Episode Transcript
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Kent (00:22):
Hi, welcome to this
episode today.
We're going to talk a little bitabout, something we've been
thinking about and it came up.
From, an event that occurredyesterday and I were talking a
lot about our lives andpriorities, and it was
interesting because Anna askedme a question.
Which we, when we plan our week,we usually do it by priority
(00:43):
order.
And we've always known that likefor us, our top priority is God.
And our second priority is ourmarriage.
And our third priority is ourchildren.
And then like, there's like homeand finances and jobs and all
sorts of stuff under that.
Right.
And we figured out though, wefigured out the order of those
priorities.
And health is somewhere inthere.
(01:04):
But in general.
With our mostly relationshipbased prioritizations.
she said, where does myrelationship with myself?
Anna (01:14):
Yeah, we're just self
care, like exercise and sleep,
Kent (01:17):
or just like self time,
you know, like,
Anna (01:20):
Relaxing time to read a
book or something.
Kent (01:22):
Yeah.
And, and so.
That was interesting because itwas causing a lot of grief.
I think for us, this.
This question.
And I think it was leading tosome major problems.
In our feelings of emotionalhealth and motivation and
(01:43):
everything relating to thosethings.
And so.
When I responded in that momentwas well to me, if we think
about it, scripturally.
We believe in, in the Bible tobe the word of God.
And so the, we prioritize thingsobviously based on, on a lot of
those.
scriptures.
And so when Jesus said that thegreatest commandment is to love
(02:04):
the Lord, thy God, with alltheir heart.
My mind and strength.
And love thy neighbor asthyself, and so many people
before us have obviously made.
The astute observation thattherefore you have to love
yourself.
If you're going to love yourneighbor as yourself.
And.
in a lot of ways, I think thatour love for ourselves.
(02:25):
And our, sort of self-esteem, ifyou will really Very closely
tied to our relationship withGod.
But it showed that I think thatour relationship with ourselves
goes pretty much right.
Under.
our relationship with God sothat we can have something to.
Extend our love through to otherpeople.
(02:45):
And so if we don't have it, wecan't.
Give it.
and so a lot of that reflectionis reflecting.
it's something we werereflecting on tonight in regards
to the feature filmmaker academyand how.
how that affects us asfilmmakers and as artists.
And without getting tooreligious or even philosophical.
We kind of want to maybe talkabout it in somewhat of a more
practical.
(03:06):
Term.
In the sense that priorities, Ithink are very practical.
And I think that when we startto latch onto those priorities
and start to mentally sort ofaccept certain priorities as, as
defacto and Then they start tobecome efficacious in our lives
and we start to actually behaveaccording to those priorities
and that will lead to realresults.
Anna (03:27):
Yeah, something that we
try to do is.
While we plan our week, we putthe items in the calendar in
priority order.
Not necessarily like we wake upon Monday and do a bunch of like
the first priority on Monday andthe next priority on Tuesday.
But.
They, those things go on thecalendar first, so that if there
isn't room for all of thethings, the ones that are a
(03:50):
lesser priority are the onesthat don't end up on the
calendar don't And so I had noteven had a category for myself.
For a long time.
And then eventually realized Ineed one.
I need a category for takingcare of myself, because that is
something I spend time doing.
And created one, but I didn'tknow where it went in the
(04:12):
priority order.
Like.
You just described.
And I think this is very commonthat we.
Especially, I was talking to oneof my clients today about this,
that we as women and especiallyparents or mothers tend to have
so many people who need us, thatwe're taking care of that our
own needs just get pushed down,down, down until those are the
(04:35):
ones that are getting.
Off the calendar, they don't fitand we're not prioritizing them.
And it can be this reallyfrustrating cycle.
Because.
It is sort of like trying togive something you don't have or
trying to use a tool that's notsharp.
And we also discussed lastnight.
This quote by Abraham Lincoln,where he said, give me six hours
(04:56):
to chop down a tree and I'llspend the first four sharpening
the ax.
And four is a lot of hours tosharpen an ax.
But.
If you're not sharpening yourax, you're just hitting a tree
with a dull.
Metal.
Eventually.
Yeah.
You're going to wear yourselfout, but you're not going to
make much progress And I wasfeeling that way.
(05:20):
And sometimes I think we allfeel that way where we're
exhausted at the end of the day.
And don't feel like we've mademuch progress.
And sometimes that can be a signthat.
We do need to sharpen our, sawour tool, your Is your
instrument.
It's how you make films.
It's how you do everything youdo.
And so taking care of that bodyis very
Kent (05:40):
important, And when I
think that in the sense of
taking care of that body, I havea couple of thoughts on this.
First of all the body peopletalking about the mind body
connection or whatever.
Which I think is really sillybecause the mind, if you think
of it as the organ, which is abrain is part of our body,
right?
It's like, oh, there's like thisfinger, hand connection.
It's like one thing, you know,and so for me, this mind, body
(06:04):
connection it's.
Yeah, it.
There's obviously like a sleepfactor and there's a exercise
factor and there's a educationfactor and a knowledge factor.
And there's this, these exerciseof these muscles and organs and
everything.
Right.
And there's What are weconsuming?
You know, food and water and,and even
Anna (06:23):
media, you
Kent (06:23):
know, all of those.
Too.
And so as filmmakers, thisbecomes very practical in the
sense that like you take care ofyourself as a steward over a
body.
That has been given Whetheryou're an atheist or Christian
or whatever.
we all know that our bodies aregiven to us.
Right?
Like we didn't create ourselvesand we didn't.
bring ourselves into existence.
some, one or something did.
(06:44):
And so the point is, is that.
we kind of have thisresponsibility for this thing
that was given to us to takecare of it.
And so, I think that.
As we pour a lot of value intoourselves.
I don't think that that's.
That this brings me to my secondpoint that I wanted to make is.
You had said something in thelast night and maybe you could
help me remember this.
(07:05):
But we were talking about like,what is it.
Like the difference between.
Gluttony or.
I don't know.
doing what you want.
You know, like where's this linebetween that and like helping
other people or doing somethingthat's like, Important or God's
(07:26):
will, or whatever you think islike that higher thing.
And.
Do you remember what I'm talkingabout?
I think
Anna (07:32):
so.
I think that I was.
Thinking all of my wants wereselfish and.
Showing me.
Selfish was the word.
For example, I was wanting toexercise.
And I was thinking that's kindof selfish to want.
I don't know if to like,prioritize that above my family
and home and children,
Kent (07:51):
which is so funny to say
out loud, because I feel like
most people would think like,no, that's disciplined.
That's not selfish.
That's like good on you.
You know, exercise.
Like I don't ever want toexercise some people.
I feel like you're on.
I'm a rather veggie or watchNetflix.
And it's like, yeah.
I mean, there's like, there isselfish.
Gluttonous lazy things we cando.
And there's like responsible.
(08:11):
Good things we can do.
And many of those things have todo with our.
Self care.
Because once again, if we'rephysically weak, we can't help
anyone.
If we are broken and exhaustedor mentally ill.
It's hard to lift others, youknow, if, and to lead, you know,
(08:31):
and filmmakers are leaders.
You know, if there's some sortof debilitating problem with our
mind or body, which is all onething.
Then we're really going to notbe able to function.
As artists.
And I think that we have this.
Ridiculously false paradigm.
Austin Kleon talks about this,of the.
Of the troubled artist, thisperson who's like on drugs, just
(08:55):
abusing themselves.
No sleep, bad food.
No healthy relationships.
You know, some bachelor livingin New York and some beat up
apartment with rats and they'rejust producing.
Great art right there.
Just like sacrificing there.
Their lives on the altar of artand.
Maybe that exists sometimes.
(09:17):
But it usually then we have,that's why rock stars die in
their twenties and thirties,right?
That's why we have like therappers 26 club, right?
Like the people who actuallylived past 26.
And it's like, It's because.
Yeah, you might be able to makesome like pretty amazing art.
For like a tiny little bit, andthen it just all goes.
Down.
(09:37):
But then you're not around.
You can't make art anymore whenyou're dead or when you're in
the hospital or when you're justbroken to pieces.
And then there's the people wholike, don't really get going
until they're in their fifties.
And then they just makeincredible stuff all the way
through their eighties.
And you get guys making theirfirst Oscars, you know, when
they're 83 and it's remarkable,you know, look at, look at the
trajectory of careers likeRidley Scott and how many films
(09:59):
he started making his fortiesversus his fifties versus his
sixties.
And then he started getting.
He started really cooking in theseventies.
I.
I feel like somebody startedmaking a ton of movies.
And whether you like his moviesor not.
I'd rather have.
That rhythm.
Of artistic output.
Where my greatest art is comingout of my.
Maturity.
As opposed to my.
(10:20):
Like just.
Drug-induced yeah.
My sponsor.
twenties or whatever, and it'sprobably going to be more
valuable for the human raceanyway, because I'm going to
have more perspective Andwhatever.
And so.
So an idea of selfish, I think.
Exercising is not selfish.
I think
Anna (10:37):
that the word health also.
Is Clara sleeping.
Kent (10:40):
Is not selfish.
Anna (10:41):
Yeah, because if it's
healthy, It's something that is,
it is taking care of yourself.
It is making yourself more ableto perform and meet your duties
that you need to.
And my point
Kent (10:53):
with yesterday was that it
requires those all require
effort.
It requires effort to bedisciplined enough to go to bed
on time and to wake up early andto exercise.
Even though you're likesleeping, that's not where they
make healthy eating choices.
You know, it's like those aren'tselfish things.
And yet we sometimes trickourselves into thinking that
they are.
or we've journal or these areall self care things that I
think actually make us better.
(11:14):
People spouses, friends,siblings.
Offspring.
Anna (11:21):
Yeah.
So we'll leave you with that,but just, Want to bring it up
and touch on.
The importance of self care andchallenge you to find.
way to prioritize it a littlemore in your life, make sure
that you're living in a healthyway that you're doing activities
regularly, that take care ofyour body, your instrument, and
your soul as well.
(11:41):
You know, there's mental health.
As well as physical health.
And.
Things that nurture those partsof you will make you a better
artist.
Kent (11:51):
Yeah, absolutely.
And.
You are what you make.
You make what you are rather.
And that's something we'vetalked about before, around.
I've mentioned many timesMiyazaki made charitable films
because he was charitable personand it stemmed from him in ways
that can not stem from anyoneelse.
And we've watched my movieswhere we go.
Oh, I get what they're trying todo here.
(12:12):
They're trying to make a lovely.
Family happy film of some kind,but they're not any of those You
know, it doesn't feel genuine.
And then there's films whereit's like, Oh, there was
something so honest and realand.
You know, Profound.
Like when you watch somethinglike the black stallion or, you
know, some of my favorite Zakifilms or whatever you go well,
(12:33):
that someone cared aboutsomething deeply here.
And even though it wasn't, itwasn't like, ah, 18 year olds
are a great market, you know,and like, oh, these young
parents want to take their kidsto see something.
It's like, it's like, no, likethere's something genuine there.
And so when we genuinely makeourselves into more whole
people, And we have to.
(12:53):
Create something of ourselves.
And of course, I think serviceand.
Extending ourselves out to otherpeople is a part of that.
I'm not saying that we onlyfocus on ourselves and then we
become ego egotistical.
I'm saying that it's actuallyimpossible to be selfless if we
are abusing ourselves or nottaking care of ourselves are not
being stewards over our mindsand bodies.
(13:14):
So anyway, yeah, so I did not tooverextend the point, but.
Anna (13:18):
Yeah.
When you make yourself apriority, you have so much more
to give to the people around youand to your And what you're
writing.
There's more of you.
There's more life experience.
That you can contribute.
And I think that that reallydoes go a long
Kent (13:33):
way.
I agree.
Well, thanks so much for joiningus on this episode and we hope
you found it valuable.
And that you can take it and putit into practice as you continue
to push forward on your own.
journeys and your own projects,your own film, your own art.
And, we hope to hear Pier you,we hope you hear us.
On the next episode.
Anna (13:52):
Talk to you later bye bye