Friday, February 05, 2016

UNTIL...


When you are out there in the wilderness, trying to build something with meaning, you can start to hear voices.

Voices that arrive in the calm lilt of a friend, but are steeped in a poisonous message.

"It can't be done."

"It hasn't been done that way."

"It's never been done before."


The subterfuge is deployed in order to keep you distracted. Ultimately, the message here, pretending to be objective fact, is that "YOU shouldn't be doing this."

Because let's face it, if the lack of precedent was the litmus for whether a project should be pursued, the vast history of human achievement would fit on a napkin.

But that doesn't deter a spirited detractor. So, you would be wise to remember...

...a video sharing website seemed unnecessary...until it wasn't.

There was never a film with a $500 million opening box office weekend...until there was.

A cinematic feature film shot entirely on mobile phones was pure imagination...until it wasn't.

An Indigenous Australian director, with a feature-film award win at Cannes didn't exist...until they did.

A feature-length computer-animated film was science fiction fantasy...until it wasn't.

A film that could make over a billion dollars at the box office didn't seem within the realm of possibility...until it was.

The idea that a film shot entirely on a digital camera, no film, could win an Oscar was a cinematographer's pipe dream...until it wasn't.

And, the mere notion of the gender-biased, microcosm of 1980's Hollywood appointing a woman as the head of a major Studio seemed like Edwardian satire...until it wasn't.

I could go on, but you get the point.

The real truth of advice like "It's never been done before" is that it's an easy option. A no-frills method to dissuade you from doing something scary.

But easy advice is rarely prophetic.

Meanwhile, the pursuits that have meaning are always hard. Which is very likely why they have "never been done before."

Until you came along, and changed everything.

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