Week Twenty-Six: Jesse Sample’s Freak of the Week

Jesse Sample’s Freak of the Week airs EVERY WEDNESDAY at 6pm EASTERN only on RadioRadioX.com

This is Jesse Sample. As I move through my life, I’m realizing more and more, that your perspective is really everything. You can choose to do things that broaden your horizons, and outside events sometimes force shifts in the way you see the world. In the end, however, you can only see what you can see and in a funny way, we individually, are often the worst judges of what might be important to other people.

When my father was not long for this world, a friend of mine who worked in film, suggested we document the last days of his life. I rejected the idea outright. I was a young man at the time. I was naive about how people work. I wanted to present myself to the world as strong and indestructible. The idea of making a documentary about my father scared me. A vulnerability I felt and didn’t understand would be wide open for the world to see. That opportunity passed along with my father.

A couple streaming this documentary in their living room, might set down their popcorn and emotionally invest themselves in it’s characters. They’d see a kind man transitioning from one life to another and they’d see a young man trying to appear strong while being completely terrified inside. Movies without vulnerable characters don’t work. Nobody would give a shit about superman if it weren’t for Kryptonite.

Maybe the things that we reject in ourselves could be the very things that enable others to relate to us. When we hide these parts of ourselves, we cut ourselves off from other people. Who wants to be friends with a perfect person? We like people who are imperfect, because however imperfect, they rally their inner resources and summon the courage to present themselves to the world, as they are.

Maybe this is obvious to you, but my perspective is limited, and I’ve been coming to this realization slowly.