I was recently away in Miami for a week as part of my day-to-day job and it slightly threw my rhythm and productivity off for my external, creative projects. Hence why this series took a break of a significant amount of time (the preparation for that trip also affecting it). The thing that helped me get back to it? A book or rather 2 books and probably a couple of films. Two I can definitely mention are Good Material by Dolly Alderton and Okay Days by Jenny Mustard. The key benefit of both: the ability to both escape into someone else's world and find your own reflected back at you in ways that cast a new, more inspiring light on it. So here I am, never having given up on this series but struggling to find the motivation for it, returning to continue finishing what I started. It's poetic then that our next topic is film & literature and what it has meant to be for 30 years.
Entertainment as a whole has always been responsible for some of the happiest moments of my life and, in many ways, is the reason I still believe in a number of dreams and in my ability to achieve them over time. It is not just the stories that reflect my personal journey or circumstances or even those remotely close to my life that have this ability, it is simply just the act of experiencing something great. It's two different emotions, actually so let's split it up:
When I Experience My Life Reflected Back At Me:
One thing that remains true across my years on this earth is my innate need to search for books or films or pieces of theatre that reflect something within my lived experience or that give validation or kindness to a part of it that is playing on my mind. To see that anxiety or insecurity or to see someone living the dream you wish to experience reflected in the form of a piece of entertainment for you to consume is like fuel to the delusion. It is the delusion turning true, it is the strengthening of a belief that no dream is delusion if you believe you have control.
Repeatedly I go through periods of disbelief, discontentment and a dampening of my drive to succeed and despite it being a pretty well documented fact that this is somewhat of a universal experience, I need that visual, romanticised version of it to remind it that's the case. I see a film about someone working in retail with dreams of being an actor or a writer ruining their sleep to finish their book or a TV director 10 years behind their peers and all of a sudden, it feels less isolating. The power of that has yet to go away, it just gets stronger as the passion and drive our late teens/early twenties needs more fuel and motivation to sustain itself. Early on, the drive and excitement was always there and you just had to look after the basics of food, water and love but now its all of that and the pursuit of a sustained drive to remain motivated. It can be rough and to have that opportunity to watch a film or show, to read a book of consume a piece of theatre that says "yeah, it is rough but that's the gig" is enough to relight the spark.
When I Experience Something Great:
Experiencing something great, but not necessarily reflective of your own life is a similar experience to the above but in some sense it's more visceral. While something reflective of your own life can be great too, the broader feeling of anything cinematically, literarily or theatrically great is a larger concept overall.
It's the moment of finishing A Little Life by Hanya Yanigihara, it's Barbenheimer, it's finally watching Hamilton, it's Toni Morrison and Walt Witman and all the classics. It's the moment at which you have to stand back in your own astonished silence and think "wow, this is what greatness is". It feels separate from anything subjective, even if to call something great is inherently subjective. It feels momentous and enormous and as though you are witnessing and having the honour of existing at the same time as something of such immense talent and brilliance. In those moments, sometimes you might want to give up and say that you'll never be as good or, as often often happens with me in this situations, you will be ignited to dedicating even more of your life to creating something of such outstanding significance. More than just being remembered, more than any money or fame, you are inspired to create something inspiring and something that can transcend generations and administrations. Something that can be studied, something that can be debated and argued over and even banned.
In both types of experience, my life has been dramatically improved and saved by the emotion and punching motivation of a good piece of entertainment and creativity. More than any inspiration or influence, it is also just the stirring aliveness of recognising what a book or a film or a show is doing to as you watch it. It is to realise that you are bones and blood and muscle, but look at how happy this tthing makes you. That's something entirely separate from just the non-autonomous, lacking control perspective of a bones-and-blood thing. You are emotions and ability and talent and, without film and literature and all things creative, I don't know who I would be, where I'd be or, frankly, if I'd be here.
Comments