A few of us were making a short film sometime ago. I was acting as the producer, director and writer. It was my semester break and I had collected a bit of money over time doing things here and there and also had some coming so that I could borrow against it. Besides the monetary investment I was also doing some seemingly substantial and tiring work. So a cousin asks me one day, “What are you making from doing this thing?”

I said almost nothing.

“Has somebody asked for it? Is it for a competition?”

“No”

“Why would you make it then? Are you going to recover your costs?”

I didn’t think I would.

My cousin wasn’t happy with the situation. “Why do such a thing, then?” he asks me, a bit surprised. “Films are made to recover their costs aren’t they? Every investment should have a return. You should think about profits and losses”.

A lot of people wouldn’t agree with this of course. General view generally is a balanced perspective and we all tend to think that perhaps there are situations where we need to think about profits and losses and then there are those where we shouldn’t. Issues of humanity, love and relationships relate to the latter and most other things, with the former. But I think there are many more situations, a lot of aspects on the delicate intricacies of life, where one can throw out the calculators and take other forms of reasoning (like happiness, thrills from completing a challenge, etc.).

I do not mean to say however that calculations of investments and returns are to be totally abandoned. Indeed one of the most basic of human natures is to seek return on something you have invested upon (even when it comes to feelings, love or friendships) but the idea of calculating for profits and losses needs to be redefined. And in this redefinition I would personally recommend the calculations of satisfaction and personal happiness in the revenue mix. Sometimes, of course, that can be very difficult to assign with numerals. Happiness sometimes is the feeling you have never really substantially felt because the efforts you have put in to have achieved it are unknown to you. It might even have been a habit. It might also, be a perspective, a comparison.

“What am I getting out of this?” is an eternal human question. My point is, sometimes, you cannot exactly calculate that and even if you knew what you were getting, you wouldn’t be able to explain it to everybody. Words like “Satisfaction” and “Happiness” are so heavy and relate on so many levels. And yet those are exactly the things you have been looking for. If that is so, then do not worry. You are in profit, whether elementary mathematics agrees or not.

Chiya-Pasaley loves tea and writes about conversations that originate along the hours spent on drinking many cups of it. Besides that he is curious about many things and especially the rural-urban divide, and the coming of modernization to Nepal. He writes on the mundane and the very fantastic, and everything in between.


www.parakhi.com/blogs