03 Oct SDUK Blog – John R Wilkinson
VIEWS MY OWN
What am I going to write about?
What is useful? What is sitting in my consciousness, right this minute, which constitutes me championing best practice, and care, for members and those who we work with.
…
Consider this…
(Exit social media.)
Or @ least, consider flying away from that shall-remain-nameless platform for the Winter.
I logged onto it nearly ten years ago now. Each to their own, but I thought: Let’s just post and repost positives, things relating to brilliant pieces of work I’ve seen, give exposure to great companies, people, and causes, write reasonably poetic reviews within the limited word count, share rubbish cracker jokes. Yes, back then it was still a bit ascorbic. Now it’s just out and out childish: Embittered, nasty, one-dimensional. A director friend of mine, longer-in-the-tooth and much wiser than I, keeps equating its existence to that newspaper headline in The Simpsons: “OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD”
Why on Earth am I making this into a professional plea? Well, it absolutely discomforts my soul, and indeed health, as an artist. Let us unpick that with a view to some of the words from the previous paragraph:
One-Dimensional: So, I trained as a dramaturg before becoming a director and one of the key skills we were advised to master was a high level of impartiality or, at least, an almost ministerial lack of extreme views either way. How can you dissect a text and make correctly emphatic work otherwise? Now, unless you’re a mind-reader with phenomenal spider senses for nuance, sarcasm, and wit (and you may well be!) it is hard not to have your resting barometer skewed in such a chamber.
Nasty: We are making such brilliant advances in equality, and diversity, and representation, on and off stage. A keystone in this, indeed in our personalities as good directors worth our salt, is empathy. I shall say that again: Empathy! How can we hope to be true to the word, hold and exhibit it accurately, lovingly, if our kindred spirit is being eroded by cattiness? We are giving ourselves less chance of making resonant work.
Embittered: Is a close cousin to jealousy. I used to go back to university and give careers talks. My main piece of advice (apart from “Don’t be a d***!”) was nearly always “Don’t compare someone else’s career to your own. You’ll only get annoyed that their trajectory is moving differently, perhaps more rapidly, than yours.” You don’t need me to point it out: that is exactly what we do when we scroll. What we see on the screen is inaccurate. It is someone else’s Highlight Reel. You never get to see the Behind-the-Scenes bit.
But… You must be on there to have a career! Rubbish! Think of some of the seminal, master artists who are not on there. You admire them, don’t you? They have done alright without it.
What about FOMO? What about it? Find other ways to get your information: industry publications, mailing lists, and workshops. Write to people (directors like letters and nobody flipping writes them anymore) and ring your pals. Or, if the worst comes to it, digital detox but sporadically go back on.
You’re on social media! Yes, I am, and realize the sad irony. As well as the fact that many of you will access this blog via the platform. However, I have been contemplating taking my own advice for some time now. So, I am going to take a break for a bit.
Research lists loads of benefits, including improvements in self-esteem, reduced anxiety, even more free time.
Feel free to follow me.
(Off.)
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It is not a real place.
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#JRWx
John R. Wilkinson