by Larry Brody
What would Sisyphus do?
Your TV writing career gotcha down, bunky?
Feeling tired? Terrified? Downtrodden?
You write your butt off and nobody reads it. Finally somebody does read it and hates it.
Or, worse, won’t even talk about it to you.
Agents, managers, and executives ignore your emails, refuse your phone calls, and can’t see you as anything but that waitperson who keeps butting into their convos instead of serving and scramming.
Your parents are disgusted because you neither have nor want a respectable job.
Your significant other has that look that says your significance to him or her is waning.
FWIW, we here at TVWriter™ understand and often share those feelings. We get tired of sleeping in our studio apartment on a hand-me-down futon. We have all felt the heavy weight of true despair, the horrifying certainty that despite all the great song lyrics of old, our day just plain isn’t destined to come.
But here’s the thing. My mantra, something I’ve told myself over and over and will continue to tell myself until my last breath:
“Anything worth doing is harder than fuck. But you don’t stop till it’s finished. Whether it’s a project, a goal, a dream, you keep going till the end. Because otherwise how do you live with yourself? And how do you love and take pride in someone else if you can’t love and take pride in you?”
To put it another way, when it all seems like too much to take any longer, ask yourself, “What would Sisyphus do?” And remember, there isn’t a pic anywhere of the classic dude sitting on his butt. We know his story because he never stopped pushing.
Never.
Moving that rock be how he rollz.
Oh, and here’s the review part: If you need a quick refresher in self-believe, a blast of extra energy to chase the demons away and make waking up tomorrow morning a total delight, then do yourself a great big favor and check out Baz Luhrmann’s amazing new Netflix series The Get Down.
I don’t want to ruin anything by saying too much. But I will say this:
The Get Down, with its incredible music and dance numbers and the kind of vitality that nothing but pure creativity can bring, has the power to grab you and shake you and awaken your soul.
I know because watching the pilot one rocky night late weekend sure as hell did that for me.
