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While this article in Forbes on Why Immigrants Make Better Entrepreneurs is a bit of pulp, it’s a topic that generates a lot of casual speculation on why some people get a “big break” and others don’t.  The article describes an immigrant, Christian Gheorghe, that was willing to take any job - hauling plywood, driving limos - while simultaneously improving on his craft and chatting up everyone that crossed his path.  His life essentially changed the day that Andrew Saxe entered Gheorghe’s limo.  Saxe needed help programming and Gheorghe had the skill set and the time to oblige.  Saxe Marketing was ultimately sold for $30 million to another firm in 1997.  Gheorghe went on to use his cash windfall to achieve even greater success in Silicon Valley.

The key point here (and one that the article overlooks) is that success is never achieved on your own.  Even if you’re an immigrant.  It’s always a combination of opportunity and preparedness.  Assuming equal parts hard work and diligence, the division between those that achieve and those who do not is drawn along the line of opportunity.  People in filmmaking who have not achieved their goals in spite of their hard work often see the absence of a Christian Gheorghe-like serendipitous encounter.  Reasonably so, almost everything in this industry happens because of who you know; we can’t put our resumé on LinkedIn, list 10 years of experience, and get a job directing, producing, or editing feature films.  If you meet the right person or you’re born into the right family, you have a chance.  Anything short of that, you don’t.  Not even Charlie Chaplin, who came from a dirt-poor family in London, made movies on his own.

The maddening randomness is almost embittering.  But the honest-to-God truth is that none of this matters.  If you keep putting yourself out there, if you keep pushing your limits, if you keep working for/with people you like, and if you keep improving your craft, you improve the odds of getting that Christian Gheorghe break.  If you never get it?  Who cares.  At least you’re doing something you love and you’re living a full life.  The only real drag is that if you never get a break, you’ll have to quit someday - either by force of nature or fact of finance.  But we’re all in this for the ride, not the result; we all know how this story ultimately ends and it ends the same way for everyone.   Let go, enjoy it, and make movies while you still can.

~ü

Today one of my close friends discovered she has synethesia. The look on her face when I broke it to her that most people can’t make rainbows out of letters or families out of numbers and that, more or less, our world is black and white compared to hers was probably one of the most precious moments of my life.

After she realised this she started tracing the backs of people’s jerseys, where their names are written and asking me what colours they are. I just told her they were white and for a little while I don’t think she believed me. She told me about one time when she wanted to buy a really cute case for her phone, but she couldn’t buy it because the case was a boy and her phone was a girl and that just didn’t work. When I asked her what colour my name was she told me my name started with dark blue and after that both of us got distracted by everything around us and I never found what colour the rest of my name is.

Competing for abundant resources like love and sex isn’t a good use of time.