BOX Blog Sessions: Understanding the Loneliness Pt. 1, with Tom Moriarty

Rejection and loneliness are subjects that are often spoken about at length in our industry.

Yet what do these vaguely academic concepts actually mean to artists and creatives who are struggling to carve out a career?

Today, I wanted to touch briefly on what exactly loneliness means in our industry.

For me, it took roughly five years to truly understand what it meant, personally at least. It is the very reason why GFi came into existence: to provide a shared space where we can connect with others on the same path as us and more so, to share the lamentations and sadness that comes with a life so volatile.

Loneliness, on the surface, can be a massive disadvantage to a creative life. It entails days, months and sometimes years of absolutely no work. It forces you to look at your life choices, inevitable comparing yourself to non-actors who seem to have it all together. Loneliness also equates to professional rejection as you try to figure out why exactly you have stalled in your career, facing NO after NO for those jobs that make your heart sing.

Loneliness fucking sucks.

However...

If we shift our mindset and recalculate what exactly Loneliness means to us, then we can harness its hidden qualities and completely use it to our advantage.

Here’s the bottom line, the unpolished truth about our industry: NOTHING HAPPENS QUICKLY.

I’ve been involved in performance art for almost twenty years, beginning with Magic, moving to Music and then to Acting. Acting led to directing, producing, casting, writing and so much more. And through it all, one thing has remained the same. Namely that for a large percentage of a creative life, you are alone. Everything takes forever to come to fruition and hence, loneliness can have a strong hold on our emotions and thought processes.

We have two choices as I can see it: either we wallow in sadness and lament shitty career choices or we accept, TRULY accept, that to be extraordinary demands solitude. You, and only you, can go on this journey and make sense of it. You are GOING to be alone, there is no escaping that. Instead, look to these quiet times as potential for movement forward.

That’s all I will say on that for now, if you wanna chat it further then hit me up. You know I’m always just a message away.

Hope y’all’s week have started well and that the dream comes one step closer this week.

Tom