In an aging aircraft hangar located in the desert of Utah, we built a broadcast set to tell the story of NASA’s OSIRIS-REX mission as it made its triumphant return to Earth on September 24, 2023.
Shortly after the conclusion of a big production, the set flies apart like autumn leaves. Things quickly curl at the edges, drying out, losing their vitality, and the cast and crew bends to the task of sweeping it all into equipment boxes and shipping containers with a determination to get it done as fast as possible. Usually it’s done in a day.
Assembly, on the other hand, takes much longer. Furniture appears on set and gets moved and moved and moved again. Lights go up only to come down, get tweaked, get tested, go up again. Little details continue to accrue until they aggregate into something that feels real and intentional, as if they were always supposed to be where they are. To cast and crew, the world assembled inside a performance space begins to feel more real than the real world—certainly more stable and sustaining than the real world— and before it all ends, the privately shared production bubble feels like it should exist forever, as reassuring and accountable as sunrises and sunsets.
It doesn’t last, of course. Cast and crew strike it all, maybe share a beer, and then go home.
Long time readers know that key players involved with 1AU Global Media (where you’ve landed on today’s internet jaunt) also tackle big things for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. We’re proud to say the relationship runs deep.
Last week marked a high water moment for NASA media production, which also means it marked a high water moment for me. In support of the return to Earth of the OSIRIS-REX asteroid sample mission, I led a massive, superstar team to deliver a huge, three hour live broadcast that covered mission events in real-time. More than 25 live cameras including a gyro stabilized 8K RED mounted on a helicopter, a high altitude reconnaissance airplane, more than a dozen produced video pieces, A-list guests, sets, projection screen, and more were all streamed live. It was gigantic.
After months of planning, it’s now all in the past.
No matter how big the movie, the stage play, the broadcast, or book release, work is always ephemeral, like life itself. The play’s the thing precisely because the action of life only struts and frets for a moment upon the stage. It’s like a love affair; it’s like a perfectly prepared meal; it’s like a long-planned vacation, or even time spent growing up in one’s family home. The feelings may run deep, but the only thing that lasts are shared memories.
Even those don’t last very well, either, if you’re being honest with yourself.
But where nothing may last very well, some things reverberate with surprising tenacity. The extraordinary mission to sample a piece of an asteroid, for example, enabled my creative team and me to light up a remote airplane hangar and turn it into a soundstage. The story we were entrusted to tell is the stuff of history books. The scientific and engineering lessons from the mission will inform generations of researchers and inspire countless people to dream of new adventures. One would hope that the energy and vitality, gravitas and warm-hearted wit of our live event will help carry that message, and (to be perfectly honest) also dazzle audiences with a feeling that the presentation itself had a measure of elan that resonates as something worthy of such a daring mission.
As you’ve already gathered, this essay is neither about the meat of the mission nor the glittering production undertaken to tell its story. These words concern the artificiality of purpose that inherently accrues to doing big things.
Life does not require any of us to commit to ambitious enterprise. Days are long and hard for most people no matter what choices we make, and the world doesn’t really care if we paint a watercolor or design a building or fly to the stars. The sun will rise regardless, even though we must contend with recalcitrant health care, kitchen drains that suddenly leak, and the endless desire to be understood and embraced by another person. There is no shame in not having the inner need to climb mountains, and there is also no shame in having the desire and not being able to figure out how to do it.
But some people have both the desire and the fortitude to climb.
A thought I’ve had for decades begins to flood me in the quiet aftermath of my recent asteroid adventure. In determining to pursue a hard goal one must accept a personal challenge. The emergence of purpose while doing something hard will almost immediately evaporate the moment that hard things ends. For many, the challenge provoked by sudden removal of purpose can be destabilizing. For some it can even cause despair. A project ends, and where the gradual accrual of a production environment as described above can slowly build purpose and meaning, the sudden disappearance of purpose can leave one feeling adrift, pointless, and facing a void. Confronted with nothing but the ordinary challenges of life again—exasperating paperwork, laundry, dentist appointments— it’s hard for many to reconnect with those around them who simply did not share in the experience. While we were chasing magic butterflies, others were crawling through traffic in real time. No matter how much some of those people may love us and want to listen, there is only so much vicarious experience that can be shared after the fact. Shared experience will always be different that shared stories.
The Greek philosopher Epictetus said, “You become what you give your attention to.” When that thing, whatever it may be, returns to Earth, what do we become now that the focus of our attention is literally….gone? The simple strategy, of course, is to start again with something new. Start something and gradually begin to replace what disappeared. Let this new thing grow organically, build and accrue new vitality, and therefore begin to replace any lost sense of purpose and value you may be missing.
That’s constructive, I suppose, but I feel it’s a dodge of the real question.
If you’re a creator--scientist, author, movie director—you must resolve to embrace the life cycle of invention. Like those whom we love, including (one hopes) ourselves, the journey is cataclysmically finite. Everything ends, often after tracking a trajectory that mirrors classical narrative structure: exposition, rising action, climax, resolution, and denouement. Anything but an embrace of that cycle provokes a deliberate opposition to it, and opposition mean that when it ends, be it a show, a mission, our dreams, or our loves, we crash.
If we’re paying close attention to our creative cycle, experience offers the chance to learn how to navigate these vicissitudes. Sometimes it’s easier said than done. I find the best way to handle the immense transition following a big production is to mentally prepare long in advance. Prepare yourself for a void to open. Expect others in your life not to fully understand what you just experienced. Then, jump in to the abyss. Rather than feel you’ll never be able to connect, embrace those in your life, and resolve to get involved in something new once you catch your breath and get some sleep. Stories will come out gradually if you don’t insist they come out all at once.
1AU Global Media believes deeply in embracing the lifecycle of creative enterprise. This is the strong backbone that enables us to fully engage, to create worlds, and to bring ourselves fully to the privileged work of making something that did not exist before we began. I suppose the reason for this is because these creative values are about life as much as they are about doing good creative work or being successful in business or building solid client relations. Who wants to live simply to do work, when it’s possible for the work we do to add meaning to being alive?