There’s a clock currently being built somewhere inside a mountain in West Texas

Once complete it will keep accurate time for the next 10,000 years.

It took me many many years before I started thinking about what I wanted from my life further than the next few months.

In acting, it’s hard to go further that. You just have no idea.

You have a vague notion of what success looks like to you, maybe a few images of your hopes and dreams.

But at 21, when I was asked what my long term goals were, my reply was easy

“to still be acting”

My thoughts were focussed around that

My actions were driven by that

My feelings were the results of the wins and losses in it’s pursuit.

I see now that that wasn’t enough.

I wasn’t thinking anywhere near as big as I should have been.

What are we really trying to achieve?

What are we looking for?

let’s ask that 21 year old again,

“I just want to be happy”

“we should all follow what makes us happy”

“avoid what makes you sad”

simple

unnuanced

black and white.

Around 8 years ago something shifted in me

i met my wife

suddenly i was forced to take a more long-term view of my life now that it was linked to someone else’s

suddenly my choice of goals and dreams affected someone else

this compounded when our daughter came along

which leads to the clock

The Clock of the Long Now was conceived by Danny Hillis in 1989 as a mechanical timepiece designed to operate for ten millennia with minimal intervention.

Built inside a 500-foot-deep tunnel, its purpose is simple:

to change how we think about time itself.

It ticks once a year. Its century hand advances every 100 years.

A cuckoo emerges once per millennium.

the arrival of photographs of Earth from space changed how humanity thinks of its environment

in the same way the Clock of the Long Now gives us a tangible way to grasp deep time.

Every time a new life phase or a circumstance comes along I find myself thinking in on a much longer scale than before

But this made me think next level

What do I want to have achieved by the time I die?

What about after that time?

What are my deep time goals?

An aside: when thinking about goals nowadays, I find Kevin Kelly’s advice useful:

Instead of a rigid, unmoving goal that I am trying to achieve in one specific way, I’ve found it more useful to ask

What direction do I need to move in, that will lead to what I want to achieve?

This subtle shift has allowed me to stay nimble and follow paths that are untread - heading in the direction I want to go.

And the untrod paths are really what this is all about.

So we are looking for our Deep Time Direction.

How does having a Deep Time Direction help us as actors?

1. When we shift to long-term thinking, our daily struggles don't disappear, but they become infinitely more meaningful. The rejection, the unacknowledged self tape, that meeting you fucked—they're no longer obstacles to avoid but necessary steps to bring you closer to your deep time goals.

2. So much of this game is chasing someone else’s idea of success. Do we really want to be in that series? Why is that award important? What is it that we are really chasing? When you have a Deep Time Direction alot of that nonsense falls by the wayside. A clarity of vision, knowing the direction you are heading in, makes your choices easier to make and more purposeful.

3. As we seek to create more work ourselves (like we saw Floss do last week) the question arises: but what should I create? What should I write? What should I film? Think of your Deep Time Direction and create something that will bring you closer to making the change you want to make a reality.

4. Small, incremental moves over time will compound, leading to large, meaningful change. If I aim to change the entertainment industry for the better by the time I leave this world, the longer time scale allows me to make small meaningful changes without burning out, feeling underwhelmed with my efforts or feeling overwhelmed with the task. I can make small incremental changes (like starting a newsletter to helping actors increase their income) knowing that I will arrive at where I want to go.

At 34 I look back on my 21 year old self and wonder what may have come from the compounding had I focussed more on a Deep Time Direction.

But I am grateful to have discovered this question at all.

So here it is:

What change do you want your art to make in the world that will ripple through time long after you’re gone?

Finding Your Deep Time Directions: 3 questions to ask yourself

• Out of all the values and ideas you hold, is there 1 you hope will be present in the world in 10,000 years time?

• What change in the world do you want to make by the end of your life?

• If you could create one thing right now that would make the small world around you a better place, what would it be?

If you’d like to find out a little more about the clock here’s a video about it.

It’s 9 years old, but in the relative scheme of things…

What I made this week

I re-discovered something I drew last year.

I shaded it in this week.

I remembered it a few days ago whilst listening to this song from Brian Eno’s Apollo which I have been listening to for years.

Coincidentally, Eno is one of the co-founders of the Long Now clock project.

If you have any thoughts about this week’s newsletter I’d love to hear them.

Or if you are currently making something or you know any else who is, I’d love to hear about that too - just reply to this email.

Until then see you next week,

Alex

p.s If you think anyone would enjoy this Newsletter do forward it on to them or send them this link.

P.p.s Final one, If you or anyone you know is sick of their day job and wants to get paid to tell stories, our audiobook-from-home course Create & Narrate has one slot left.

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