Embrace the Unfamiliar

I'm the type of person who spends more time scrolling through streaming service menus than watching actual content. I'm not sure if it's because of my lack of trust in what's recommended or because I love the feeling of digging for a hidden gem. Whatever the case, I've come to realize that being so picky can lead to missing out on fun discussions that come with indulging the most recent binge-worthy entertainment, because after all, you certainly can't sit around asking yourself if you've seen the latest season of a hit series.

Now that I think about it my problem with deciding what to watch is sort of like my writing process. I think I land on something, second guess it, go somewhere else with it, dwell on it, re-read it, decide no, and before I know it I've rounded all the way back to my first idea or recommendation in this case. It all sort of reminds me of a character from one of my favorite films of all time, Adaptation (2002), which I would highly recommend. Directed by Spike Jonze and written by Charlie Kaufman, the plot follows a self-conscious screenwriter, Charlie Kaufman (yea, very meta), who is having a hard time adapting a novel for film. Though the film connects heavily with people who write it's themes are broad and can apply to anyone's life or in my instance, the problem of not knowing how to decide what to watch.

Charlie is a very methodic writer who lives by principles and staying true while his twin brother, Donald, is more of a fun loving, free spirited person who takes chances and most importantly; enthusiastically believes in his decisions no matter how unoriginal they may seem to Charlie. As pretentious as it sounds, this is how I see myself versus everyone else when it comes to viewing content. I , as Charlie, take forever to find something that's perfect and cannot wrap my head around how you, as Donald, can just dive into anything and invest your time in it. And it kills me inside because I want that too, I really do.

So the film carries on and Charlie continues to second-guess all of his decisions and he is becoming a nervous wreck. That is until one day he takes advice from his wacky twin brother, who he's usually giving advice to, and he takes a chance and makes a decision that unravels a bizarre rollercoaster of events and fills his world with more drama than it ever was before. He adapts to making more choices on a whim. This is all I have to do. Trust in the algorithm provided by the populous, even just a little and I could take it where I want to, even if it's not where I planned on ending up.

Speaking of good movies in the realm of writing. If you like Adaptation you'll love Barton Fink (1991). Written and directed by the Coen Brothers, the film follows a playwright from New York who gets what he thinks is the deal of a lifetime to write scripts in Hollywood. What follows is a surreal cerebral adventure (mostly in his dingy hotel room) as he struggles with torturous writer's block and deals with unusual characters. But enough about writer's block and second-guessing, I just overcame my streamer's block and have been in a groove watching what's hot while also forming a niche into the oddities of the seldom visited corners of genre categories.