I’m sitting down to write on the couch of the cheap Melbourne rental my wife and I share. It’s too small for us but there’s a rental crisis and we outgrew our death wishes at 19 and 23 respectively, so we’re not about to move any time soon.
Aurelia is glued to her computer answering the inane questions of people who can’t use their point-of-sale payment technology, which she does 9-5, five days a week. She also averages four comedy gigs, six content obligations and a minimum of eight hours working on her solo show for festival season per week. I’m home for a week, visiting from Sydney, where I am paying a friend not enough rent to stay in her spare bedroom in the suburbs for the privilege of performing in independent theatre.
At 32, this is the first show I have ever been paid industry rates for. Last week, I got an email trumpeting the fact that I graduated drama school ten years ago this year. And instead of looking back on the great career that I’ve had, or at least a courageous history of attempt, I remembered the string of odd and useless jobs I’ve held down to be able to audition, write and develop my “real” work – barista, mini cupcake icer, closed captioner.
Yes, you’ve heard this story before. You’re friends or sisters or colleagues with me. There are Me’s packing your groceries, describing your wine lists and balancing your accounts all over the world. We’re in your lives.
But hang on - we chose this. We elected to be the ones serving you. Didn’t we? We didn’t want a seat at your table. We could have learned how to code or gotten our forklift licenses or taken more of an interest in psychology, rather than its expressions. Couldn’t we?
“I don’t think I physically can.”
My best friend’s voice shakes down the phone. I’m back in Melbourne for a week-long (unpaid) hiatus during rehearsals and walking the dog mid-morning on a hot Tuesday. The friend on the phone is a talented emerging filmmaker and director, which translates to being mostly unemployed while constantly working.
It feels innate, doesn’t it?
Like it’s this thing you’re born with and it’s impossible to go on denying.
I don’t know if I can keep this up.
I give some examples of people I know who have made a great profit off denying their artistry, falling into law or accounting or becoming very rich off some incredibly simple idea for an app. There’s an almost respectful pause in the conversation that feels like a minute of silence for those people. They’re often the ones at dinner parties who bring all the wine because they can afford to but don’t want to talk about how.
Yeah.
Another silence.
Can I tell you something?
Of course.
If I’m completely honest? For ten full years, right up until this month and maybe even still, I’ve told everyone that I’ve quit acting. That I was over that folly or phase and that I wanted a real career – producing, directing, anything more respectable and concrete. It was a complete lie.
I got dumped by my agent the year after graduating, it totally shot my already fragile 22-year-old self-confidence and instead of using it to fuel my career, I got into a relationship with a gaslighting money fiend who taught me to value the longevity of a behind-the-scenes job rather than the unrivalled joy of a performing one.
Jesus … that’s a lot.
Yeah and now, having to tell people that I’m in a play at 32 feels like letting them see who I really am after all this time. Like I’ve been caught in a lie, you know? I mean, I’ve already come out once in my life but I’ll be damned if admitting I’m an actor feels remarkably similar - just as biological and just as impossible to ignore.
Well, shit.
As news of the Oscars spills over January, I’m reminded of our appetite for genius. And, at the same time, our total lack of tolerance for it. On one hand, we demand stars. We crave the exceptional. We need to be stunned, transported, shaken at least once a year, if not every time we attend a cinema, theatre or bookshop. But if we see what it takes to get there, if the veil slips, if the link is made between Best Picture and ten years of low paid admin jobs, we’re immediately unenamoured.
Back on the phone, my friend’s voice breaks as she asked me if it’s possible.
Is there a way to do this?
To keep working but to earn money that doesn’t hurt?
Something that doesn’t cost us our will?
Her questions sing of the difference between making a living and making a life. Plenty of us are living – surviving, getting by, earning enough to keep the days in order and our heads above water. Then there are those with a life.
Having a life looks like many things to many people but, at its core, the difference between living and life seems to require two steps:
1) the presence of purpose
and 2) the act of fulfilling that purpose.
You’ve heard this before. Every self-help program in the world touts the same thing.
Step 1 without step 2 is the space that most of us exist - a living. There are so many of us stalling at step 1 because capitalism directly benefits from us being satisfied with us not reaching any further. The status quo goes out of its way to make the halfway point feel as comfortable as possible so we don’t see the need to risk the perceived rewards of step 1 (money, linear career progression, a free drinks fridge in the staff room) for the unstable gains of step 2.
The thing that fewer books or podcasts will tell you is that for many people, step 2 is not so much a choice as an inevitability. These people are often creative. They are seldom properly paid for their work. They have historically died destitute (Mozart, Van Gogh, countless undocumented women and queers) only to have the spoils of recognition heaped upon their memories, rather than their persons.
Just last week, I read a small article in the newspaper about one of Australia’s greatest living poets, Evelyn Araluen. She told the journalist that she was one pay check away from total bankruptcy before her debut collection was picked up by a publisher. It seems to me that destitution is a socially required hurdle to the recognition of genius. We are so intent on starving our gods that we’ve forgotten how to believe in them.
And then there’s the Oscars. A parade of talent, yes, but also wealth and the privileged 1%. It’s largely televised to survive the Hollywood myth of glamour, celebrity and impossible riches. Palliative care for the genius myth – you can be as poor and obscure as you like but then make the world’s next great film and become a legend overnight. For some, this will become their life. For most, some of the world’s next great films will stay in a little blue desktop folder called “WRITING STUFF” while they make a living writing copy for a vacuum supplies company.
Okay, got it.
My friend concludes at minute 87 of our phone conversation.
Step 1 fucking sucks. Get out of step 1.
Make a life, not a living.
Win an Oscar.
God doesn’t respond well to starvation.
Genius is a biological event.
Kind of but –
Shit sorry, that’s my alarm. I’ve got to shower before work.
I’m hosting paint ‘n sip but it’s Sunday so it’s $80 an hour.
Fuck me, that’s great money.
I know, I know!
Silence.
Anyway, gotta go. But I’ll email you her details.
They’re always looking for new people.
-TN
you can't rush fame and fortune xxx