Catch the moments of your life

while there are still moments to catch

I have a rule when it comes to television: I will not watch television shows with less than five seasons. I do not care how much you loved it or what Variety said about it and that everyone and their mom has seen it. There is nothing worse than getting invested in a story and characters who will never show up again because of budget cuts, low ratings, and popularity contests.

I believe I am called a "late adopter,” which means I am watching popular binge-worthy television a few years after they peak. It works for me.

And it is why I started This is Us nearly a decade after America fell in love with it. Did I miss small talk with friends revolving around the tension of what happens next on the show? Yes, I missed that. But it didn't bother me.

What did bother me was that no one in all these years forwarded me this scene (below) from Thanksgiving in season one, because it is stunning:

Without context or spoilers, the younger girl on the left says to the older man on the right, "How does it feel to be dying?" and he replies, slowly and thoughtfully, "It feels like all these beautiful pieces of my life are flying around me and I'm trying to catch them."

He adds a few examples:

"When my granddaughter falls asleep in my lap, I try to catch the feeling of her breathing against me."

"When I make my son laugh, I try to catch the sound of him laughing, how it rolls up from his chest."

Some of us might call this mindfulness (or the goal of it, anyway). Others might call it being present. I see the entire point of life right there in that exchange. You see two characters, one on the up-and-up, the other in his twilight years (though, emotionally you could argue he’s on the up-and-up) - and both are (trying to) choose to see the beautiful pieces of life they're experiencing. The fullness that is life, even and especially the little boring or insignificant parts.

When I think about Dream Projects and what we aim to do here at Brainstorm Road, I think about this scene. So many of us live in fantasy future moments we'll never reach instead of finding ways to appreciate the present right now. And speaking as someone whose "present" is way worse than an imagined future, I get the impulse to escape the moment. It's why I feel so strongly that we invest in ourselves and our dreams right now.

Something that stood out to me about the above scene that is not directly mentioned or even considered integral (may be implied) is that these two characters are artists. She's an actress, he's a musician. They've had various degrees of professional success, but as far as a worldview, these are two people with dreams who expect and want more from the world. In a world that is unkind, unrelenting, unfair, and hard.

Yes, they may have "gifts" but it's not about talent or gift, it's about worldview. They see the world differently. This scene shows us the contrast between how muggles go about their lives and how the artist lives - and it asks us (the viewer) to decide if it's a false dichotomy. Can you have your creativity, your depth, your trauma, your joy, your personhood - and your "normal" life?

This is the question we are contending with here at Brainstorm Road, too. Must you wait for your Big Break, seek permission, and be a Good Creative? Will you finally work on your Dream Project when your Real Life calms down? Answer: unlikely. That's why we work with you to find ways you can claim your dream now, and incorporate it into your existing life instead of waiting around for conditions to be ideal - they're never ideal, even if they can be better.

[read: How Dare You: Creating while the world crumbles]

The old man in the above scene, the one who is dying, says, "The pieces are moving faster now and I can't catch them all," as he reflects on death. Then, he turns to the young actress and instructs her to stop playing cool and, "catch the moments of your life."

There is a beautiful interplay between living your life and investing in your craft. Here, we don't believe you must suffer for your craft and give up all the things you "want" for your family or stability. We believe there are other ways besides "the prescribed path" (hustle, sacrifice, singular focus) to a life driven by curiosity and ideas. There is a middle ground. We call it 10 minutes a day or imperfect and in progress, but you can call it whatever you want. For us, it's finding pockets of time inside of our existing constraints to do the work that lights us up.

For us, it's finding pockets of time inside of our existing constraints to do the work that lights us up.

Part of the job of the artist, creative, and dreamer is to catch the moments of our lives and share that with others, whether it's through a sweater we crocheted, the bridge game we organized, or the screenplay we wrote. We try to "catch the moments of our lives" and share what we see. Share that light. Bring it to others. And we can only do that if we allow ourselves to lean into the practice of creating that light for ourselves.

How are you creating light for yourself?

How are you honoring the part of you that wants to do the work, inside of the life you already have, the real-life constraints holding you back?

How does it feel when you’re not working on your dreams?

Or to quote the wise old man from, This is Us, “Catch the moments of your life, catch them while you’re young and you’re quick because sooner than you know it, you’ll be old and slow. And there will be no more of them to catch.”

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