Proaction

There is a bright side to the Coronavirus.  Yes, I said it, there is a bright side.  Humanity does, in fact, exist.  The reality of CV is this — if you are under 60 and in decent health, the vast vast majority of the time it is a really really bad flu that you can recover from at home.  Over 60 and in not so good health and morbidity rate jumps to 10-15%.  We as a people, globally, have decided to crater everything to take care of those most at risk.  Are we uniform in the effort?  Not a chance.  But are legitimate and extraordinarily debilitating efforts being taken almost everywhere now?  Yep.  Darwin does not live in modern human society.  At least, not yet.

Why does it matter?  Because the sacrifice each of us is being asked to make is for someone other than ourselves.  Truly, it is for the greater good. Selflessness that we did not believe, really believe, was present as pervasively as it actually is.  I live in Northern California and more than 8 million people are staying at home for the next three weeks at minimum. That is a world of hurt for so many reasons.  Of course, Northern California is not alone but it does prove the point that we are capable of doing the right thing at an exquisite price to help those most vulnerable.

Of course, many of you are triaging your creative businesses — seeing what can be reconfigured, postponed, or otherwise maintained.  You are all fighting valiantly to live through the pain.  So much has been written, spoken, videoed that there is nothing more to add at this moment other than keep going or give yourself permission to shut it all down.  We all live in the fear and panic of what tomorrow might become.  So many of us also live in the shame of being/feeling inadequate to the task or the courage required to stay the course.  To that end, be gentle to yourself, your staff, your family, your art.  Vulnerability is the definition of strength today and ever more.

And now to proaction.  Your humanity is bigger than you, as is your art.  Do not ask what you can do to help, just do it.  Through selflessness you will discover the intrinsic nature of your work.  As you sit in your home, healthy and powerful, know that your sacrifice is a new definition of culture.  Hearing that we are all in this together over and over should alert you to just how far that can go.  Community will rise higher and faster than ever if you choose to lead.  However, the lesson to be learned so far is to be a catalyst, a motivator of deep conversation.  Yes, we need our experts to tell us what to do based on their years and years of study and training.  That is not conversation though and that is not is what is on order for the rest of us.  Real, authentic dialogue of how to be next is what will bring you forward.  The irony is is that with everything bigger than you, your voice matters, not because it is the biggest voice, but because it is there to serve the collective ethos of humanity and thereby be served by it.

I am being incredibly specific.  Do not wait to join or be picked, to talk when you are called on, ready to be part of another’s movement.  By all means do those things too, just lead first.  Start a group, open a dialogue to those who care as you do.  Do not do it because it will bring anything other than the power of connection.  Start the conversation then see where it takes all of you.  The heart of being an artist is conviction in what so few of us can see.  Sharing that conviction today is not about bringing others to your worldview, it is about simply opening the possibility of its alternative.  Creativity abounds in indulgence, sure, but only thrives when it can become untethered.  We are so here.

Please listen to all of the wonderful practical advice out there about raising money, salvaging what you have and building for the future.  Then chart your own course with your own voice, committed to true dialogue, true improvisation.  Take what you learn and share.  Make it your daily practice.  Let CV teach you that you can be both the starfish and the little boy at the very same time as that is what make you truly the artist you are.  Allow the moment to carry you to the next and the next until you arrive at the destination unknown.