Risk / Resilience
nathan fielder and a midnight stoop convo
I’m getting my ass kicked if I’m being quite honest. There’s a scene from this season of The Rehearsal that rocked my center of gravity a bit. I’ve been walking all crooked ever since.
If we’re to believe Nathan Fielder, the second season of The Rehearsal is an attempt to use an HBO Max reality comedy show as a Trojan Horse to finance Fielder’s actual pet interest—improving aviation safety. In the second episode (and there are light spoilers for S2E2 ahead), Fielder wonders how co-pilots might best present bad or difficult news so that they can better speak up to first pilots in high-stakes flight situations, behavior associated with greater flight safety and fewer crashes.
To study this, Fielder sets up a fake competition-singing show inspired by his experience as a young producer on Canadian Idol. His fake show, which is aviation-themed and titled Wings of Voice, involves singers auditioning in front of pilots, who then determine whether or not to advance the singer to the next round.1 Fielder asks contestants to rate their judges, then tries to parse out what made the highest-rated judges so good at letting people down easy.
Like most of the show (and Fielder’s projects generally) the idea is both stupid and revelatory. The episode hits its climax when Nathan tries to apply what he’s learned from his experiment to tell a young singer that she won’t be making it to the next round. Fielder, who is fundamentally off-putting, speaks to her slowly and methodically, only once breaking eye contact:
Fielder: “There are millions of people in this country that are your age that want to be singers, okay? And I’m sure a lot of them saw the same ad that you did to come out and audition today. But you actually got out of bed this morning. You drove here, you waited in line, and you stood in front of me, right now, knowing that there was a chance that you might fail, right?”
Sophia: “Yeah. Right.”
Fielder: “I’ve been in this industry a long time, and the number one thing that shows me that someone’s gonna succeed is if they’re willing to take that risk. To put themselves out there and to give it a shot even though it might not go their way. And you have that ability, Sophia, and it’s very rare, and it’s very special. Okay?“
Sophia: “Okay.”
Fielder: “And all the other singers that are still in bed right now, they don’t. Okay?“
Sophia: “Okay.”
Sophia is obviously on the verge of tears, but the optimism of Fielder’s message about rejection—that putting yourself in the difficult situation is something to be proud of, is an indicator that you’re still exceptional—is the driving force of the interaction. After Sophia leaves, Fielder opens the feedback box to see the rating she gave him. It’s a little ambiguous — Fielder chooses to interpret it in the best possible way.
It’s getting hard to write about anything else other than all this rejection and disappointment. It is all-encompassing. Like I said, I’m getting my ass kicked, though I’m obviously being a bit hyperbolic. It’s Saturday, the sun is out, I’m alive, I’m beautiful, I’m in a coffeeshop with exposed brick drinking an iced vanilla latte made by gay people <3 I have money in my bank account, my parents are healthy and joyously traveling around their homeland, my brother’s happy about the Knicks winning. Ultimately things are fine. I feel the need to say this constantly because graciousness is a virtue. When I prayed before bed as a child I would think of all the things I was thankful for to avoid jinxing them. If I asked for something without acknowledging what I had, then it’d surely get snatched out of my grip. I am grateful I am grateful I am grateful.
A bit after seeing Fielder give that monologue, I went on a particularly bad date — one that lasted 1 hour and 15 minutes but that I had been trying terminate after the first two minutes. We filled the time talking about the new pope, then all the shows that everyone watches. Severance and The White Lotus and The Pitt. All these fucking shows dude. Is TV the only thing left to talk about after 26? He asked me if I thought Walton Goggins was hot. I mean, yeah, I think so. But I felt uneasy telling him this, like I was showing him an atypical mole. I sat on my two friends’ stoop after and cried a bit, as much as I can in front of other people while I’m on these SSRIs.
On the stoop, we talked about risk and resilience. Two of us were worried about not doing enough creatively, which is a sub-worry of not making enough out of our lives generally. Someone cruel has cursed me to think these thoughts for my entire life in one way or another, it seems. The intensity ebbs and flows, but the thought is always in the sea foam. The other day my dad told me he thought I was squandering my potential. Squandering is funny; a word specifically for fucking it up. Squandering a 2-0 lead, an opportunity, a fortune. You idiot. You stupid fucking idiot.
The other two of us (and to be clear — I’m included in both pairs) talked about the same thing but in the pursuit of love or sex or intimacy or whatever the hell it was we wanted that evening. But the theme was the same: Putting yourself “out there” (where?) again and again, getting kicked in the head, battered, defeated, disgusted. How do you even keep going? As we were having this conversation, a boy who wasn’t texting me back walked by and unwisely asked what we were talking about, and I felt I might turn to dust right then and there. Might as well be dust and nestle forever into the rough of the concrete steps.
“Meaningful discomfort” is what my short-term career coach and I labeled as one of my core values. I was getting career coaching at an absurd discount and thought it would help me get interviews. Instead I was being sent links to brenebrown.com.
What we penned as “meaningful discomfort” is somewhere between endurance and resilience: that it is good to do hard things because they are hard. But I am finding that it is easier to endure discomfort when there is a guaranteed endpoint to all of it. A degree, a medal, a destination. It’s harder when the goal is nebulous, when it could pop like a bubble instead of landing onto your palm. Putting yourself “out there” (really, where?) risks getting lost, getting hurt, getting humiliated. It makes it hard to want to pay for gas, doesn’t it? Driving without a destination.
Some things:
im baaaaaaaack i had a nice time in iran albeit a very short one & i was so worried about re-entering the US but the customs officer took one look at my passport and said “omg you have curly hair like meeeee” and let me through. goat
i watched a lot of movies on the long flights: A Complete Unknown, A Real Pain, Didi, The Apprentice. The latter was so fantastic, I’ve been thinking about it ever since. Would’ve been such a hit if Trump hadn’t gotten re-elected imo
i got botox in my armpits in iran and it’s awesome
recommending: this short essay on oranges || this profile of sayaka murata by elif batuman in the new yorker || viet thanh nguyen on creativity and faith.
and 2 songs for you :)
ok ttyl,
PM
ohhhh i love this... i similarly feel like im getting my ass kicked but it feels brave to keep going and to still strive for the things we want... btw are you free for lunch on July 22nd i will be in DC
yay! so glad ur back with another post! I was waiting patiently for one :)