There is nothing in this industry, except money, that demands as a fundamental of living to be taken seriously.
Is it because of this that the players, high and low, fight for every inch of their turf like their lives depended on it?
That the stakes are so low that it leaves an aching feeling in the back of our egos that it could all disappear at any moment because so little of it was of deep value in the first place?
I do think that is part of it and that this is more true the higher up the food chain you live.
But I also think that a major way this anxiety is walled off, which infects the highest and the lowest on the power ladder, is habit. Habit alleviates the fear. Do what has been done and success will be as sweet and failure will not be attributed to a choice you made that had not been made a million times before.
We all have habits. They do protect us in our lives. Some are destructive. But on average, our Matrix lives are protective and often allow creativity that would be much, much harder without the foundation of habit.
But the problem with habit, in an eco-system like the tv/film business, is that it can become a trap as much as solid grounding from which everyone can push forward.
For me, one of those traps against which I still rail, is simply deciding that some things just aren’t worth caring about anymore.
More on the Substack...
