Always the same, always changing
There are moments in which it feels as if you are overtaken by gravity, as if the mass of the world has suddenly expanded and you are about to be crushed by the collapsing atmosphere.
Art has tried to represent this sensation, usually via falling: sometimes objects, like a dropped telephone; sometimes people - doubling-up, or sinking to their knees and struggling to regain their feet. These depictions don’t capture it, there is no way to capture it.
One of those moments came for me the year before last. It arrived in an innocuous, breezily-toned email forwarded by my film distributor in L.A.; as soon as I read it, I understood that crisis was upon me. It took me eight months to regain my feet.
Over the course of those eight months I searched for strategies to keep myself functioning; I had two successful companies to run and a crisis to manage, so I needed to persuade my mind not to flee. The most effective strategy, by far, was to climb out of bed each morning and go for a long walk along the beach; all the ruinous worries washed out into the implacable sea and infinite sky.
I started to take the same photo every morning: same sea, same sky, same horizon, same spot on the beach, same frame. Always the same, always changing.
Eventually the crisis resolved, but I didn’t return to myself. I had successful businesses in the arts that I had built across two decades of sweat and sacrifice. I have made films that people have paid to watch - in cinemas, on the depressing streaming services that we all know. But I didn’t feel that any of it remained authentic to who I had become, and what I wanted to try and achieve creatively; there’s nothing as clarifying as a real crisis, and that gravity.
A few weeks ago I signed the relevant papers and walked out of the company that I founded more than twenty years ago. I had no plan, other than to try and create work that I feel is meaningful. Of course I need to find a way to earn, and that is urgent; but starting again is exhilarating, and the morning walk is now where the work begins.
Seaverses is my daily frame, together with a log of the journey that I’m on. Always changing, always the same.
I relate to so much of this. Good luck on your next adventure.