am I making sense...?

on the latter half of the title, I experienced something very rare the other day: I was ramping onto the M1 at Glenhove and the driver alongside me, who was at some significant speed on the busy road slowed down and gestured to me to enter the lane. I did and proceeded to thank him by flashing my hazard lights to which he flashed his lights in recognition thereof. As a sufferer of serious road rage, I was transformed by this "Roadraderie" (road + camaraderie) and suddenly, the sad negative news story playing on the radio was drowned out by a huge internal smile that was brewing. it doesn't take much to change the world for the better, as we all find out every Mandela day, but its the good that happens naturally, when nobody's watching that inspires me. it is in our power to bring about a brighter day, hence me blogging again; in my own little way, I am using the tools of my trade, words, to hopefully inspire you or brighten your day and that is the power of storytelling.

Lessons from Spiderman: with great power comes great responsibility! cliche? yes. does that make it any less true? nope. I guess what I am saying is that I am choosing to take responsibility, with what I do. Its not about me, there is a lot that needs changing in this world, in this life and even though we can all play our part, together, we can do more! no, that wasn't an allusion to a certain political party but yet another cliche, a true cliche (",)

As usual, I'd love to hear what you think and thus I encourage your comments, but thats me for now, before I get too soppy, hehe.

Peace, til next time, tell a friend ;)


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