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The Imperius Curse
"I knew what I was doing was not the right thing, but I was being well rewarded. And, it was legal."
I admit: the further I delve into other verticals and systems and the more I learn, the more futile life's picture becomes. So I try to attack things from a different angle, and put my mind outside of a black and white struggle, and beyond ideas that are inferior and small minded.
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
For years now I have meant to read this book. Confessions is popular with the young-professionals crowd in DC and many of my friends pursuing Masters and PhDs in related fields frequently cite the work and urge me to read the book. On my way back from London, by way of Boston, I had the privilege of sitting next to good people: a mother and daughter. After some talk about what I was working on, the mother showed me the book she was reading considering it to be kindred in information and ideal. It was, of course, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. She insisted I read the introduction on the spot, which I agreed to do gladly. We spent the rest of the flight struggling with the implications of the knowledge imparted and our role therein.
Upon returning to LA, I watched this interview with the author.
Here is what I absolutely know to be true of the world you are creating, not only because it is corroborated in the link above and by occurrences you yourself can witness on a daily basis (possibly in your own career or that of your colleagues and friends), but because I lived that cycle working within the studio system until I put a halt to it: Doing things that undermine the non-zero-sum win and health for all parties WILL BE REWARDED. Fanciness and access will mollify your doubts. YOU ARE IMPORTANT. Hey man! It's not illegal. Lighten up! Listen to what the author describes. Any of us who work for corporations are likely guilty of perpetuating this system, of exploitation, in some regard. But what do you do now that you know? How long do you dare deny? Doing the right thing will likely make you broke. Not poor; broke. I also know this firsthand. It is painful and leaves you with undesirable choices, especially if you have already chosen to have a family or have others who are dependent on your income.
I understand there are nuances that lock us in and I am further ashamed: Are we the most personally irresponsible country in the world? I have not been everywhere, but from where I have been, I think we are. My trip to London had me thinking about this constantly. The irresponsibility at play, and the sociopathic quality of public corporations, is not at all in accordance with the ideals set forth by our founding fathers. How many friends do I have who are engineers, who design systems? Who work for companies who execute what this author describes? It is difficult to watch. These are intelligent, caring people! Yet, we cannot expect anyone to act differently than their peers. Some of these individuals make six figures, or close to, right out of the collegial gates. Your hard work WILL BE REWARDED. You're just doing your job, after all. ...Right?
There is an idea, an effect that I'm sure has a term although I cannot recall it (if I ever I indeed knew it in the first place). The story goes like this: Traffic. You, sitting in it on the freeway; unable to see the cause of the jam. It's been hours and you've not moved an inch. Fellow drivers all around you are antsy, checking their apps for updates. You've been sitting for so long that it's starting to get dark. No way around it, though: You'll have to wait while your dinner gets cold and your desire for a brief reprieve between arduous workdays slips away.
Suddenly a car passes you on the right, which is strange because you are in the rightmost lane. Well then, that car is using the shoulder. Must be on official business. Maybe there's an accident and it's a policeman or fireman in an unmarked car speeding toward the scene. You've seen this happen before. Once, during a fire, you saw a fire chief pull up, leap out of his personal vehicle and change into protective gear on the side of the street. As you ponder this, another car passes you on the right. You look closely and see a teenage male. Surely that's not official? ...But it's against the law to drive on the shoulder. You grip the steering wheel, surf the radio for a traffic update and try not to feel claustrophobic. And yet another car passes you. Then two more. Suddenly the guy behind you, your comrade in waiting for these past few hours, speeds up the shoulder as well, bypassing the traffic jam as he gears toward the next exit, and freedom. More cars begin to stream past you on the right...
How many cars will pass before you feel cheated and join them despite it being illegal? Despite risking an accident? Despite knowing the trouble that will be caused if everyone cheats?
What's the point of following traffic laws? Of toiling to recycle? Of throwing your trash in the bin when so many others carelessly litter on the streets? Of maintaining a garden while the neighbors ride their bikes through it as they use your yard as a shortcut? What's the point of creating art when it's simply going to be stolen leaving you broken and starving? Or what's the point of creating art for a company when the company will use that art to undermine the reason you created art in the first place?
The question before last hints as to why copyright protection is included in the constitution. We hardly want to be a country where artists and scientists have no incentive to create because, once they do, they are stripped of their ability to make a living. Of course that law isn't particularly being enforced, which is a matter in itself. My point is: We want to promote the progress of science and art. ...Don't we? I mean, it's in our best interests, is all. Thus you cannot have whatever you want whenever you want it when it comes to art and media, just like you cannot have a Dolce & Gabbana coat wherever and whenever you want it. Get over it. I have.
Incidentally, if you don't want to sit in traffic constantly, then you have options. Work to create better public transportation, for one. Now that I've written it I realize that that sounds hard, especially given the system. So if the system doesn't work and is so futile, why do we subscribe to it? And what else is life for but to work these improvements?
There are days I'm amazed I even get out of bed, to be honest. Being a part of that system as both a global citizen and the system of the media vertical is crushing. Knowing doesn't exactly make it feel any better. The press is wholly unhelpful, unapologetically compromised and corruptible. And yet we turn to the press to vet ideas for us and tell us what we should see and consume; what has value. No one can help me, so I work hard to help out myself since wisdom says the Gods (metaphorically speaking) favor those who move. I say it's not working, so I try something else. But it's not working.
This past year I haven't written screenplay at all. Unless Artemis fully succeeds, my thought is; why do it? Good movies do not get made and even seasoned, deserving, gifted auteurs struggle more than is healthy for anyone. It is an intolerable existence. Simultaneously I have both lost much of my faith in humanity while being touched and impressed by individuals within and without The Wingmen community. It is a small faction, however. US citizens have greatly disappointed me, while Canadian and European citizens, as well as Australians, have in general demonstrated themselves to be far more savvy and willing to act on their knowledge than the audience in the largest market; the market controlling media.
So I go back and forth. Some days wishing for the carefree days I experienced as a young teen, when the biggest injustices suffered were high school sports politics. Ignorance prevented the burden of pondering the world's troubles and a busybody school system left little time for exploration, or to question whether the journey society had set me on, the promise of fulfilling a meaningful place in the world, was solid and not simply a mirage contrived to keep me in line with pleasing teachers until regimented enough to enter the system myself as yet another Matrixed human battery. Perhaps none of this matters. We speak of the human realm which, when one applies enough higher thought and takes in the scope of the universe, appears insignificant. Many of the corrupt are stupid and all lack wisdom. At best they are clever: a trait that, without some honor to temper craftiness (not craft) and ambition, becomes a dangerous flaw. There is no greatness there. What power can there truly be in that? It's an illusion.
And yet we are human so this human realm is our home. We must all live here together. Together we create a combined reality; a human picture: What you do influences the world around me, and vice versa. Is it not then our responsibility to improve our shared circumstances without exploiting one another? Do we not as Americans prize innovation, and if so could not this innovation be focused on non-zero-sum community wins that solve problems like pollution, oil dependency and media consolidation vs. finding tax loopholes for corporations and yacht owners? Could we not be active in evolving and saving news, newspapers and journalism, avoid having to bail out banks and make it so that anytime one of our citizens was injured he or she would be well taken care of because we are just that badass with loads of worthy doctors and universal health care? Don't mess with us: we take care of ours. That would be the best trash talk any nation could boast.
And then there is Los Angeles. Humans have truly made this a terrible place. You forget, while you're here, what other places are like. Oh you might appreciate other places; the town you grew up in, the mountain trip you took last year... but if you love motion picture production and work in that industry (as I do) then you might believe yourself trapped. You see, that industry (and thus supposed opportunity) is in Los Angeles. I want to leave Los Angeles but I am still in love with, and do not want to leave, film. And so many artists have signed themselves up for nothing less than an IRL version of Azkaban.
I am so sorry, so very sorry, if you understand the soul-sucking existence I'm referring to. We convince ourselves that LA has highs and lows just like any other place, but must understand that this is incorrect. There are far, far better places in the civilized world where people do not train themselves to be fake, where desperateness and fear are not rewarded, people don't fail upward nearly so quickly if at all and the isolation that defines LA is non-existent. It is time to begin creating viable film markets elsewhere before we spend our best years preparing for a whole life tariff in solitary, demented by the wraith-like gatekeepers who lord their Catch-22s over artist's heads while exemplifying nothing. "Allow me to take you to lunch at the Ivy while I discuss my limited knowledge of finance and distribution. YOU WILL BE REWARDED, AS I HAVE BEEN REWARDED. See my corporate credit card? It's awesome. I'm going to Sundance, can't wait. Yes someone put me in charge. Maybe I have a business degree. Clearly I am fit to decide on the nature of what messaging is distributed to the whole world."
There are millions of artists here. You must fall in line. Just forget what makes you unique, forget what you want to impart about the human experience and instead participate jubilantly in the artificial. Do it, or I promise you will be driven mad by the unwavering system.
That mother I mentioned, from my flight? She was making her way back from Canada and told me that she was happy to have her daughter away from The OC so frequently. "It's not reality," she said, sagely. I inclined my head to show that I agreed and thought darkly to myself that I understood perfectly what she meant.
Juvenal spoke of bread and circuses: a phrase that would become famous for criticizing the tactics that politicians and leaders use to gain support and preserve the status quo. He said, "… Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions — everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses."
What is overlooked when this phrase is cited, however, is the responsibility of the People defined. I find the "abdicated our duties" line the most poignant. The Spanish called it bread and bullfights. The Russians; bread and spectacle. For us, t-shirts and reality shows.
Maybe you think I'm full of it, and myself. Arguably, in my current state, I am too pathetic to be the latter, but go on if you must. Maybe the fact that I got out so early, without going so deep and dark in my own field as John Perkins did in his, because it did not take me long to anticipate this lesson; means to you that I am less credible. As time passes and we exercise our premise more and more I have less and less of an idea of how to arrange for us to break this system and less and less hope that it can be accomplished.
For, somewhere in the myriad of stupidsauce YouTube comments, so-called and self-styled experts mediocre blogging about media and the weaksauce Twitter trending topics of the day and their associated, even weaker Tweets comes the realization that If I had stayed in, I WOULD HAVE BEEN FURTHER REWARDED. If I had stayed in and then finally denounced the system, if I had stayed in and then turned and illuminated these issues further down the line, then I would have been further rewarded while also reaping the rewards of the system and of turning toward the light, as well as, quite possibly, the rewards brought by my turn against the odds. Redemption characters are compelling.
Nevermind the damage I would have done in the doing.
If evil does exist beyond simply being confined to the human dimension as a human definition for that which undermines the health of the species in favor of self-advancement, often by what our programming interprets as unnatural means (murder, torture, exploitation, slavery) or focused irresponsibility (failing to consider the consequences of our actions on the lives of others), if evil does exist, then it is a many-headed, ever-evolving monster. This has been said before. Life may very well be about the struggle to keep evil at bay. The question, then, is this: Is there a point where evil turns the corner on you and you fall so far back, that the realm is so far gone, that all is lost? It certainly feels like we may not come back from this one.
Is evil external to you? Are humans innately good with natural tendencies toward evil, or innately evil with natural tendencies toward good?
In highschool philosophy I vehemently argued the former. In thoughts of late I’ve been far more neutral, if not drifting toward the other end of the spectrum.
And so I propose a new premise. Heroes are for fairytales: Not real life.
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