Big changes for the Herriott household this past week. Saint Anne the Wife landed a full-time teaching job in Brooklyn. She's been a stay-at-home mom this past year and now leaves the apartment before I do each morning. I was in Dallas this past week on a shoot and my mom was in town to help out. This morning was the first run at our new schedule and I did my best in trying to get everyone to where they needed to be on time before getting into my work day. Looking back through my 2019 business records I was out of town for work 45 days and absolutely know I didn't appreciate enough all that she did while I'm out trying to do the thing.
By all means there's an incredible amount involved in trying to become an adult human, especially one that has children. You hear and see things before hand from your parents, other adults, and your friends, but there's nothing like actually trying to do it yourself. Dear God please don't let us raise monsters.
I'd started keeping a weekly blog in hopes of forcing myself to make something on a regular basis. I saw false deadlines as a means to continue improving on whatever it was I was trying to do, but there's certainly times where I'm absolutely phoning it in at the very last minute and usually past my self-imposed deadline. Still it's very much part of my weekly schedule and by all means an extension of my more personal daily journaling. I'd absolutely love to be posting more about the cinematography and filmmaking work I'm doing, but there's not always fuel to keep that engine running. Most of my time is spent reading, writing, and reaching out to people in hopes of building and maintaining a community of creatives so I can continue to do the thing.
Speaking of reading, I'm nearly half-way through Richard Thaler's Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics. I try to bounce between different book genres and this round has me into behavioral economics. Can't say the topic will help me become a better cinematographer, but good grief there's some solid ideas in terms of how I run my freelancing. Hopefully I'll be able to distill and apply some of it to how I do the thing.
"Behavioral economics...is still economics, but it is economics done with strong injections of good psychology and other social sciences."
"Businesses are catching on as well, realizing that a deeper understanding of human behavior is every bit as important to running a successful business as is an understanding of financial statements and operations management." - Richard Thaler
Oh, and there's this hot mess from The New York Times Magazine this past weekend: "Even Nobodies Have Fans Now." The whole idea of parasocial relationships is fascinating and by all means had me take a few steps back after reading the article.