New Zealanders have conventions and pleasantries, but we are direct. We are encouraged to be transparent with our behavior and not to employ passive aggression.

Nobody really truly supporting independent filmmakers anymore. It's just dire. There's a lot of bad filmmaking, and there's a lot of people worshipping some terrible filmmakers. It's a waste of all of our time, if you don't feel anything. We are an age of YouTube kids. We don't care so much anymore. It's all about marketing.

We are not taught that hardship is the anvil upon which we are beaten into beauty. We are not taught that some of our greatest moments are some of our most difficult.

The romance of circumvention is one of the most destructive forces at work in our society. The American Idol freeway to greatness, Instagramming one's way into popular consciousness with selfies of our ass folds beneath short shorts, human growth hormone and performance-enhancing drugs for athletes, Adderall for the idle mind, reality television that sacrifices our dignity for fifteen lousy minutes.

We are contaminated with the idea of "winning" and defeating others. Indoctrinated by parents, schools, and our ubiquitous media, hammered with a lie: The only way to be truly triumphant is if we are dominant before supposed "competitors" rather than beautiful before ourselves.

It's all just venom to the soul and symptomatic of a larger issue: the idea of the shortcut. The result without the fight. The fight is the thing. The work.

I'm not George Clooney, so I can't just pick and choose. I take roles where they occur.