Cliff Edges and Covid.

As I walked toward the canteen at RTE studios I passed two collegues pacing nervously. Brows furrowed, phones clasped to ears murmuring emphatic instructions to loved ones. Earlier that morning Leo Varadkar had announced that all schools in Ireland would be closing for the foreseeable future due to the coronavirus. Things were ramping up quickly as we started the afternoon’s filming. As ‘scene completed’ was called on the sixth scene of the day the usual banter of cast and crew was missing. All heads were bowed in obedience to the newsfeed silently streaming from their phones. By the time we were set up and ready for the seventh scene of the day, the first pictures of emptied shelves in supermarkets were doing the rounds on set. Social Distancing was introduced for our final scene of the day and the script quickly re-written, re-learned and filmed. But our minds were already focusing on the question of ‘what next?’.

We’d felt all four seasons that day, as is typical of Dublin in springtime. Cycling out of the studios bedecked in my high-vis cycle gear I felt fearful, without knowing what I exactly I was fearful about. Was it safe to cycle in these conditions? Would I be coming into work on Monday? Was there food left on any of the shelves? Would I be able to get back to London? How bad will this virus get? My fear could only be described as a general wash of all of the above and more besides.

What’s coming next? is a question that actors and freelancers of all kinds are forced to ask themselves on a regular basis. At its core is the uncomfortable truth that usually we don’t know and possibly won’t for quite some time (another reason why it’s not a good question to ask an actor at a party). However, it’s an uncomfortableness I have learned to become more comfortable with. My tolerance and resilience to this uncertanity has grown over the years so that it rarely keeps me up at night. I think this is the same for a lot of actors and freelancers. However, maybe two or three times a year, I’m awoken by an existential gnawing that won’t be ignored. It’s got deeper and more grinding questions of its own. Are you doing the right things with your life? What does it all mean? Will you ever (fill in the blank) before it’s too late? I’ve become accustomed to these ‘long dark nights of the soul’ now and I give them their time and space. You can’t leave these kinds of existential questions outside knocking on the window; it’s much better to invite them in and it offer them a seat by the fire. 

Existentialism as a philosophic tradition came to a new prominence in the years directly after the Second World War with writers and thinkers such as Camus, Satre and Heidegger. As a school of thought it has some particularly useful perspectives on the intangible feelings of dread, angst and anxiety we all experience when we are forced to look into the unknown future we can’t put a shape on. 

Satre famously used the analogy of a person stood on a cliff edge to describe the feelings at play. Finding ourselves stood on the edge of a thousand foot drop the stomach quivers, gripped by fear, but not just because we are in danger of falling, but because we have the freedom to jump. Existentialism recogonises that these precipice moments are about possibility and choice. What might we do, what need we do and what must we do. Kiergarred referred to it as ’the dizziness of freedom”. He held the view that this anxiety helps us to know ourselves better. That we are beings who must make choices and in doing so we not only decide what’s next for us but also who we will become. He fully acknowledged how difficult this was and it was something he wrestled with himself regularly for most of his life. 

I’ve made a thousand decisions since that last Friday of filming. We all have. I chose to only buy the one pack of bog roll on the way home, and to spend an extra few minutes chatting to the shopkeeper to see what his day had been like. To move flights, self isolate, offer help, drink wine, put acting to one side, read, write, talk about it all and to slow down.    

What’s interesting about ‘the long dark night of the soul’ is that they come at night, precisely the time when we have nothing to do. Nothing to distract us; the world and its business has stopped, all is still and quiet. We are made to listen to knocks on the window from the bigger questions outside. They know exactly when best to call and they recognise too that lockdown is as good a time as any. In times like these when work or life can’t be relied upon to dismiss the unwanted inquiry, we have a choice to make.

I find I am best served by giving these questions my full attention. I find if I don’t do this they simply visit more often. I’ve learned that time is key here. Dealing with a crisis of the existential kind demands patience, and we need to abide. To sit with what's happening until we understand more. Listen to what the questions are and what they might be calling you to do. What am I being asked to change? And take careful note of the answers, if indeed there are any yet.

Of course, beyond our own individual circumstances our world is experiencing a very immediate and visceral crisis. We all want to know what will be next. We seek it in the experience of Italy and China, in the daily news briefings and in rumours spread on social media. Although another kind of conversation is happening too, which can loosely be entitled ‘when this is all over’. Society is seeing the drop in front of it and realising that things might have to be different in the future, that changes will be needed, values shifted, new ideas and systems put in place. Much will have to change after this but right now we’re not sure exactly what. This in the existentialist view, is the crux of the matter. Anxiety is about the future and because of this it impedes our ability to live in the present. 

So what is next? I still don’t know yet. Ideas are forming but for the moment I’m just sitting on the cliff edge, taking it in. Listening out for answers. Feeling both the risk and the possibility, the view and the drop and abiding with both. 

“Abide: to remain, continue or stay. To act in accord with, to endure, sustain, withstand without yielding or submitting. To accept without opposition or question.” 

Finally, a lovely introduction to Existentialism narrated by Stephen Fry.