I know exactly how you feel.
I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. My parents saved for me to go to college, and it was expected that I go.
I didn't know where I wanted to go, so I went to a local community college. The complete lack of direction there was so numbing, that I, too, found my days filled with roaming around town in a borrowed car, bumming my way through day in and out.
When my report cards came home, my mother was furious, and kicked me out. I learned the hard way that the world is cruel to those who don't have a direction.
It took me a long time to crawl my way up a corporate ladder, from working at a Radio Shack, to working for a Credit Card company in a phone center, to working as a Lab Monkey in a local testing facility. It was only when I thought back to my years bumming around college that I remembered what my real burning passion was.
The whole time I was working for a living, I kept concentrating on jobs that had bigger paychecks, because I wanted a Jaguar too. It wasn't until I started writing science fiction again like I had in junior high that I realized it was what I wanted to do. It's what I wanted to contribute. Only then could I look at the path to doing so successfully.
You said something about film school. Is it the school you need, or could you bang out a film next week, borrow a camcorder from a friend, round up a bunch of friends to star in it, and make yourself a movie?
When you say that you want to contribute to society, that doesn't always take the shape of a job. Sometimes it does. So what exactly is it that you want to contribute to society? Once you've answered that, you can figure out how to make it pay the bills.
Best of luck,
~BraveBlueMice.
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