Andrew Czap @andrewczap - Tumblr Blog

this is so good. challenged me profoundly.

Transcription of “The Broken Vessel and Preserving Humanity in the Arts" delivered by Eliot Rausch at "Masters in Motion” Austin, Texas 2013 The Broken Vessel and Preserving Humanity in the Arts Stop everyone and ask them to turn off their phones. Ask them to get comfortable. Tell them to turn to their neighbor, introduce themselves and confense their biggest fear and the one thing they love most. Actually do me one more favor raise your hand if that was uncomfortable for any of you. There now we are discharged, back to our humanity. Earlier this year, author Jonathan Safran Foer wrote in The New York Times on the issue. ‘Technology celebrates connectedness, but encourages retreat,’ he wrote. 'Each step “forward” has made it easier, just a little, to avoid the emotional work of being present, to convey information rather than humanity. Bare with me the next hour. I don’t feel smart enough or successful enough to be here but its not really about me today, I will try to explain a very simple point. Actually before I start, just to warn you, I have quoted a whole bunch of brilliant people to prove my point. I know speaking to you from the heart would be more impactful but its the collection of these voices that I have found the most healing and transformative, so I will share them with you. My name is Eliot Rausch by the way and just to give you a quick background and why I’m here. I am nobody special, actually I’m a recovered addict and should have been dead 100 times over. So I guess that I’m a living miracle, that’s all I can really claim. And you are wondering what this has to do with film-making. Let me explain. My time with you today will be a bit of a confessional. This year I have spent a great deal of time soul searching. At the height of my career as a film-maker, early this year when I should have been celebrating my successes and upward mobility, something happened. Nothing dramatic but something deep inside, that changed my trajectory in life. At the time the only way I could sum it up was that I had lost all passion for the craft, I felt like I lost my humanity, I was a passion junky and on my way up as a hot shot director…and then it happened. Before I explain what happened, let me share some of the back story. See, I was a weird kid. Actually severely depressed and troubled as a youth…you can tell by my haircut here. I was always trying so hard to fit in. To find my circle, some kind of acceptance or people that might embrace me. I was ultra sensitive and vulnerable, afraid of everything. In and out of therapy, cutting myself, threatening suicide and even putting myself on Jenny Craig in 3rd grade because I couldn’t stand my love handles. True story. I really don’t know why my youth was so incredibly hard but part of me feels like it was genetics, just the way I was wired from the get go. Mom and Dad were artists and eccentric in beautiful ways but always loving. Nothing horrendous happened to me. But it was how I started in this world and it would shape my life there after. Probably the reason I became an alcoholic. But…back to that moment early this year at the height of my career. Sitting there in South America on the biggest job of my career, the most money I had ever acquired in the bank and a really bright future. Alone, at night starring up from my iphone and instagram feed, I found myself looking into a dense gathering of happy families and friends walking hand in hand on the Uruguayan coastline and I was struck and confronted with a vast emptiness, a feeling of immense sorrow and hopelessness. For some reason at that moment it became crystal clear. I realized I had been avoiding that vast emptiness within me for a while. I am not sure why it happened at that moment but maybe because I was alone that night on the other side of the world, finally slowing down enough to confront myself. Maybe it was due to the love, spirit and alive-ness that I saw in the Uruguayan people. Because, see I had raced through life to get to his point. I was that insecure tortured kid that just wanted to find his greatness, acceptance and a life of purpose…but somehow it wasn’t there. So, I flew home…I went on a journey, inward and outward to figure out what had gone wrong. Why I had lost my passion, lost my joy and fallen into such despair. I stripped away as much as I could deleting Facebook and Instagram. I quickly realized I was was a digital junky, obsessed with validation and attention via social media and it was frightening not to have that dopamine fix. But if forced me to take lunches with old friends. I got back to my old routine. Turned down work and got back to basics. See I had become a bit of an island, self propelled, isolated, with a tight fist holding onto what I thought was power, success, and growing fame. Not to get side tracked but I just found this amazing clip of Dave Chappell during his Actors Studio interview*, he explains this similar revelation before he took off on a long hiatus in Africa. “I gotta make some real choices man. Is that what I want for myself? Did I get to big? Because I like people, I like entertaining and the higher up I go for some reason the less happy I am. You know is it going to get to the point where I am doing a strip tease on TRL or waving a gun on the street. No I am not going to let it get to that point. I am going to go to Africa and Im going to find a way to be myself. I am an artist man, I don’t need a sneaker deal. I like to live a more open life, I don’t like to have to protect myself from people. I dont want my life to become about enforcing boundaries. But thats what happens when you become successful. Your humanity diminishes and you become something else to people.” Now I am absolutely not comparing my fame to Dave Chapel’s but his confessional is astonishing at the height of his career, right? When he could have continued to move upward and become more famous he suddenly has a change of heart? Let me go back about 8 years ago in my own life. I was a newly recovering alcoholic and I wont get into the stories of my addiction but you can imagine what happened when that insecure little kid that never fit in with a bad haircut, found the bottle, some pills and beautiful women. At the height of my addiction I had nearly lost my life in a horrible car accident that would be the final catalyst for getting sober. 2 years clean and sober at the age of 25 I was sitting at a new job at Fuel TV. I had been directing and really did not want to go back to editing but a friend was struggling with substance abuse and asked me to fill in. So I did the right thing. I was just happy to have my life back and have the opportunity to serve. I remember waking up on my knees thanking God for my life and the opportunity to help others. One day a friend came in and told me about a new DSLR camera he had purchased. He told me he wanted to test it on something if I came up with an opportunity. 5 minutes later one of my dear friends called me and told me that he was putting his dog down and for some reason I immediately thought documenting that moment would help him, so I asked. I took two random opportunities to help friends and combined them. Two simple opportunities to help my friends with the gift that I had. No expectations for utilizing the film as a calling card, as a device to become a commercial director or anything but a pure act of love. The next day we spent 2 hours with my friend Jason Wood as he put his dog down. Some of you have seen this film and for those of you that haven’t forgive me. For the sake of my story I will show it again. As you watch it understand it was only an act of simple love, serving my friends. The experience changed all of our lives and that night I went home, cut together a film for him and threw it up online. I think I also shared it with my mother and that was about it. The reason I am explaining this moment so specifically is because this film became the launching pad for my career as a director. Over night it garnished thousands upon thousands of views and soon it was millions. 6 months later I was standing on a stage at some weird Vimeo film festival in NY and this small little film won best picture and best documentary. I had shown up there with my wife just hoping that it wasn’t a mistake and the next thing you know I am being celebrated as the next big thing. And my friends this for me was a pivotal moment as it would be for any of you. But, what came after this is why I feel this story is important today in the context of my time with you. See, growing up that extremely insecure, shy, fat, awkward artist kid, who was deeply sensitive, and never really fit in. Who never felt adequate enough or worthy of life…it was tough.really tough and that moment, to be celebrated and stamped with greatness was like heroin for my soul. Validation of my existence. That day standing on that stage and what happened after filled me up more than anything else I had experienced in life. It was vitamin E for my ego. It made me feel whole like I had never been before. It was the missing link. It became a part of my new identity. An overnight success, thousands of emails. Job offers upon job offers, interviews with Carson Daily, Times Magazine write ups and a ton of money from big commercial work. Everything a young fat kid from a working class family could dream of. It was small fame in contrast to the Chapels of this world but for me it was life changing. And I promised myself I would remain pure, I would never sell out and I would robin hood my successes into the hands of the poor and marginalized. I would help those that were tortured like me. But something happened and this gets me to the point I will try to make today. The story I want to share with you. Because I believe many of you have come here to make it. To learn enough so you can rise to the top of this content infested culture. To create that one film that gets you to the next level. To create a sustainable career and never struggle again. To find the American Dream and craft an entrepreneurial lifestyle so you are in full control of your destiny. And God Bless you for that, Martin Luther King called it the drum major instinct: "We all want to be important, to surpass others, to achieve distinction, to lead the parade. Alfred Adler, the great psychoanalyst, contends that this is the dominant impulse. Sigmund Freud used to contend that sex was the dominant impulse, and Adler came with a new argument saying that this quest for recognition, this desire for attention, this desire for distinction is the basic impulse, the basic drive of human life, this drum major instinct.” But Martin Luther King also pointed out. “There comes a time that the drum major instinct can become destructive. And that’s where I want to move now. I want to move to the point of saying that if this instinct is not harnessed, it becomes a very dangerous, pernicious instinct. For instance, if it isn’t harnessed, it causes one’s personality to become distorted. I guess that’s the most damaging aspect of it: what it does to the personality.” Henry Nowen one of my favorite authors points out. “We act as if visibility and notoriety were the main criteria of the value of what we are doing. It is not easy to act otherwise. Statistics do rule our society. The biggest box office hits, the best-selling books, the fastest selling cars, the record-breaking athletes – these are the signs that we are dealing with something significant. To be spectacular is so much our concern that we, who have been spectators most of our lives, can hardly conceive that what is unknown, unspectacular, and hidden can have any value. How do we overcome this all pervading temptation? It is important to realize that our hunger for the spectacular – like our desire to be relevant – has very much to do with our search for selfhood. To be a person and to be seen, praised, liked, and accepted have become nearly the same for many. Who am I when nobody pays attention, says thanks, or recognize my work? The more insecure, doubtful, and lonely we are, the greater our need for popularity and praise.  Sadly, this hunger is never satisfied. The more praise we receive, the more we desire. The hunger for human acceptances is like a bottomless barrel. It can never be filled.” At the time of my success and upward mobility I remained strong unchanged by mans opinion of me. Holding on to my convictions. I became extremely busy, between facebook, twitter, instagram, passion projects, commercial jobs, etc. Spinning plates and pushing hard because it was my time to really make it. To create a personal brand and save the world. But see there was a part of this experience for me that no one warned me about. One that would eventually lead to my breakdown sitting alone in front of the Uruguayan sea. I had become busy, really busy just to say I was busy. I lost friends and burnt bridges but it was worth it at the time. I felt powerful, untouchable. Even my marriage was strained, I showed up a couple days before my wedding to marry my wife and fly out for another job a couple weeks later. On my honeymoon I could barely sit still as I tried to find wifi signals to respond to emails. It was hilarious as friends I worked with shared the same inability to sit still. My appetite for more followers, more views, more accolades, and sadly more money had become my focus. I was making a substantial amount of cash, more than I ever thought possible. It was the pinnacle right? A time to strike the iron while its hot? A time to celebrate. Tim Kreider / in a powerful article called the “the Busy Trap” points out. “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy, completely booked, in demand every hour of the day. But I can’t help but wonder whether all this histrionic exhaustion isn’t a way of covering up the fact that most of what we do doesn’t matter." Without really knowing it I had grown isolated, narcissistic, and incredibly competitive.I didnt have time for simple conversations, boring friendships, service work or anything that wasn’t adding to the hot streak I was on. The altruistic boy that set out in life just wanting to make a difference. Had sadly become a self focused, delusional, fame hungry animal. As Charlie Kaufman so eloquently pointed out in his BAFTA speech. “We are starving. All of us. And we’re killing each other, and we’re hating each other. And we’re calling each other liars and evil because it’s all become marketing and we want to win, because we’re lonely and empty and scared. And we’re led to believe that winning will change all that.” But how? This was the way up. Right? This was what I was taught. To win was virtuous, To win is happiness, to be at the top is the only real success? Right? So why then did I feel so empty, so lost? Scrolling through hundreds of articles, videos and TED talks to try and find answers to my dilemma I came upon Elizabeth Gilberts TED talk on Genius that began the shift in my life. She points out. “In ancient Greece and ancient Rome people did not happen to believe that creativity came from human beings. People believed that creativity was this divine attendant spirit that came to human beings from some distant and unknowable source, for distant and unknowable reasons. And then the Renaissance came and everything changed, and we had this big idea, and the big idea was let’s put the individual human being at the center of the universe above all gods and mysteries, and there’s no more room for mystical creatures who take dictation from the divine. And it’s the beginning of rational humanism, and people started to believe that creativity came completely from the self of the individual. And for the first time in history, you start to hear people referring to this or that artist as being a genius rather than having a genius. And I got to tell you, I think that was a huge error. You know, I think that allowing somebody, one mere person to believe that he or she is like, the vessel, you know, like the font and the essence and the source of all divine, creative, unknowable, eternal mystery is just a smidge too much responsibility to put on one fragile, human psyche. It’s like asking somebody to swallow the sun. It just completely warps and distorts egos, and it creates all these unmanageable expectations about performance. And I think the pressure of that has been killing off our artists for the last 500 years.” It was after watching that video I begin to realize maybe at the core of my confusion and despair was an egocentric and distorted sense of identity in the context of the bigger picture. But what about all the money I had made. Surely that should have brought me some kind of peace, or safety net to fall back on? Tom Shadyac, one of the most prolific comedy directors in Hollywood who created the blockbuster films “Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, Patch Adams etc ” had a brush with death at the peak of his career. At a time he was feeling empty and strangely lost in similar ways. He went on to sell his mansion in the hills and move into a trailer park in Malibu. Simplifying everything and stripping it away. He created a documentary called I AM and wrote a book, called “Life’s Operating Manuel that became another huge inspiration for me. In his book Tom goes onto explain. “All of the happiness research to date suggests that money, after it purchases basic needs, does not make people any happier and can, in fact, make us less happy. How is it then, that those who have made money, and tons of it, the newest members of the jet set and Fortune 500, are often elevated and honored - monopolizing the headlines to share secrets of how they did it, and how we can do it too? There are Billionaires Under 50, Millionaires Under 25, and Teenage Self-made Millionaires! Undoubtedly, Affluent Adolescents and Baby Billionaires are just around the corner! But with all we know now about the failings of money to deliver a happy and contented citizenry, we somehow still seem to be missing the message. After all, if money is such a panacea, why is the richest country on earth experiencing record levels of anxiety, depression, and suicide? Why then do we continue to teach our children that the good life is preceded and underscored by a dollar sign? If you don’t believe we’re teaching this to our kids, consider this startling statistic: 74 percent of our youth identify economic gain as the primary reason to go to college; not the pursuit of one’s passion, not for edification; not for relationships or the mind’s expansion. Our youth enter our hallowed institutions demanding not that their souls be set aflame, but bellowing that fateful line from Jerry Maquire, Show me the money! Somewhere, there’s a disconnection; somehow, we continue to ignore the simple fact that wealth and well-being have little to do with each other.” So what then I begin to ask? What is the purpose of life? If its not money, if its not fame, if its not this Upward Mobility I have been so clearly taught? What then? See I think at my core, deep within my soul I was blocked, dead, lost. My creative spirit had disappeared. I was climbing a latter of success that was leaning against the wrong wall. Because it was the the wall of self. The wall of self-importance. Self obsession. Self propulsion. Self worship. Somewhere along the way I had fallen away form my original intent to just stay sober and get healthy enough, to help others get across that bridge or hopelessness. That original intent to just help a couple friends who needed me to be present in their life for that day. It had become something else entirely. Steven Soderbergh points out. "For a young filmmaker, the enemy isn’t the studio or the critics, it’s self-importance. It takes a great amount of energy to stay hungry, but it’s far preferable to self-importance, which is what has brought down nearly every great filmmaker.” Philosophers have known this for centuries. “No one can live happily who has regard for himself alone and transforms everything into a question of his own utility,” wrote the first-century philosopher Seneca. And in practically every religious tradition and practice, giving of oneself is a key step on the path to spiritual fulfillment. Or, as Einstein put it, “only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile.” Ariana Huffington Today standing in front of you I am coming back to my senses a bit. I have let go of a lot and tried to educate myself back to right thinking. Back to this precious present moment. Back to the path I set out on originally when I was given another chance at life. To serve humanity with my gifts, to love others with all my heart and make the next generation a little better than mine. I no longer am defined by my craft as a film-maker or my busyness or my account or the accolades. I am not searching for validation anymore. Because, I know it doesn’t work. I spend a lot of time in quiet places, being still and focusing on the simple wonders of life. Trying to help others as much as I can. And i don’t think an altruistic life garnishes better work mind you but I do think when you are able to get out of the way and see yourself in the context of the bigger picture you stand a chance at becoming a clearer vessel for the spirit of creativity that might chose to speak through you. Well thats what started my career. Maybe some of you today feel blocked, you have come here for answers or fresh perspectives to take home with you. You have come here hoping for the 5 key points to a richer and more successful career. You yearn to feel more fully alive. I would like to suggest very simply, maybe all you need to do is take a second to breath, to turn off your phone, to step away and step outside of yourself. To recognize your humanity and embrace your vulnerabilities. To ask what really matters. Maybe today you will come to realize that the greatest endeavor for a successful and sustainable career as a film-maker is just making enough to get by and raising an amazing family. And you know what we need more people in our country like you. Maybe you are yearning to support your friends dreams and laying down your own. My righteous friend, God Bless You! Or maybe today you realize the commercial success just hasn’t come easy and your tired of trying, well let me tell you, maybe your life is changing and your evolving. Maybe you are on the verge of telling a simple story that changes the world we live in and all you need to do is let go of the yearning for fame. Maybe you are like me and you have hit the pinnacle of your success and feel unsatisfied, well let me tell you. There is hope. Let us preserve our humanity, save it from the thieves of our time. The distractions of our culture. That we may use our gifts in the arts, in film-making to serve each other and a greater purpose. That we may become more fully alive. Today I am not sure what tomorrow brings, and not sure I will have the same successes or the same fame I once did. I feel like I have in many ways returned to that sensitive kid I ran so far away form. And I think I’m finally okay with that. Because its not about me anymore its about us and I feel alive again and I feel human again and I don’t ever want to lose that. C.S. Lewis wrote: “It is not your business to succeed, but to do right. When you have done so the rest lies with God.”

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Snapshots from the book, The Bitter Years, Edward Steichen and the Farm Security Administration Photographs.

Photos credit and caption in sequential order:

1. Dorothea Lange. Sign during great cotton strike, Kern County, CA. 1938.

2. Russell Lee. Hands of Mrs. Andrew Ostermeyer, wife of a homesteader, Miller Township, Woodbury County, Iowa. December, 1936.

3. John Vachon. Playing “Cut that Pie” or “Fox and Geese” at noon recess at a rural school, Morton County, North Dakota. February, 1940.

4. Dorothea Lange. Napa Valley, CA. More than twenty-five years a bindlestiff, he walks from the mines to the lumber camps to the farms. The type that formed the backbone of the International Workers of the World in California before the war. December, 1938.

5. Arthur Rothstein. Sign, Birmingham, Alabama. February, 1937.

6. John Vachon. Picket line at Mid-City Realty Company, South Chicago, Illinois. July, 1941.

7. Dorothea Lange. On U.S. Highway 99, near Brawley, Imperial County, CA. The homeless mother and youngest child of seven walking the highway from Phoenix, AZ, where they picked cotton. Bound for San Diego, where the father hopes to get on the relief “because he once lived there.” February 1939

8. Jack Delano. Mrs. Mary Willis, widow, who with two children runs a rented farm near Woodville, Greene County, Georgia. June, 1941.

9. Walker Evans. A corner of the kitchen in Floyd Burroughs’s cabin, Hale County, Alabama. 1935 or 1936.

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Many of us are still living in the universe of Newtonian physics, and fondly imagine that real, hard scientists have no use for these misty ramblings, dealing as scientists do with the measurable and known. We think that at least the physical causes of physical events are perfectly knowable, and that, as the results of various experiments keep coming in, we gradually roll back the cloud of unknowing. We remove the veils one by one, painstakingly, adding knowledge to knowledge and whisking away veil after veil, until at last we reveal the nub of things, the sparkling equation from whom all blessings flow. But in 1927 Werner Heisenberg pulled out the rug, and our whole understanding of the universe toppled and collapsed. For some reason it has not yet trickled down to the man on the street that some physicists now are a bunch of wild-eyed, raving mystics. For they have perfected their instruments and methods just enough to whisk away the crucial veil, and what stands revealed is the Cheshire cat’s grin. The Principle of Indeterminacy, which saw the light in the summer of 1927, says in effect that you cannot know both a particle’s velocity and position. You can guess statistically what any batch of electrons might do, but you cannot predict the career of any one particle. They seem to be as free as dragonflies. You can perfect your instruments and your methods till the cows come home, and you will never ever be able to measure this one basic thing. It cannot be done. The electron is a muskrat; it cannot be perfectly stalked. And nature is a fan dancer born with a fan; you can wrestle her down, throw her on the stage and grapple with her for the fan with all your might, bit it will never quit her grip. She comes that way; the fan is attached. It is not that we lack sufficient information to know both a particle’s velocity and its position; that would have been a perfectly ordinary situation well within the understanding of classical physics. Rather, we know now for sure that there is no knowing. You can determine the position, and your figure for the velocity blurs into vagueness; or, you can determine the velocity, but whoops, there goes the position. The use of instruments and the very fact of an observer seem to bollix the observations; as a consequence, physicists are saying that they cannot study nature per se, but only their own investigation of nature. And I can only see bluegills within my own blue shadow, from which they immediately flee. The Principle of Indeterminacy turned science inside-out. Suddenly determinism goes, causality goes, and we are left with a universe composed of what Eddington calls, “mind-stuff” … Eddington says that our dropping causality as a result of the Principle of Indeterminacy “leaves us with no clear distinction between the Natural and the Supernatural.” And so forth.

Annie Dillard, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (via garrettgrove)

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