Should I really participate in this month’s IndieWeb Carnival? The theme Power underneath despair proposed by our host, Matthew, has some serious prerequisites.
I honestly don’t think I have ever reached the state where things felt so impossible to bear that I needed a way out.
This doesn’t mean I never think about the Final Cut, and about one of the questions always linked with a (different kind of) Final Cut: who is responsible for it? The director (would that be me?), or the producer (though for an atheist, would that be… physics?)?
But as I was saying, in my case, that’s mostly a theoretical question.
All I can offer are my ways to cope with my moments of (sometimes even deep) discouragement. I’ll tweak Matthew’s original question to: ‘In your dark hours, what helps you carry on’?
One option, which will come as no surprise to anybody reading this blog, is: going to the cinema and watching a film: possibly, a comedy. That’s how I ended up seeing Along Came Polly, for example (unfunnily enough, the main thing I remember about it now, above Ben Stiller counting and maybe the presence of a ferret, is Philip Seymour Hoffman - whose premature departure still hurts so much - apparently having fun).
Another tactic, if I have the time and unless it’s very late at night or rain is pouring down (and sometimes even if it is): I get out for a walk. With no direction, I just walk at a fast pace, for an hour or two. This gives me a chance to breathe fresh air, possibly helps me shift my perspective (for instance wondering what the life of people I see on the street is like), and in the worst case, it gets me so tired that I no longer have enough energy to think.
Finally, if going out is not possible because, for instance, I need to be working, I just try and focus on work and suppress any other thought: I stun the ‘background process’ in my brain by blasting in my ears the same song over and over, possibly something that leaves no respite. For a long time, my song of choice has been Not Now John from Pink Floyd’s The Final Cut (which starts with the immortal poetry: ‘F@@k all that, we’ve got to get on with this’). In more recent years, I have opted for Led Zeppelin’s Immigrant Song instead (actually, the cover version by Karen O, Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross from David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo).
Usually one or more of these tactics work.
But ultimately, when nasty thoughts about life come to keep me awake at night, and the question of the Final Cut presents itself, the answer, after deep consideration, is always the same: there is no need for it to happen today.
This means that I acknowledge it’s not too late to try something different tomorrow and see how it goes. I could try to go back to the editing room.
But again, I write from the position of someone who has the privilege of never being in a desperate situation. I’ve never ‘held the blade in trembling hands prepared to make it’.
And the truth is that, in addition to a supporting family, for twenty-five years or so I have been very lucky to have someone I could turn to, to share my concerns, ask for an opinion, or simply for a chat. Either a partner or a good friend, someone was always ’there’.
So in the end, I believe it’s neither the director nor the producer: the whole cast of your life makes an impact. It’s a good ensemble that helps the story go on and on.
The most important thing we can do is to pay attention to casting.