Are you working to make a living…Or are you working to make a difference?

This was a question some of our bosses and thought leaders used to ask us a few years back. And the answer expected from us was obviously that we were working to make a difference. Today however I believe that on an average the question would be answered with a surprised ‘living…what else?’ And there lies the tragedy…

Speaking initially from an arena called Communication, a  platform called Advertising and a pedestal called Film Making…I am sad, nay I am distraught. Every ad,  every short film, every music video looks the same…I suddenly find that we exist in a ‘Me-Too’ land of sheer mediocrity. And I wonder…have we run out of ideas…or have we run out of ‘men’…

If it sounds like I am ranting about something that doesn’t quite make sense…just take a look at a few films for the new corporates on the block…the IT Companies.

Every film features the same visuals…clinically similar cubicles in geometrically designed Hitec-City Offices…flat screen monitors in front of manicured robots…grey, brown, red, orange, black, blue and yellow in a shade card variety of furniture upholstery…cheeky glimpses of green to perpetuate the myth of eco-friendly work environs…clichéd vision-mission statements of neo-pompous CEOs…statistic spouting nerds…so many employees…so many clients from the Fortune 500 list…so much annual turnover…

a pool table…a cafeteria…a gym…and other such recreational options complete the picture…and what a boring, what a predictive picture it is. Centrally air conditioned drivel…

Then I step back in horror as I find that this is not a phenomena limited to films alone…it is a disease that seems to have afflicted many other aspects of life…and I am truly scared…infinitely concerned…

There is no difference between one shop and another…no difference between one product and another…services all seem to be the same…one magazine looks and feels just like the other…one song sounds exactly like the next…and the whole world seems to be collapsing into middle–of-the-road apathy.

Why? Why? Why? I question myself…because settling for second best has never been my comfort zone…because I believe that we need to look beyond…

But then I realize that perhaps it’s because we all have stopped asking each other to push the limits of our horizons…we have, or rather we seem to have, surrendered to the restrained, condomised world of safe sex.

There was a time when bosses and clients asked more from us…when they held our hands as we took creative leaps of faith…when they conquered as much as we dared…when they looked forward to challenges…

…and the challenge always was to LOOK BEYOND THE BRIEF…to go that extra mile…to gain that extra edge…

so what happened…have we run out of steam? Or have we decided that we have battled enough and a moronic kind of co-existence is an acceptable compromise…a compromise of values…a compromise of life…

Damn!!! But I think we need to change the script. We need to etch our characters with more bite…with more hunger. We need each layer of society to ask the next…what value have you added…is there anything else you can do…we can do…

and since films are my life blood…my passion…my profession…my proficiency…let me start there…let me invite clients…existing and new…friends…old and new…to shift from a neutral gear roller coaster downhill ride…to a low gear, four wheel, full energy climb…

Let’s reclaim our right to do things that make a difference.