#16 - BURNOUT

Mount Garibaldi, a potentially active stratovolcano, through the window of my VW Vanagon, at a lookout point on the sea-to-sky highway in Squamish, BC - 2016.

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It was ’16 - I was 20 - and I had avoided post-secondary entirely. While my friends were mostly busy pounding beers and books in university or college, I had spent two years saving up by living at home (an option that I was lucky to have, thanks Mom & Dad!) and also working full time in a stable, local video production job that other people in my industry had told me I was lucky to have. After some time I couldn’t escape the crushing, inescapable void that had crept into my whole life - I felt trapped in a job that everyone told me was good for me - but I also somehow felt was wrong for me. Myself and others initially blamed this void on “a case of the early 20’s”, but I also realized the job was absorbing most of my creative energy, which was slowly turning my passion into more of a chore.

In this small company I played many roles and needed to perform many different tasks that normally would be divvied up amongst many crew members or post production employees. Instead, I was given the bulk of many filmmaking responsibilities - which was both a great learning opportunity and extremely exhausting. I would often get sick on extended film shoots due to lack of rest/dehydration/who knows, but being the plucky 18-20 year old I was, I was (initially) willing to “do my best” and work as hard as I could, putting my wellbeing and mental health secondary to getting the job done.

At some point I’d had enough - I had spent most of 2 years and more than 45 hours a week sitting behind a computer (peppered with the occasional shoot) - and frequently time spent not at work was occupied preparing or recovering from work. Sometimes the walk to work felt more like walking to war with myself. I decided to raise the concern with my job (albeit after some poor performance on my end) and ask for some “time off” as I had explained to them as “feeling burned out” - which quickly turned into “time off forever” as I was promptly let go, even told that if I was unable to keep up with the pace of this job, I might not be able to find success in this industry at all.

Obviously, I knew how god-danged frickin talented and super rad and special I was - so that comment and others like it have usually ended up fueling my fire rather than extinguishing it. However, it WAS a reminder that no one knows what the hell is going on, let alone what’s to happen -  no one knows what’s best for me, and it’s really possible to do anything you want. After making a video for my cousin’s wedding I was reminded of the deep impact of personal, soulful storytelling, the immortalization of a moment possible within the realms of a film, an infinite crystallization of life’s most precious moments and beautiful cries into eternal art. After the video played and I saw the faces of everyone reacting to the laughs provided by the film, my whole body was screaming “THAT’S THE SHIT WE’RE HERE FOR!!!!”.

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Before I knew I wasn’t coming back to work, I took an extended 3 week road trip across the country with my good friend Evan in my newly purchased 1982 VW Vanagon, “Murph”. I had spent most of my savings on the van, and had used the rest of it and all my saved-up time off for the road trip. We ended up having three weeks to go from Niagara to Vancouver and up the west coast and back (three weeks time off, a modern luxury!). Inversely, we were also both told numerous times, as well as it was addressed internally, that this was a very short trip for a long journey in an old van. We were often criticized for not taking a LONGER trip - even though it was impossible with our jobs at the time. Naturally unencumbered by other’s expectations - we headed out with high hopes and crossed fingers for the three week turnaround.

About three days into the journey, the wheel bearings on the drivers side wheel burned out and the front left wheel assembly under me collapsed on the highway, halfway across the country. We were totally fine as I don’t really remember the lurch -  but I do remember the sinking feeling I felt when addressing the grinding problem ourselves didn’t work  - which we later found out meant that Murph needed serious repair. We set up camp in Billings, Montana as the local shop determined the price, location, and feasibility of our repairs. Everything was on the table, and we were feeling pretty garbage about not knowing the consequences of what happened, how much it would cost, and whether or not it would force us to abandon our trip, or worse, my van. After two stressful nights we managed to find the needed vintage assembly part locally and for way cheaper than we had feared, so we had it fixed by the third evening - setting back off to the mountains, and back into the unknown, this time confident we could overcome pretty much anything.

We were able to spend an entire week travelling the west coast. When we took this picture, our hearts were full with the knowledge that not only had we made it to the west coast but we were THRIVING and had a TON of time to explore and hang out. One burnout at work had led to another on the highway, and then finally the sky burned with us.

After three short weeks, we returned home, and I was reminded that if I had had a job, it would be back to work for a year until I could experience something like that again. It was in that moment that I knew that what I was pursuing was going to take my full attention - I was starting from ground zero and needed to take some time off to regain control of my creativity, career, and time in general. I wanted to build a life where I regained some semblance of autonomy, to regain control and passion in my creative spirit. When I remember 2016, I remember the deep, physical knowledge of driving that whole way across the country - the vastness of livelihoods and authentic experiences that are possible. From then on, life’s goal became less about watering down the past, and instead about burning with the now. 

It was only during reflection four years later in 2020 that I realized that burning out can be a good thing. It provides a clear reminder to slow down, to look around - to calm down and enjoy the present -  to truly be one with time and the universe - and to be in pure bliss with experience - at rest in the now - and in the creative infancy of the moment. Obviously burning out in 2016 was a good thing - check out how wise I am now! ;)

“Much like the Phoenix, you gotta burn shit to make change.”
- Ancient Proverb, probably