Nobody Can Build the Bridge for You

Yesterday afternoon I sat in the back row of one my favorite movie houses. In fact, the theater just celebrated its 100th anniversary. There's a classic feel to the old tabernacle as photos of the building's earlier days line the corridors. The only thing that's really changed is the price of popcorn. 

I've always found how people react to a play or film almost as compelling as the production itself. Thankfully, this film in particular elicited some animated reactions. I heard people sigh, laugh, and even voice frustration. 

The story was about a middle-aged man who believes his entire life has amounted to nothing. The fact that everyone he went to college with has become wildly successful (at least by conventional standards) tugs at him throughout the film. He envies their money, fame, and lifestyle without having any real perception of how their lives really are.

By the end of the film he's come to terms with the fact that success is completely subjective. It takes being dressed down by a girl more than half his age for him to appreciate his life's work. 

After the film, I though about a famous quote by Nietzsche:

“Nobody can build the bridge for you to walk across the river of life, no one but you yourself alone."

I also considered the goals I had when I was a very young man wondering if they were even mine to begin with. I've seen dozens of friends chase a set of goals and perhaps even more damaging, values, that were projected on to them by society. Their own lay dormant, tucked far away from any semblance of realization. 

I think it's incredibly important, particularly for artists, to take a step back every now and then and take a little inventory of what their objectives are and if they truly belong to them. 

The friends I consider the most successful are the ones who realize they're already living the dream. 

The Value of a Stroll

The Greek physician Hippocrates once said, "Walking is man's best medicine." As someone who has spent a great deal of time traipsing the streets and narrow avenues of New York, Shanghai, and Budapest to name a few, I can tell you the man was on to something.

The constant cacophony of firetrucks racing down 7th Avenue, or my talent for finding the one person screaming into their mobile phone in a quiet corner of Central Park often left me in a daze. If drama school had taught me anything it was the importance of deep listening.

As I got older, I realized that hearing someone was not just about taking in someone else's words, but attentiveness to the world, and especially your own thoughts.

It was by putting my phone on airplane mode, or leaving it behind all together I began to realize the value of a little stroll. Thoughts and solutions would reveal themselves in ways I couldn't have imagined if staring at a touchscreen, or browsing the Web. My unconscious mind was free, offering a rare moment of peace amidst the lion's den of constant frenzy and distraction.

The next time you're feeling creatively stumped, or need a moment to collect your thoughts, consider lacing up your shoes and taking a little walk. It may do you more good than you realize.