"As a documentary filmmaker, anticipating the unexpected is part of the job. We learn to obsess over what could go wrong-equipment failures, weather shifts, emotional volatility, permissions falling apart, safety concerns, or a once-in-a-lifetime moment slipping away. We become experts at scanning for danger, preparing for the failure before it arrives. It isn't neurosis-it's craft. It's training. It's how we keep the work alive."
"One morning, while sitting with my mother, something unexpected happened. We were both exhausted, and the room was heavy with silence. Then she laughed-one of those rare, pure, bright laughs that sound like they belong to a much younger person. It filled the room like sunlight. And something inside me shifted. For the first time in years, I heard a different voice within me-quiet, gentle, unfamiliar. It said: "Something good is going to happen.""
Catastrophic thinking acted as a constant internal alarm, anticipating financial collapse, professional failure, health crises, humiliation, and loss. Documentary filmmaking trained obsessive scanning for what could go wrong and meticulous preparation for failure, normalizing vigilance as craft. That survival mindset migrated into private life and turned the nervous system into a perpetual emergency broadcast. Months of declining vision, financial strain, supporting adult children, and daily caregiving produced depletion, hollowing, and fear of the future. A sudden, bright laugh from an elderly mother broke the heavy silence and allowed a gentle, unfamiliar inner voice to offer a hopeful possibility.
Read at Tiny Buddha
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