Guy Maddin's Diaries

Okay, I admit--I'm fascinated by self-help books.

Especially those that provide sage advice about being disciplined, managing your time well, not practicing "avoidance", and "conquering procrastination".

Poet/actress Lisa Jarnot's blog offers an inspiring tool to apply to your daily life, the Vision Statement. I eat this stuff up like cake.

So, naturally, I love reading people's personal journals, especially those that contain wallowing confessions and passionate self-exhortations.

Like Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin's diaries, and the "Gatsby" list of his personal life:

1. Lonely.
2. Physically unfit.
3. Unreliable.
4. Chronically depressed.
5. Spinelessly incapable of refusing to perform unpleasant favours.
6. Don't read enough.
7. Don't have many real (or fake) friends.
8. Never create genuine laughter or happiness in others; complain about others too much.
9. Never busy enough.
10. Have no financial security long- or short-term.
11. Am simply not living my life (to be continued).
12. Crummy son, father, husband.

And his things to do in response to the "Gatsby" list:

1. Work hard, be thoughtful, generate activity; loneliness should disappear.
2. Eat properly, cycle, walk.
3. Be adult about responsbilities; donate $1000 to Winnipeg Film Group.
4. If I address all other points, perhaps depression will disappear.
5. You know what to do.
6. Read more.
7. You've worn out your personal mythologies. There are other people who might be interesting who didn't happen to spend L'Age d'Or with you.
8. Take that hornet's nest of your butt.
9. When you find a couch growing out of your side, take note. When paralyzed with ennui, you can always scrawl something in the therapeutic journal-thing. Use still or video camera more.
10. Perhaps it would be nice to live above month-to-month subsistence. You must learn to be more thick-skinned about the film business and treat it as a source of income. Work harder to wedge other jobs into long stretches of downtime. Write for a magazine. Keep an eye open for a real job.
11. GET OUT--LIVE--WORK!
12. Be better.