Peter O'Toole's Passing and the Huge Affect of Lawrence of Arabia on Me

I was going to do a post today about press releases, but I learned that Peter O'Toole died, and I feel I need to do a post on how the movie he starred in, Lawrence of Arabia, greatly affected my life.  Now, I recognize that he didn't write the book or movie about Lawrence of Arabia, nor did he direct it, and this subject isn't really about what this blog is based on, but because it affected me as an artist so deeply, I want to take this moment to talk a little bit about it.

In 1991, I was studying film making at New York University, and was trying to be a screenwriter and director.  But I had gotten discouraged by a lot of elements that go into filmmaking, and was ready to quit.  Then one weekend I went into Brooklyn to see a screening of Lawrence of Arabia just for the fun of it.  It was a full, day-long event.  I sat alone in a seat near the center.  Amber lights poured down on the curtains as music from the movie lulled us into the atmosphere.  When the music rose, the lights went down, and the curtains parted.  The first two hours blew me away, and they were followed by a two hour intermission, during which the audience went out onto the lawn and had a picnic together.  We returned to the movie to finish it off.

What particularly moved me was that it mixed the worlds of adventure and intellectual storytelling.  A lot of times people tend to think you have to choose between these two.  A lot of writers and directors have bought into this belief, and the genres have separated even further.  But Lawrence of Arabia reminded us that neither excludes the other.

I left the theater re-energized.  I remember sitting on the subway platform thinking, if I can bring back that sort of movie, I will remain in film.  It became my goal to bring back the epic.  I was further inspired when I learned that Steven Spielberg had also been inspired by the same movie, and so I was probably on the right track.

Though I pursued that direction, I failed to bring back the epic, and even failed to become a filmmaker at all.  When I watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, I realized that Peter Jackson had achieved the goal for which I had set, and thus began my path back to books.

But what I wanted to talk about here actually has more to do with a line from the movie, one that has affected my entire life in movies, books, and even my personal life.  A lot of characters are trying to figure out how to attack the town of Akaba.  Major plans are being formed with strategies and tactics involving the sea, going up the mountains to assault the flanks, etc.  Lawrence and the Arabs he's with are behind Akaba and could take it easily, but a huge desert rests between them and the city.  Lawrence takes one of the men to the edge of that desert, thrusts his finger out into it and says, "Akaba is there.  All you need to do is go and get it."

Suddenly everything became simple.  All the plans and schemes could not topple the well-defended city.  But Lawrence showed that it was really quite simple.  "Akaba is there."  Stop planning and go get it.  To me, what it reveals in life is that a lot of the big plans and plots of how we'll go about them are actually excuses to not just do them.  I hear a lot of times people talking and talking and talking about these great things they're going to do.  This talk goes on for years, and they never do them, but they have great plans!  They have forgotten, "Akaba is there.  All you need to do is go and get it."  Though sometimes one needs a plan, jumping in isn't always the best idea, the plan can become the very obstacle you're trying to overcome.  It can become tempting to fool ourselves into believing we're accomplishing something because we're making plans or following a path we've set out.  We must be careful that these are not simply excuses from doing what really needs to be done.

This is one of the things I've always disliked about the empowerment movement.  To me, these life coach sessions and empowerment meetings often teach people all these strategies and mantras by which to achieve their goals, but if the people put the same time, effort, and money into simply doing what needs to be done, they would achieve them.  Most of the time, the people I've seen who follow the empowerment movement do so as a way to procrastinate from their goals, not achieve them.  I have yet to see someone who went to one of these empowerment groups actually achieve their goals as a direct result of the groups.  They usually find themselves several months or years down the line poorer than they were before, and, frankly, further from their goals, with lots of slogans to recite, but nothing to show for their efforts.

They need to know just one thing: "Akaba is there.  All you need to do is go and get it."  Now learn what's between you and your goal, set a plan to overcome them, (this should take no more than a few hours of research and planning,) and go and get it.  If you're still planning by tomorrow and not doing, or if you're joining an empowerment group or reciting slogans or mantras rather than taking action, then you're only making excuses for yourself.