"Right mindfulness is essential to any art", I read in The Book of Tea.

Just watched Keeping the Faith for a second time, with the filmmakers commentary on. I find this exercise to be an easy form of education, a way of re-establishing the right mindfulness required for filmmaking. Before this special feature of DVD's, it was difficult to get inside the mind of a filmmaker, to observe the craft and not merely the end product. It took many hours of strenuous decoupage and poring through books like Projections and magazines like Sight and Sound in order to get a sense of this right mindfulness - the ecstatic buzz of things coming together, a rush of ideas, images and emotions, a glimpse of art through the maze of coincidence and process.

Sometimes this maze seems to go on forever, in all directions. Knowing the scale of the challenge facing you is not always such a good thing. Perhaps the only way to get through these challenges is to keep your head down and keep walking. Although it seems a lucky few are given wings to fly above its walls and bluffs, to glide through to the other side.

Right mindfulness is so hard to maintain. The important knowledge rarely falls in your lap. You have to go out into the wildnerness to seek it out, and bring it back to feed the fires of right mindfulness, to stoke the sparks of inspiration. And all this effort can still leave you cold. The temptation to give in to pleasant mediocrity is strong - after all, no one expects this of you except yourself.

The loneliness of embarking on a personal journey. When you start out, you don't know what you will gain, only what you are giving up. The sadness is real. Like meeting soulmates in foreign airports, it's not always easy to leave in the morning.

Ah it's one of those days again. Tired at work. Tired of work. But thankfully, not working. Haven't got much to say these days, have been suffering from mental blanks the size of Cincinnati. Not that I know how big Cincinnati is. in fact I'm not even sure how to spell it. I am avoiding real thought. Yet I must respond to the mewling of my readers. Like a hungry cat, blog readers must be fed regularly, or they drift away and get lost amongst the countless dried leaves.

Went to Yoga last night. It wasn't as silly as I thought it would be. But it felt like I was in church again, watching other people speaking in tongues and entering private trance-like states. I just couldn't open my spine and sit bones to "The Breath" no matter how many demonstrations the teacher gave. My favourite positions were flat on the mat, falling asleep, which I nearly did, except the teacher's somnambulous voice increased my suspicion that she was hypnotising us, or merely filching from people's coats. Yoga is a great scam. At the end of the 90 minute session, we each paid $15 and floated out into the night. I wondered if she would pay any tax on that $300. If only I was more flexible, a lucrative career-change could be in the offing.

The light rain woke me from my yoga-induced psychosis and I headed into the city to meet Disaster for dinner. I complimented him on his German postal worker jacket - designed to be thick and toasty, so as to discourage the Indonesian textile-workers from stealing one for themselves. After a pathetic beef laksa, we ambled down to the Theatre of Dreams to watch the Kimchi vs. Bolognaise game. The Kimchi's were going off, and I lost $10 after betting on Italia to win 2-0. Strangely enough, the Asian solidarity feelings kicked in and I was actually happier for losing. You gotta love those real-life fairytales.

I've been too busy to blog lately, watching the World Cup everyday, helping G move house and partying with the Westside crew. Went to the Opera House yesterday for a studio session of experimental ensemble music headed up by Prop, who don't seem to recognise me anymore now that they're making it. Funny that. Then had a few pints at the Lord Nelson and went home to listen to The Streets.

Been searching for a new job and thinking more about further study in film as well. Got my application for the VCA. Apparently only 1 in 14 applicants get in, so I have to plan my moves carefully. The move to Melbourne is a bit daunting, being neither here nor there, as far as big moves go. I think I'd rather shoot off to the UK for a year or two. But the hardest thing is convincing myself that I've still got what it takes to be a successful filmmaker, whatever that is. Listening to The Streets helps. If a 22 year old bedroom banger from Birmingham can turn out a record like that, anything's possible. Just need to salvage some confidence from my high-rolling uni days and overwrite the more recent wage-slave cynicism and self-doubt. Just tryin' to stay positive...