Sometimes you need a hug.
I think I’m at one of those inflection points in life. There’s the “everyone’s getting married” and “everyone’s having babies” and “everyone’s turning 30” and “everyone’s turning 40” stages. Which are a combination of joy and stress and trying to figure out how to make competing priorities work. And then all of a sudden, you’re in the “the kids are moving out” and the “I lost my mum/dad” and/or “I’m trying to figure out how to get care for my mum/dad” stage. Which doesn’t have the same level of sleep deprivation but a slower burn emotional ache that leaves you feeling just as tired as you were when you had a house full of children under five, but without that sense that one day it’s going to get better. Which, of course, it will. But you know that there’s a whole emotional valley you’re going to need to go down and through before you’re going to start climbing up out the other side.
And like all those other inflection points in life, it feels like everyone’s going through it at the same time. That’s because everyone you know is around the same age, and your shared life experiences can be plotted along the same statistical bell curve - and chances are you’re not right out at the ends. Like all those other stressful times in life, it’s a little bit comforting to know that you’re not the only one going through it. But only a little bit.
But this time it’s been different. In a good way.
The entertainment and media industry developed a reputation over the years for breeding, enabling, and empowering some pretty disgusting people. I’ve had the displeasure of meeting quite a few of the ones that populated the Australian industry (mostly in the early days of my career). Thankfully the world has moved forward and the majority of them have retired, died, or been forced into some sort of early retirement. A few linger on like unflushable turds, but at least most people are sufficiently aware of their toxicity that they can be avoided.
But the new people coming into the industry are different. Unlike their predecessors who emulated the bad behaviours of their mentors, I’m discovering that many of the new generation of people coming up in the film and television industry are emotionally mature, thoughtful, considered, considerate, vulnerable, collegiate, and above all, kind.
Let me give you an example.
On the 17th of January this year, I had a catch up with some clients. We’d been trying to meet for a few months, but they’d been working on projects in Europe and travelling, and we just couldn’t get our calendars in sync. So it had been some time since I’d seen these folks. I really like these people – they’re the new guard of filmmakers who are smart and hard working and tenacious and really really good at their craft. They haven’t cut corners or tried to find short cuts – they’ve honed their skills by doing it over and over and over again and putting themselves in situations that force them to grow and become better. It was great to see them, and while I really wanted to hear about all they’d been up to since I’d seen them last, the two weeks immediately preceding my meeting with them were incredibly difficult for my family and I was emotionally exhausted. So the two hours we spent together was mostly me having a massive sook about everything that was going on in my world right now. They listened and were sympathetic and nodded at all the right times and made me feel heard. Now, none of this is what you’re supposed to do when you’re a business consultant meeting with a client but I was going through a lot and I was incredibly grateful that they just let me be me for the afternoon.
That in itself is an example of what I mean by the fact that I feel that the industry is getting kinder. In a world where social media is breeding narcissism, eroding self-worth and creating echo chambers where people reinforce their world view through confirmation bias, it’s easy to believe that society as a whole is going to be one very messed up place in a short period of time. But what I’m seeing is that the people who make the conscious decision to rise above that quagmire and who lean into altruism and generosity and kindness are the ones who are rising above it all and are succeeding where others are failing. They’re not driven by money and success – those things just happen to be the byproducts of their efforts.
After I’d finished my sook session and was on the train home after my meeting, I got a notification on my phone that I had a hotel booking in the Blue Mountains for the next night (Saturday) for me and my wife. It took me a few minutes to understand what was going on until I realised that my clients had decided that I needed a bit of time out and had booked us a weekend getaway. Which was exactly the circuit breaker that we needed that weekend. And while the following few weeks were hell, that weekend away gave us a few moments to catch our breath before those next breakers hit us and we got caught back up in the washing-machine-spin-cycle of life.
Random Acts of Kindness are life changing. And being fortunate enough to be surrounded by people who are capable of such things makes a huge difference to the way life feels. Kind deeds nurture your soul and put life back into perspective. And it gives me a huge amount of hope for the future that I’m seeing that my industry is slowly being repopulated by kind and generous and loving people.
And the upshot of all this is while I, and countless other people I know, are mid-way through one of those tough chapters in life, I’m seeing that more and more people are holding each other up, providing what support they can in all sorts of tiny (and big) ways, and that when you need a hug there’s always someone ready, arms wide open.