[PERSONAL] Some Lasting Thoughts On “No Sleep” Event..
First things first, I’d like to thank everyone involved in the night’s success, everyone who passed on the invite, who tweeted, who sponsored us, who hashtagged us…etc, from the tippy top to the bottom of my heart thank you to all of you beautiful people!
I had to sit with this post for a bit because I needed to take the weekend to (sleep) and also let the lasting feeling fully surface to know how I truly felt about the night. I closed my eyes and rewound the tape. When I opened my eyes, I felt this warm feeling and butterflies fluttering in my belly like I’ve just experienced my first kiss. I think that’s exactly what the night felt like. It was awkward in the beginning as we were finding our footing as the “hosts” for the night, the sweet taste when we got our first applause after we screened the first film then the afterglow of having crossed the threshold of inexperienced to experienced.
The Cynical Owl, up until that night, was this virtual presence that wasn’t exactly grounded in reality yet. We have followers of the site and our respective twitters, who click the links and sometimes give opinions, but to be in a room of people who are watching an actual creation of ours is completely new. Throwing an event was new to all of us. I had thrown some ratchet house parties before, but this was completely different.
I knew that in taking this step we had to push ourselves to rise to the occasion. There cannot be a notion of a comfort zone when you are trying to live out your passions. You live dangerously by default because you are rejecting the comfort of practicality. We have to eat fear and shit out confidence. It’s the only how I saw us as a company progressing.
My favorite moment of the night is when people crowded around the screen and I was able to speak straight from the heart and have it understood. I never experienced anything like that. I never had a connection with so many people, instantly. It was a respect that was given to me that I immediately threw back. A key of exchange of positivity and warmth. Everyone in that room was my family and they’re still my family.
I hope that as The Cynical Owl continues to grow, the family continues to expand to the point where we cannot be ignored. Where the images we want to see cannot be denied.
I looked around that room and saw so many different people, from different backgrounds and I could only think, “We aren’t even supposed to be here.”