Lost in time
The ephemeral nature of everything
The last two weeks have been somewhat intense and highly satisfying.
With quite a few days annual leave remaining I booked the last two weeks off to focus on the second mini season of New Dawn.
Image by Pexels from Pixabay
Why put the immense time and effort in to produce something that is ephemeral? The answer I realised was that the end ‘product’ the podcast wasn’t what mattered. What did matter was the creative process, the hours spent engrossed in creating and the people met along the way.
Over these two weeks I have spent roughly 120 hours working on New Dawn. From scripting and getting scripts out to finding new voice talent, from editing the audio to creating soundscapes. It has been thoroughly enjoyable. I also spent additional time reading about the subject of audio drama and soundscape design. There is always something new to be learned, and as I am self-taught and, admittedly over 25 years now, there are many things I probably don’t know.
Last night (as I write this) and after watching a couple of YouTube videos on Podcast Audio Drama production which included examples of ‘great’ podcast audio drama, I decided to just search for what were deemed to be the ‘best’.
It didn’t take long to compile a list from a handful of sites as most seemed to agree on which were the greatest to be found. Visiting individual podcast pages, I discovered that most of them were already in my listening list. There were some exceptions and a couple of them proved to be obvious why. I am not the greatest fan of the 15minute podcast. I find them in the main quite frustrating, I have just got into the story when it ends. There was however a handful of exceptions, and these proved to be ‘dead’ podcasts. In the main the web site no longer existed and where it did there were notices to the effect of ‘we wish to thank all our followers over the last decade, however…’. I looked to see if the podcast feeds were still there and for most they had been lost to time.
It made me think why do we spend so much time creating something that is ephemeral? OK, films and books can go out of popularity, circulation or print – but there still will be physical copies somewhere in someone’s collection or in a library. A podcast? Well, you could argue that maybe it is in someone’s downloaded playlist, possibly, maybe.
I recently found a memory stick and as it was a 64Gb one and although the smallest I use now are 256Gb, it possibly had some limited use. I decided to check what was on it and found several episodes of an actual play podcast I recorded from a few years ago. That podcast had its own website and stream, and I was kind of proud of it. Over the years it became irrelevant and I discontinued the website and removed the episodes from the web. When producing it I wanted it ‘out there’, and out there for ever, but now re-listening to those episodes it no longer mattered.
It was an enjoyable experience re-visiting those times through the podcast. I have kept the recording for posterity and maybe to visit now and then, however in terms of the wider world they are dead. It made me think about New Dawn. I am always excited to publish an episode, proud of what has been created; however I realised that it didn’t matter how long it lasted out there on the internet. That might sound a bit rough of all the folks lending their voices and support and I in no way mean to denigrate their massive impact and importance on New Dawn. It’s just that everything has its time. The time when everyone is excited about it including the creator and then it slowly fades.
So back to the original question ‘why do it?’. Why put the immense time and effort in to produce something that is ephemeral? The answer I realised was that the end ‘product’ the podcast wasn’t what mattered. What did matter was the creative process, the hours spent engrossed in creating and the people met along the way. The ‘product’ New Dawn is just a bonus and if it has a listenership that appreciates it, then all the better – but that isn’t ultimately why I create it.
Now, I also realise that as I have grown older, I have become to appreciate more and more the ephemeral nature of everything, possessions, happiness, sadness, excitement, people and finally life. I think it helps you to put things into perspective and to ‘let go’.
It doesn’t mean that I am not putting one hundred percent into New Dawn, I am, and more. It doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate everything that everyone does to make it a reality. It doesn’t mean that I am not excited to release an episode or that I am not proud of what has been achieved. It just means that I know that it is ephemeral and that maybe in ten years, maybe fifteen that New Dawn will have been lost to time. And you know what – that’s OK.
As always, my undying thanks to those that cheer me on and those that give their time and effort to be a part of New Dawn.
