The Risk of Freedom

There’s no going back to a career that isn’t mine

Hi Cultural Currents Readers. I haven’t written in a while. There’s been a lot going on. But most specifically, an inner war on who I am. How I’ve changed. Turns out, I can’t be an employee anymore.

I recently tried. A creative PM role, a good team with meaningful work. And still, my nervous system went on fire. Not metaphorically. Physically. The low-grade panic that sits in your chest all day because you’re not where you’re supposed to be.

This isn’t new. I think it started when I left my first full-time job at the Sundance Institute. I was in charge of the content, digital marketing, and some regular marketing. When I told my bosses I was leaving, the Executive Director at the time was offended that I left without another job lined up. I didn’t know how to explain; I wasn’t looking for my next job. I was going to start making my own work. And so, during the festival, I requested my entire team to ask everyone they interviewed a single question: “What was your last day job before you could support yourself as an independent artist?”

This is what I was trying to drum up the courage to do, and I had this incredible video, “Quit Your Day Job: The Risk of Becoming an Independent Artist.”

It’s been watched 50,000 times, most of the views were probably by me. To give myself the courage to stay at it.

Then, as I was working on my own, I felt like an amateur. I’d watched thousands of movies and read hundreds of scripts. I had a sense of craft, but I still needed to find my craft. I came across a video called The Gap, made from an Ira Glass quote about the time in an artist’s career when their work doesn’t match their taste. It’s the period of learning craft. It also inspired me to keep on going.

Now I’m weeks away, maybe months, depending on my agent, from going out on submission with my first novel, 13 years into committing to my craft. My second screenplay is about to be walked into a major buyer with an attachment. But I needed some cash flow, so an old colleague hired me as a creative PM at his new boutique generative design and digital studio. And my nervous system went on fire. I’m about halfway through what will likely be my last project.

I wanted to understand why I can’t seem to do anything other than my own work. Was it PTSD from terrible workplaces? I mean, I did my time in some rough company cultures. I worked at The Weinstein Company, need I say more? Then I went to a talk at my synagogue, CBE, in Park Slope for Jodi Kantor’s new book, How to Start. We’re not related, but couldn’t be more proud to share a last name with someone I admire.

At the talk Jodi Kantor was joined by Esther Perel, and Priya Parker. Perel said something that snapped into place for me: people have different tolerances for stability and freedom. Stability is a paycheck. Freedom is risk.

That idea struck a chord in me. I need the freedom to leave my computer and take a walk to find the creative resonance that most of the roles I take require. And yet, the need for a creative PM to be always available at their desk, and that for whatever reason, completely dysregulates me.

So, instead, I created a budget, a financial runway, a prayer, because I’m all in as a writer, as a thinker, and as a creator. And I’m going to trust the universe to start paying me for my craft. It’s uncomfortable. But it’s a discomfort my body knows how to hold, more than the slow panic of a life that isn’t mine.