29.06.26

Reflections on taking risks, and making a big life change.

The heat has finally lifted. It’s still hot, just not third-circle-of-hell hot, which means life can approach normality, and I can aim for a productive week of work.

The weather broke in high drama - a huge thunderstorm over the weekend, and relief as the air thinned out. But, of course, heavy rain means sewage discharges into the sea, so no going anywhere near the beach, which meant that part of my daughter’s ninth birthday was cancelled, and of course, all the children were very disappointed.

We had a barbecue at home instead, and in a neat metaphorical twist, I found myself outside at 6am, trying to light the barbecue under an umbrella, while lightning strobed the skies, and rain beat down remorselessly.

Sunday, and yet another barbecue during what is, of course, barbecue season, but this time I was a guest. I got talking to a very interesting lawyer who asked me what I was up to at the moment; I explained that I had just exited my business, and I wasn’t yet sure. He looked at me like I was absolutely insane, fear in his eyes, as if proximity to me might pitch him into jeopardy, like I’m some sort of terrible oracle, spreading bad karma and cosmic ruin.

It gave me pause. Momentarily seeing your circumstances through someone else’s eyes can cause a kind of rupture in the way that you’re looking at things - my God, is something that seems natural and logical to me, objectively nuts? Am I living in a giant delusion, while careering recklessly towards oblivion?

He asked whether the exit was acrimonious (no, at least not from my side and not as far as I’m aware), and what plans I had to rescue myself from this dire turn. He was genuinely curious and asked me with good faith and generosity, and it proved to be a useful exchange. It’s good to be pulled out of the solipsism into which we can all sink from time to time, and re-evaluate my circumstances.

I reflected that the whole point about stepping out of my business after all these years is that I haven’t really stepped out of it at all. It was my business, it was something that I built. Yes, there were other people involved, there were joint resources, some infrastructure, existing revenue channels and a business plan but, fundamentally, I had to build it, run it day-to-day, identify sources of revenue and do all the work. And in that sense, nothing has changed. I haven’t gone from a paid employment to losing my job, I’m just ending one business in order to start another one; the truth of the matter is all that I’ve really given up is a particular business plan and some relationships.

But I’ve discarded a business plan which I felt would show diminishing returns, not just creatively, which was the prime motivation for me to leave, but also financially. The film business has become more and more difficult as independents are increasingly squeezed by the both the new cartel of streamers and the death throes of linear TV. I expect it to become more difficult, and I do not intend to be the frog ignoring that the water’s getting warmer. Just because you don’t know what the next thing is, it doesn’t mean the current thing is therefore worth sticking with.

There has to be the obscure, intermediate zone where the old dies so that the new can be born – that’s where I am, I don’t think it’s crazy. It changes nothing fundamental about the challenges that I’ve confronted my entire career, they all remain the same, they have just assumed a different incarnation.

I thought about it while looking at the sea this morning (glorious – clear, flat, horizon like a blade, glinting). Even when you are making a drastic change, there is much that remains the same, and it’s good to remind yourself that you’re not just flailing, pulled out to sea by the current. Most of us do have a boat, however small and leaky it might be, and a compass.