I Want to Be a Director, But...

I know I’ve been saying for a long time that I will do something lifestyle based and so, I am doing a lifestyle blog about things that happen on a day-to-day basis. I will be talking about my experiences with various things, some things will come back over and over again because my days are very much similar. If something else happens then it happens. Hopefully, you and I can get along and I can go along and tell you a little bit of a story about this experience I’ve had and then we’re going to talk about it. I’m going to discuss my reaction and my thoughts on the experience afterwards. Not only am I thinking about getting a dialogue going, but I’m also looking to make friends with people who have probably had similar experiences to me. Not only that though, maybe we can have a bit of a laugh and rethink this shit - maybe our minds can be changed and enlightened together. Or, you can just be here to enjoy the story and listen to me ramble on. If you want to read this in my voice then I kind of sound like a cross between Freddie Mercury and Scar from the “Lion King”. So get the full ‘experience’ there. So immersive.

I Want to Be a Director, But...

I studied film, it's true. I had a thought that yes, one day I'm going to be a director.

A funeral director.

Let me explain.

A number of years ago, I had thought about becoming a mortician and/or a funeral director and well nobody in my life was very happy because they thought the job was not very happy. But they forget, that I'm not a very happy person and funerals can be something to celebrate rather than everyone moping around if we try, we can make people feel glad and honoured to be alive in the same time as a certain person.

When I was doing my degree, I was doing something I was passionate about: literature and film mainly. I then went on to do my M.A as everyone expected of me. It was during this time that I came to terms with the fact that many people will have many weddings and many children and many jobs. There are milestones that happen over and over as many times as you feel like. As many times as you're willing to work for and well, you only get one funeral. As much as you try, you can only have one funeral. You may as well go out in style and have people appreciating living in the same time as you. This is where I wanted to get into artisan funerals. Funerals designed around the being that is also the subject. No, not their academic career or their job, but images that the closest people to them remember them by. Photographs, messages, hobbies they had etc.

As someone who has spent their entire lives studying fictional people, I think that there is something really interested in the things that make up a person and the memories, the background and the mannerisms that create their existence. I'm not going to lie, that is what led me into wanting to be a funeral director. It is so interesting because there are so many different people that you can feel sorry that you never met because they're so amazing and yet, you feel glad that there were people who lived and experienced the same era as these people and the legacy lives on even if the body does not.

Unfortunately, something happened quite recently. Whilst in the midst for applying for a job in a private funeral company, they had emailed me stating that although they loved my application and enthusiasm and would've trained me for the job. But because of the pandemic, they had been forced to close as people weren't spending as much money on funerals and thus, going to commercial companies who offered cheap cookie-cutter stuff. And because not many people were allowed to attend the funeral there is less and less being spent on burying the dead. I find it upsetting and yet, it is a choice that is the last resort for most of these people - so I think I'm more upset for the family and friends for these people rather than the aspect of money not being spent on the funeral.

So there we go. I want to be a director and I'm working towards it. Although, it really isn't a film director is it?