Excerpt from Little Armenia screenplay: Saúl ponders his personal objectivity.
SAÚL (V.O.)
I’ve always lived near the water. Never been more than thirty miles from the coast. The waves crashing into California are opaque and unpredictable. Always threatening to suck you in. But to me, it’s comforting.
There’s a strange duality standing at the edge of the continent before the ocean: it’s the ultimate border and frontier. I’ve felt it all my life.
The thing is, I had no choice; water’s in my blood. I overheard that I was conceived on the beach. And I grew up within sight of the Pacific – south of San Diego. The ocean was my playground and my babysitter.
You experience reality from inside your own head, so you never really explore existence objectively. You see everything through a distorted lens.
The truth is, reality is fluid like the ocean. What’s real tumbles and stirs together with what you imagine. The trick is to never go too deep and lose all perspective.
The thing about life is, to keep your head above water, you learn to fool yourself. To survive, you have to believe that you’re not drowning.