petruzzo
| Forum role | Member since | Last activity | Topics created | Replies created |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Member | Nov 2, 2007 (18 years) |
- | 1 | 0 |
- Forum role
- Member
- Member since
Nov 2, 2007 (18 years)
- Last activity
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- Topics created
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Bio
Hi, I’m Bill Petruzzo, and despite the next eight paragraphs, this website is not about me.
I believe in self expression. I don’t mean necessarily expressing one’s self to the world. No, I more believe in expressing one’s self to God.
Sometime when I was pretty young, I decided that I wanted to be an actor. I enjoyed the thought so much in fact that I partook in an acting camp funded, graciously, by my parents. Although the camp was pretty fun, it didn’t take long before I discovered it was more about singing and dancing than about acting. That experience really underscored my eventual opinion on being an actor. I wanted to express myself, or at least express something anyway. As an actor, I didn’t get to do that, I expressed someone else’s something; so I lost interest.
It wasn’t long before my thrusts for self-expression lead me to purchase a guitar thanks to money my grandmother had left in a fund somewhere. Maybe it was lack of ambition or maybe I was genetically predisposed not to be able to move my fingers fast enough, but the guitar quickly left me frustrated. I wasn’t only not expressing myself, but what I was expressing was off-key and out of any discernable rhythm. I lost interest.
The perfect antithesis of the guitar; this became my new ambition. Growing up, my household has always had a healthy infusion of photography. My father, an amazing photographer himself, always seemed to have his camera at just the right time. One of our favorite past times was sitting in the quiet dining room with only the hum of the photo-projector in the background. “shhhhhhk-chck….” Next slide. It was great. Sitting there watching memories go by on the projection screen. Looking at the pictures made us feel like we were there again. With the help my mother and father, I got my hands onto a high-quality camera and started taking pictures. Many of them were pretty alright, but there was still something missing. What about the music? If only I could play the guitar, then everyone would be able to understand! The emotion just wouldn’t pour out of my photographs the way I wanted it to! Lopsided in my hobby, I lost interest.
Seeking a cure for my ailment, I tried to come up with the solution to this half-expression I was tormented with. All of a sudden, it dawned on me, films incorporate both video and audio into one experience. I thought to myself, “What an expressive life! If I get that life, then they’ll really feel it!” It wasn’t long before my, sometimes too supportive, parents helped me to purchase a very expensive video camera. With the cooperation of friends and family, I started making short films. Of course, now I was presented with a whole new series of problems. Now I needed someone else to express for me what I wanted to express- and they had to do it well! What’s more, it turns out that I didn’t have enough arms to do everything all at once. I came full circle! I was standing on that stage at acting camp again. I had something to express, but now I had to rely on someone else to express it for me! This wasn’t the solution to my problem either.
In the midst of this creative exploration, I made a discovery with eternal consequences. I discovered eternal life. No, not in a fountain of youth type, sci-fi adventure way; I can assure you, I’m going die some day. No, I found the fountain of spiritual youth. It’s in Jesus Christ, and he said something was wrong. For some reason, I had assumed it was okay to express myself. Somewhere along the way I got the idea that I had the right to express myself to the world; that the world even cared. All of a sudden, it was clear, the world doesn’t care. It has no reason to, and it’s selfish of me to expect it to. However all was not lost. In my discovery, I had formed a relationship with the Father who has loved me inside and out, even before I was conceived and like a good father, he always wants to hear what's on my heart!
I have tried to change my mind, I try to create for him now. I wish to express myself to Him. He doesn’t need music to understand, he doesn’t need the photograph, or the film. He sees my heart and so my expression to him, however it looks, is always understood.