When do we finally ask, “Is there a better way of doing things?”
AKA when do we decide we MUST stop playing by THEIR rules?
I have been writing this newsletter for over three years now. I started it in November of 2022. “Is there a better way of doing things?” remains the question at the core of most of what I do.
It’s not the mistakes we’ve made that ultimately concern me – but NOT asking if there is a better way is certainly a mistake. It is the circumstances that hold us back from trying to build a process, a system, and an outcome aligned with our goals and values. Some do, for sure, and that is consistently inspiring, but why are so many also reluctant to get down to it?
Think of the difference it would make. Perhaps today you are packing that suitcase for a film festival, high up in the cold, cold mountains. Or maybe you on set in some high tax subsidized location. Or walking the mean streets of that urban jungle, not reading but listening through that automated British voice you selected so long ago. You are reading this now, but what if today was also the day when we all started asking “what is the better way?”. You have to also wonder why we haven’t already had that day, when things are how they are. Why are you not being encouraged to do so by those that have proclaimed themselves our shepherds — those that run such festivals, such agencies, such support organizations, and such distributors and financiers?
Do our desires make us vulnerable to those that hold such powers? Many who have wandered far and long on these paths will suggest that the one of the things that unite practitioners of the cine-crafts is our/their desperate need for love (either that or their narcissism). How else do you explain their desire to project their image or reality on such a large screen to planet full of strangers? If that is so, it explains while so few are also trying to make this system work better for all, because we can assume that they are so desperate to belong that they’d never criticize those that invited them in in the first place.
I think criticism is the clearest indication of love -- or at least respect -- for how else do you show you truly care if you aren’t so invested in it you are trying to always help it?
I have only met a few people in this business that don’t have something to complain about. And it is usually on the tip of their tongue, all too ready to launch. But alas… I know far less who are doing something about it. I get it. It is really hard to get things done, and even harder to find a way to do it that others agree with.
I confess. I am not a big fan of most organizations, and it seems we have been trained to try to tackle change by creating bureaucracies. If there is a problem, we act as if we are going to need a consensus on how to solve it. And we are going to have to find ways to let the others participate with us too. Plus, there are those damn “optics”. Everyone’s going to be more concerned about how it looks like than how we do it, or even about what gets done. My head pops at this misguidedness.
When I get on a zoom call with anything more than six people, I can’t help but wonder if we’d get more done by having most of us do something entirely different… and ideally on our own. Want truth? Communication is overrated. And we waste our labor and lose momentum by building consensus. It seems logical that we should all work together – that is, it seems logical until we realize how much time it takes and the amount of our spirit that breaks.
I would rather always collaborate with those willing to die on their own sword, or fall on the train tracks, in order to get what they think is correct, right.
Maybe this is the real reason I struggled to sit still in class as a youth.
They say change only comes when the pain of the present outweighs our fear of the future. Are where we there yet? I think we already long ago passed that marker, but I struggle to understand why more are not on the bus.
