Just Start: Beyond committing to the bit
Hey all,
A few years ago, I used to write a blog called Live Hard. One of my favourite posts from that is the one I did on Will Ferrell:
You know why Will Ferrell is the greatest living actor? It’s not because of his impeccable comic timing or his giant malleable face: it’s because he absolutely tries his best at everything he takes on. In Tiny Fey’s Bossypants, which is as much a man-management manual as an autobiography, she says this about Ferrell:
He would do sketches that were absolutely his voice and what (I assume) he loved most—Bill Brasky, Robert Goulet, and Cowbell—but he would commit just as fully to tap-dancing next to Katie Holmes in the monologue. He’s the Michael Caine of sketch comedy. He could be in something awful and it would never stick to him.
Turns out he’s a pretty good tap-dancer. But the point is: he’s good in everything, because he tries to be good in everything. He’s been in some terrible films, but he never looks bad, because he’s giving everything he has.
When you get involved with a project, at work or somewhere else, that you aren’t convinced is great, it can be tempting to half-arse your contribution. It’s something I’ve done in the past. But I don’t do it any more. Because you might as well do your best. People will notice, you’ll feel good about what you’ve produced, and you’ll learn more from doing things properly than doing them any other way. If you believe that you need [insert number of hours] to get good at something, you should also believe that those hours should be your best effort. It doesn’t matter whether you’re starring in Anchorman or tap-dancing with Katie Holmes: commit to the project, and good things will happen.
I thought about that again recently when I watched Conan O’Brien on Hot Ones, as he’d obviously spent some time wondering how to take the format to a level that I’ve never seen another guest manage. During the climax, host Sean Evans talks about ‘committing to the bit’, and Conan delivers a line that might be part of the performance but also seems pretty heartfelt:
"It’s not a bit, this is life! Is this a bit to you? Don’t say ‘commit to the bit’, this is your show!”
I thought about this recently, when I was writing a piece for the Guardian, and then doing a photoshoot for it, and then doing a radio interview to talk about it. In one way, it could have been kind of throwaway: an article about the 'no-spend’ challenge that some people are trying these days. But, channelling O’Brien and Farrell, I tried to commit: to make the piece as informative and useful as I possibly could, the photos as good as I could make them, to deliver as much extra-credit info in the interview as I could muster. It worked, I think: a lot of people seemed pretty happy, and I ended up on the cover.
I’m as scared of AI as anyone else who works in creative industries right now. But this, I think, is how we make a stand: we commit to the thing (not the bit), and make it as good as we possibly can. We look for the weird connections and creative leaps that don’t come if you’re just going through the motions. And sometimes, even tap-dancing with Katie Holmes (or posing in a park with a cricket bat) ends up as another thing for your highlight reel.
Have a great weekend!
Joel x
Stuff I like
🏰 Boardgame - Disney Villainous
A friend of mine lent me this, and my family’s immediately become obsessed with it — I’ve already bought two expansion packs and the Marvel version, and I’m already thinking about whether I really have time to make my own custom version based on Mad Max (I definitely don’t). It’s a card-based strategy game where your objective and tactics depend hugely on who you’re playing, and my seven-year-old has become terrifyingly good at it in a very short space of time. Neuroplasticity!
📝 Art Bites: Gentileschi and Galileo Were Pen Pals
I’ve been unintentionally reading a bunch about the historical crossovers between art, science, and engineering recently (it’s not something I’m doing for a project, it just comes up in a lot of stuff), and so I found this piece about how Galileo’s work on the parabolic law of projectiles might have informed Artemisia Gentileschi’s depictions of blood splatter absolutely fascinating.
🎶 Hype Music - It’s Blitz by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Seeing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs do all of their second album, Fever To Tell, is still one of the best live music experiences I’ve ever had — there are some bangers on there — but I think this follow-up would have been even better. It’s basically a perfect album, and I’ve been listening to it all week.
🧐 Quote of the week
“Writing is a way to explore a question and gain control over it,”
From Writing To Learn by William Zinsser
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