Solitude or Loneliness? Why Creative People Burn Out

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There are two kinds of being alone in this job, and they are not the same thing. One of them is the reason the work is any good, and the other one is the thing that'll wear you down to nothing if you let it. And the more I've been doing this, the more I think the best filmmakers know the difference. So I was talking to Armin Korsos last week. He's a filmmaker out of Chicago. He runs a production company called Caymanite and he's one of the co-founders of Filmmaker Friday Chicago, which is exactly what it sounds like, a bunch of filmmakers getting together on a Friday in Chicago. In that conversation, Armin said something every filmmaker who's ever made anything has felt. He said, filmmaking can be a very lonely process. I'm Christian Taylor, and today I want to talk about that. But first, let's take a listen to Armin. That is the kind of openness and honesty I've come to appreciate about Armin. And you know what? I think every filmmaker listening just nodded along. I know I did. Because here's the thing, from the outside, The work looks like the festival, the poster, the applause.

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From the inside, the work is mostly you, alone, with the thing. But here's what I've been thinking a lot about. There are two kinds of being alone in this job, and they are not the same thing. Let me start with the first kind, because I don't think that we talk about this one enough. The times I have been the most creative have been the times I've been the most alone. Wandering in my thoughts with what I'm working on, listening to music that inspires me, sitting in a beautiful setting, nobody around, nothing to do but think about the work. There is a goodness to loneliness, a necessary side. You can't write a scene by committee. You can't find your voice in a room with everyone talking at once. You can't hear what the story is asking for if you're surrounded by screaming. The work needs the quiet. There's a writer named Henry Nowen who's helped me think about this. He says, Loneliness and solitude aren't the same thing. Loneliness is the desert. Solitude is the garden and the work is to turn one into the other. So that's the first kind of loneliness, the garden. The kind that makes the film any good. Then there is the other kind. And if you're a filmmaker listening to this, you may already know what I'm about to say.

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The fundraising is lonely. The financial decisions are lonely. The will my credit card clear this month math is lonely. Do I take this meeting with someone who probably isn't going to fund my film, but might? Is lonely. The how do I tell my crew I can't pay them their usual rate again? Is lonely. Yeah, this work is not a cakewalk. All of that lands on the filmmaker, one person, you. And nobody at the festival is gonna ask about that. Nobody on Instagram is gonna congratulate you for surviving it. The audience that watches the finished film will never know the months you spent alone with that spreadsheet. So if you're in that math right now, know this, that weight is real. It is not a sign though that you're failing or bad at this. It's a sign that you're doing the work. This is what it's like for all of us at one time or another. Okay, so you've got both the good kind of alone and the hard kind of alone. And I think they both have something in common. Both of them are doing something to you while you're in them. The hours alone with the footage teach you how to see. The hours alone with the budget teach you what you value.

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The hours alone with the rejection emails teach you what you're willing to keep fighting for. Both kinds of alone are forging you the good and the hard. They're making the craft and they're making you at the same time. And this is also something I've been turning around in my head this week. I don't think you can really walk into a room of other filmmakers and offer anything until those times of being alone have happened. I'm a writer, I'm a director, I'm a documentarian, I'm a voice actor. Those have to mean something. They have to come from somewhere. You have to know what you have to bring to the party and you have to be comfortable enough in your own skin to know you're worth talking to and you have something to offer. Both of those things come from the time alone with the work. Now, I want to pause for just a second because I know I've been talking about filmmakers, but I don't think this is only about us. If you write alone, if you record alone, if you paint alone, if you're running a small business or driving a truck. Or if you're at the kitchen table after midnight while the kids are in bed trying to figure out a thing, it's the same kind of alone, same kind of weight, and the same need for what I'm about to talk about.

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Because here's the other side of all of this. The part where the alone stops being the whole story. Finding your people. Finding your people when you've been alone with the work for a long time can feel like finding an oasis in the desert to a man dying of thirst. I've had a few of those moments in my career and they are special. Perhaps you've had some too and if you haven't, maybe these will give you some hope and inspiration. Now the first time was when I screened my film for an audience, not crew, not family, strangers. And I stood in the back of the theater in the Utah Beach Museum in Normandy, to be exact. And I just felt the room. I listened to the breathing and the sniffling and the laughing and something I had been carrying for months now belonged to other people too. And the weight got lighter. We were in this together. The second was a phone call that I had quite recently. I had a friend. He'd just been hired on his first big shoot and he was going to be out of state for three weeks I had a feeling it wasn't going to be easy. And it wasn't.

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He ended up doing as much production work as he was DPing and he was exhausted from holding the whole thing together. And then... The camera crew walked off the job. He reached out to me at one point, And from then on, I prayed for him and continued to check in on him. And I kept telling him the same thing. Press on, it will get better. Don't give up. This is the place where you find out who you are. It will make you better. Don't give up. I talked to him last night and they hired a new crew and he is a new man. He told me he's ready to do his next film And he told me I was right. And you know what? He's a former crew member on one of my production teams. And he has encouraged me through hard moments in my own filmmaking more times than I can count. He's also the one who introduced me to Armin. And he's the reason I walked into Filmmaker Friday in the first place. So... When he was the one in the hard place, I got to be the voice on the other end of the line after years of him being that voice for me. That's what community does for the work. It doesn't take the alone away. It gives you the space to build relationships so you can be there for each other when the alone comes and tries to take you away.

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It reminds me of something that C.S. Lewis said in the book about the four loves. He says, is born the moment one person says to another, what, you too? I thought I was the only one. My friend Sarah and I met that way in the first weekend that we spent together back in 1989. I know I'm as old as dirt. We discovered our shared love of C.S. Lewis, Winnie the Pooh in the Bible. What, you too? I thought I was the only one. And we've been best friends ever since. the third moment that I want to tell you about. was about the time that I went to Filmmaker Friday for the first time. Armin's thing. A whole room of filmmakers on purpose on a Friday. And I'll tell you what was different about that room. It was a room full of people who had done the lonely work and showed up to be reminded that the loneliness wasn't a failure. It was just part of it. We're built for solitude. The work needs it. And we're built for community. The worker needs it. You need the alone to make the thing and you need the people to keep being the kind of person who can keep making the thing. Okay, so here's what I want to ask you to do this week. Think of one person you know who's alone in their work right now, a filmmaker, a voice actor, truck driver, a writer, a podcaster, heck it can even be a lawyer, anyone who's gone quiet on you because the work has them buried.

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Send them this episode. Not because it's going to fix anything for them, just so they know they're not alone. And if you're new here, hit follow or subscribe wherever you're listening or watching. And then Documentary First and the Deep Dive will end up in your feed every week. And if you've been listening for a while and this show means something to you, we'd love to have you join us on Patreon. The link is in the show notes below. Hey, and if you're listening on Spotify, scroll down on the episode page. There's a quick poll there I'd love you to answer. The alone is part of it. The people are part of it, and you need both. And the best filmmakers I know have figured that out. I'm Christian Taylor. This has been Documentary First, The Deep Dive. And I'll see you next time.