I’ve found this a very provocative question. And it really depends on how specific the conditions are. In my case, I think it is impossible to make a full-time career from directing feature films. On the other hand I think it’s very hard but not impossible for me to make a full-time career from making video content (i.e. I currently get commissioned to make music videos, but not enough to make it full-time—the business model is totally different).
It is also possible, very very very hard, but not impossible to subsidize an expensive filmmaking hobby with the income from a day-job.
Do you really have a license to sell hair tonic… to bald eagles… in Omaha Nebraska? Impossible! To sell hair tonic, maybe, but the joke works because impossibility = specificity.
Can I find a Ming vase tomorrow? No. In the next Month? Maybe. In 10 years? Probably.
Specificity is the expressway to impossibility.[1]
Often, things that seem impossible, are not, actually. If you list out exactly why they are impossible, you might notice ways in which it instead it is merely Very Hard, and sometimes not even that.
I’m not sure about this, I think Very Hard and Impossible do mean very different things even if “impossible” is technically not applicable. It seems like when I label something “impossible” what I really mean is it’s so specific that “it’s a total crapshoot”[2] or to be more specific what I mean is “I do not have any faith that persistence is a reliable predictor of success with this task” and implicitly it is not worth pursuing, since the risk return ratio is both lousy and fixed. (Compare this to something which is “very hard” but for which persistence [3]has a demonstrable effect on the odds—the harder/longer you work at it, the vastly better your chances of success gets, but the return is still attractive even if you work for a very long time at it).
For example, I’m sure learning the Mandolin is very hard—not impossible—if I took lessons and stuck with it practicing every-day, I’m sure even a four-thumbed tone-deaf person like me could learn it. (it just doesn’t interest me enough)
However, generating a full-time income from successive feature films? There is no “just stick with this every day” that will make that a near-certainty. You can make a feature film, you can bootstrap, self fund it—but you can’t be sure that it will translate into enough commercial success that you can quit your day job to work on the next.
The irony is, you must, absolutely must have “success metrics” and clearly defined goals to increase your chances of success. But beyond a certain threshold it renders it impossible.
Since I’m speaking in generalities I’m choosing to gloss over the notion of “work smarter not harder”, which personally I’m all for. But obviously something for which working ‘smarter’ increases the odds of success is very different to something which is a “total crapshoot”.
I think it’s been surprisingly like 50⁄50 when I specifically flinch away from an idea because it felt impossible, and it turned out to be “actually pretty impossible” vs “okay actually sort of straightforward if I were trying all the obvious things”.
Obviously, if I systematically list out impossible things, there will be way more actually-pretty-impossible things. But somehow when it actually comes up (sampled from “things I actively wanted to do”). Maybe if I got better at dreaming impossible thoughts more of them would turn out to actually be impossible.
and it turned out to be “actually pretty impossible” vs “okay actually sort of straightforward if I were trying all the obvious things”.
Interesting, because looking at this question, things not appearing “straightforward” appears to be why I flinch away from them—I know that ‘straightforward’ doesn’t imply “easy” or “effortless” but I assume it does imply something like predictability? As in, digging a big hole can be very straightforward in that you you grab a shovel and dig, and then keep digging until it’s big enough. But the act of digging is also very hard and effortful. Does “straightforward but effortful” seem to characterize, in flavor, how a task appears once you’ve forced yourself to question if it is impossible?
Maybe it’s not you’re not deficient in dreaming impossible things so much as you’re very good at seeing “obvious” means and ways of accomplishing something and mapping how the dominoes land.
I’ve found this a very provocative question. And it really depends on how specific the conditions are. In my case, I think it is impossible to make a full-time career from directing feature films. On the other hand I think it’s very hard but not impossible for me to make a full-time career from making video content (i.e. I currently get commissioned to make music videos, but not enough to make it full-time—the business model is totally different).
It is also possible, very very very hard, but not impossible to subsidize an expensive filmmaking hobby with the income from a day-job.
Do you really have a license to sell hair tonic… to bald eagles… in Omaha Nebraska? Impossible! To sell hair tonic, maybe, but the joke works because impossibility = specificity.
Can I find a Ming vase tomorrow? No. In the next Month? Maybe. In 10 years? Probably.
Specificity is the expressway to impossibility.[1]
I’m not sure about this, I think Very Hard and Impossible do mean very different things even if “impossible” is technically not applicable. It seems like when I label something “impossible” what I really mean is it’s so specific that “it’s a total crapshoot”[2] or to be more specific what I mean is “I do not have any faith that persistence is a reliable predictor of success with this task” and implicitly it is not worth pursuing, since the risk return ratio is both lousy and fixed. (Compare this to something which is “very hard” but for which persistence [3]has a demonstrable effect on the odds—the harder/longer you work at it, the vastly better your chances of success gets, but the return is still attractive even if you work for a very long time at it).
For example, I’m sure learning the Mandolin is very hard—not impossible—if I took lessons and stuck with it practicing every-day, I’m sure even a four-thumbed tone-deaf person like me could learn it. (it just doesn’t interest me enough)
However, generating a full-time income from successive feature films? There is no “just stick with this every day” that will make that a near-certainty. You can make a feature film, you can bootstrap, self fund it—but you can’t be sure that it will translate into enough commercial success that you can quit your day job to work on the next.
The irony is, you must, absolutely must have “success metrics” and clearly defined goals to increase your chances of success. But beyond a certain threshold it renders it impossible.
Precision versus Accuracy?
Since I’m speaking in generalities I’m choosing to gloss over the notion of “work smarter not harder”, which personally I’m all for. But obviously something for which working ‘smarter’ increases the odds of success is very different to something which is a “total crapshoot”.
I think it’s been surprisingly like 50⁄50 when I specifically flinch away from an idea because it felt impossible, and it turned out to be “actually pretty impossible” vs “okay actually sort of straightforward if I were trying all the obvious things”.
Obviously, if I systematically list out impossible things, there will be way more actually-pretty-impossible things. But somehow when it actually comes up (sampled from “things I actively wanted to do”). Maybe if I got better at dreaming impossible thoughts more of them would turn out to actually be impossible.
Interesting, because looking at this question, things not appearing “straightforward” appears to be why I flinch away from them—I know that ‘straightforward’ doesn’t imply “easy” or “effortless” but I assume it does imply something like predictability? As in, digging a big hole can be very straightforward in that you you grab a shovel and dig, and then keep digging until it’s big enough. But the act of digging is also very hard and effortful. Does “straightforward but effortful” seem to characterize, in flavor, how a task appears once you’ve forced yourself to question if it is impossible?
Maybe it’s not you’re not deficient in dreaming impossible things so much as you’re very good at seeing “obvious” means and ways of accomplishing something and mapping how the dominoes land.