Producing – Week Three

Time. A strange phenomenon. Sometimes it can seem like such a welcome thing and then the next moment like a hateful arch enemy. Sometimes it stretches to the horizon like a highway in the desert and then next moment is consumed like coal shovelled into the furnace of an ever accelerating steam train. Sometimes it is treasured like a precious stone and then next moment carelessly discarded like worthless waste. And sometimes we think we own it, that it is ours, and then next moment we feel that someone else has ownership and our time is not our own.

This week has been a bit like that. In my over-committed busy life, ‘time’ has been a distant rainbow that I have painfully pursued longing to grasp even just a small portion to claim as my own, but in vain. I am forced to bow to my ‘to do lists’, to submit to my predetermined schedule, to be enslaved by the fact that my time is not my own... But it is a lie! No human being has ownership of my time, it belongs to me, and the privelege of using every minute is mine, and so must the responsibility be. I choose how to spend my allowance of this priceless commerce and, as I explored last week, it is I who must face the consequences of those decisions. We are all given the same allowance and so I have no grounds to either boast or complain. There are twenty four hours in the day, and it is the same for everyone.

I try and cheat. I try to squeeze more and more time out of the day until tiredness and an unsymphatic clock face displaying two o’clock in the morning convince me of my foolishness. This method can work on occasion but as soon as it becomes the routine it begins to be counter-productive. Sleep is necessary. I have a responsibility to allocate a substantial chunk of my budget of time to sleeping, and if I don’t... again I must face the consequences. So often I think I have lost control, that my life is careening down a path I have no choice about, that my time is not my own. This is an illusion. Time is a gift, free-will is a gift, life is a gift. Gifts are free, often undeserved, and they have true value when the giver gives with a certain intention, from a knowledge of the receiver’s wants and needs. I, the receiver, want more time to do all the things I want to do but I need to do less things. What do I get? The same as anyone else; twenty four hours per day. So, eventually, I’ll learn.

What has all this got to do with producing? This week there seemed to be a slight lull in the production department of Broken Bubbles, a sort of simmering as we tried to control the heat without losing all impetus. In the breathing space this afforded I was able to examine how I use my time and how I view my time. As a Producer it is my job to see Broken Bubbles through to successful completion. Although not an easy task I have been given all the raw materials I need. I have life and creativity, I have the ability to make choices, and – no matter how helpless and out-of-control I may feel on occasion – I have what mankind has always had; I have time.