PATIENCE LOST

The suffocation of creativity

Where the hell did our patience disappear to?

The other night, when my sons and I were in the car, I decided to download an audiobook from my childhood, that held a special place in my heart. I would love to tell you what the book was, but the following paragraph would unnecessarily stain its stellar memory.

Needless to say it was a book from the 1950’s. A book that sparked my imagination via its charm, innocence, humor, and simple storytelling.

As my children listened to the first chapter, I glanced at their faces in the rearview mirror, only to see their willingness to please straining through their furrowed eyebrows, as they tried to endure the slow and gentle pace of the book, that I had hyped up so much to them, as one of my favorites.

We didn’t make it to chapter two.

I realized that this was not a difference of creative taste, but a wider generational issue, that we have become an increasingly impatient species, caused by the ever increasing volume of creative choices, that are blasted at us, like a water cannon, from every direction, every second of the day.

I myself, am no longer able to get past the first chapter of a book, if it hasn’t immediately grabbed me by the short and curlies and swing me around the room a few times. There is no longer time or appreciation for a deliciously slow burning buildup, leading to a climactic explosion at the end of a well-structured story.

In 2014, I had a meeting at the Instagram offices, and wanted to best understand the optimal practices for video content. The main comment was that we had to hook people in the first three seconds, or else they would swipe past. Instead of a long build up with a well-deserved crescendo, you have to start by immediately revealing the climax, then reverting to the beginning of the story, in order to have a better chance of hooking and keeping the viewer. It’s like reading the last page of a book first, in order to decide if the time investment is worth it. Even then, when we know what the payoff is, we might still fast forward along the video, just to get there quicker.

I’m ashamed to admit that when I am sent a new song on Spotify, more often than not, I will jump to the middle of this song, to see if I like it!

How blasphemous! How abhorrent and disrespectful of me, especially being a creative person, and understanding the love and time that goes into any artistic creation, to have so little respect for the art of another.

I hereby apologize to any creator that I have skipped through, whether in music, writing or video.

As creative consumers, we have become spoilt children. The buffet bar has become so overloaded with fast food choices, that we have no patience for a profound quality anymore. We want it fast, we want it exciting, and we want it now. Otherwise, we are looking elsewhere.

In my industry, once upon a time, a team would shoot a fashion story for a magazine, which would exist over ten to fifteen pages. We would create a narrative, such as a beach theme, or a 50’s Dolce Vita inspired story, and these pages would be carefully laid out after much deliberation.

An opening spread that introduces us to the character and story, then a headshot, followed by a three-quarter length shot. Maybe another double page spread where the figure was tiny, within the expansive landscape, in which each bush, tree, and rock, spoke as much to the narrative, as the tiny person in the bottom right hand corner.

A close up detail shot could follow, or even a landscape, followed by a full length, and some black and white carefully mixed in to separate the color and add rhythm to the story.

As the audience, we consumed it as a whole story and leafed through it with gentle pleasure and expectation.

Nowadays, weeks before the magazine has hit the newsstand, we will have seen these images on social media. Not, however, the whole story in one, nor in the order that we had curated them, in order to release the undulating narrative, with a perfect beginning, middle and end; but thrown sporadically over social media pages, one image at a time, unable to properly explain the full richness of the character and storyline.

At home, we now watch new movies on our living room screens, instead of going to the cinema. That theater, where we would have paid for a ticket, entered a blacked out room, and agreed to the collective understanding, that we had invested money to be immersed in a story for the next couple of hours.

Instead of this solemn commitment, we sit on our sofa at home and ingest the movies with the instant ability to pause, rewind, skip ahead, or even just bail out, the second our interest wains.

Even if we do manage to remain loyal to the movie during a slower scene, that may require the absolute stillness, quiet and nothingness for the greatest impact, our phone, is whispering to us from only inches away.

I wonder what’s happening on Instagram. I can quietly check TikTok, while this slow scene plays out.

Imagine watching a classic movie with long drawn out scenes like Lawrence of Arabia, or Kubrick’s 2001, with a twenty-something today. Would they make it through?

Music has also suffered. The all-powerful music album, again so carefully curated, so that the order of songs could carry us through the artist’s interpretation of his or her creative journey, has now been flayed and dissected into as many different cutlets as we deem fit. Only the true diehard fans wishing to sit through the entirety of an album, in order to appreciate the narrative and meaning behind each song.

However, as with all things in life, we have to ask, What is the possibility behind this situation? How does the increased speed and vast amounts of storytelling that we are wading through, benefit us?

Of course, with today’s length and breadth of all the new streaming services and social platforms, we have a more democratic playing field, with more creatives allowed behind the golden curtain. This means more voices and more stories that may have been previously unheard.

From a personal viewer’s perspective, maybe we are forced to go on a creative fast, before coming back under a strict creative diet, with a stronger discernment, between stories that inspire us, and bubble gum entertainment, that holds no nourishment.

I have been hearing the words, by design, a lot recently. One could argue that social media, and our ensuing creative gluttony is by design. Is it keeping us hypnotized and uninspired, minute to minute, second to second, like the gladiators in the Colosseum, so that we aren’t concerning ourselves with the real issues that need attention in today’s world. - That is for us to individually decide.

I know that my gut, heart or inside voice is screaming at me to cut the sugar-like addiction I have to instant and shallow gratification. It is begging me to search deeper for something nourishing to watch, rather than just picking the candy coated, twinkie of a movie that each platform desperately thrusts into my line of sight.

Alas the fate of creativity is currently being decided by creative corporations. By its very nature, creativity has to have the freedom to be inflammatory, annoying and disruptive; at the same time as inspiring and exciting, and this cannot happen when its benefactors value money over expression.

As consumers we have to fight the algorithms, look for those lotus flowers hidden in the muck and the mire, and allow patience to prevail, with the promise of a greater and more nutritious, creative reward.

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