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First of all, thank you
for your attention.

2
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There's nothing quite like
being in a room full of people like this,

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where all of you are giving
your attention to me.

4
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It's a powerful feeling, to get attention.

5
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I'm an actor, so I'm a bit
of an expert on well, nothing, really.

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(Laughter)

7
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But I do know what it feels like
to get attention,

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I've been lucky in my life

9
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to get a lot more than
my fair share of attention.

10
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And I'm grateful for that,

11
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because like I said,
it's a powerful feeling.

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But there's another powerful feeling

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that I've also been lucky
to experience a lot as an actor.

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And it's funny, it's sort of
the opposite feeling,

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because it doesn't come
from getting attention.

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It comes from paying attention.

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When I'm acting,

18
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I get so focused, that I'm only
paying attention to one thing,

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like when I'm on set
and we're about to shoot

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and the first AD calls out, "Rolling!"

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and then I hear speed, marker, set,

22
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and then the director calls, "Action!"

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I've heard that sequence so many times,

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like, it's become this Pavlovian
magic spell for me.

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Rolling, speed, marker, set and action.

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Something happens to me,
I can't even help it.

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My attention narrows.

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And everything else in the world,

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anything else that might be bothering me

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or might grab my attention,

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it all goes away and I just am there.

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And that feeling, that is what I love,

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that to me is creativity,

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and that's the biggest reason
I'm so grateful that I get to be an actor.

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So, there's these two powerful feelings.

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There's getting attention
and paying attention.

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Of course, in the last decade or so,

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new technology has allowed
more and more people

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to have this powerful feeling
of getting attention.

40
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For any kind of creative
expression, not just acting.

41
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It could be writing or photography
or drawing, music, everything.

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The channels of distribution
have been democratized,

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and that's a good thing.

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But I do think there's
an unintended consequence

45
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for anybody on the planet
with an urge to be creative.

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Myself included because
I'm not immune to this.

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I think that our creativity

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is becoming more and more
of a means to an end.

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And that end is to get attention.

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And so I feel compelled to speak up,

51
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because in my experience,

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the more I go after that
powerful feeling of paying attention,

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the happier I am.

54
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But the more I go after
the powerful feeling of getting attention,

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the unhappier I am.

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(Clap)

57
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And -- thanks.

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(Laughter)

59
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(Applause)

60
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So this is something
that goes way back for me.

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I think the first time I can remember
using my acting to get attention,

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I was eight years old at summer camp.

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And I'd been going on auditions
for about a year by then,

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and I'd been lucky to get some small parts

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in TV shows and commercials,

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and I bragged about it a lot,
that summer at camp.

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And at first it worked.

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The other kids gave me
bunch of extra attention,

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because I had been on "Family Ties."

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That's a picture of me on "Family Ties."

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(Laughter)

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Then, the tide turned,

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I think I took it too far
with the bragging.

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And then the other kids
started to make fun of me.

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I remember there was this
one girl I had a crush on.

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Rocky -- her name was Rachel,
she went by Rocky.

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And she was beautiful and she could sing,

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and I was smitten with her
and I was standing there, bragging.

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And she turned to me
and she called me a show-off.

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Which I 100 percent deserved.

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But you know, it still really hurt.

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And ever since that summer,

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I've had a certain hesitance
to seek attention for my acting.

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Sometimes, people would ask me,

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"Wait a minute,
if you don't like the attention,

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then why are you an actor?"

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And I'd be like,

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"Because that's not what acting's about,
man, it's about the art."

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They'd be like, "OK, dude."

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(Laughter)

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And then Twitter came out.

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And I got totally hooked on it,
just like everybody else,

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which made me into a complete hypocrite.

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Because at that point,

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I was absolutely using my acting
to get attention.

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I mean, what, did I think
I was just getting all these followers

97
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because of my brilliant tweets?

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I actually did think that, I was like,

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"They don't just like me
because they saw me in "Batman,"

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they like what I have to say,
I've got a way with words."

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(Laughter)

102
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And then in no time at all,

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it started having an impact
on my dearly beloved creative process.

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It still does.

105
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I try not to let it.

106
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But you know, I'd be sitting there,
reading a script.

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And instead of thinking,

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"How can I personally identify
with this character,"

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or, "How is the audience
going to relate to this story,"

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I'm like, "What are people going to say
about this movie on Twitter?"

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And, "What will I say back
that will be good and snarky enough

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to get a lot of retweets,
but not too harsh,

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because people love to get offended,
and I don't want to get canceled."

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These are the thoughts that enter my mind

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when I'm supposed to be reading a script,
trying to be an artist.

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And I'm not here to tell you that
technology is the enemy of creativity.

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I don't think that.

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I think tech is just a tool.

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It has the potential to foster
unprecedented human creativity.

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Like, I even started
an online community called HITRECORD,

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where people all over the world

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collaborate on all kinds
of creative projects,

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so I don't think that social media
or smart phones or any technology

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is problematic in and of itself.

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But, if we're going to talk
about the perils of creativity

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becoming a means to get attention,

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then we have to talk about
the attention-driven business model

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of today's big social media companies.

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(Applause)

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This will be familiar territory
for some of you,

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but it's a really relevant question here:

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How does a social media platform,

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like for example Instagram, make money?

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It's not selling a photo-sharing service,

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that part's free,

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so what is it selling?

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It's selling attention.

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It's selling the attention
of it's users to advertisers.

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And there's a lot of discussion right now

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about how much attention we're all giving
to things like Instagram,

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but my question is,

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how is Instagram getting
so much attention?

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We get it for them.

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Anytime somebody posts on Instagram,

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they get a certain amount of attention
from their followers,

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whether they have a few followers
or a few million followers.

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And the more attention you're able to get,

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the more attention
Instagram is able to sell.

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So it's in Instagram's interest

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for you to get as much
attention as possible.

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And so it trains you
to want that attention,

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to crave it, to feel stressed out
when you're getting enough of it.

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Instagram gets its users addicted

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to the powerful feeling
of getting attention.

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And I know we all joke, like,
"Oh, my God, I'm so addicted to my phone,"

156
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but this is a real addiction.

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There's a whole science to it.

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If you're curious, I recommend
the work of Jaron Lanier,

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Tristan Harris, Nir Eyal.

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But here's what I can tell you.

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Being addicted to getting attention

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is just like being addicted
to anything else.

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It's never enough.

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You start out and you're thinking,

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"If only I had 1,000 followers,
that would feel amazing."

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But then you're like, "Well,
once I get to 10,000 followers,"

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and, "Once I get to 100 --

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Once I get to a million followers,
then I'll feel amazing."

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So I have 4.2 million
followers on Twitter,

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it's never made me feel amazing.

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I'm not going to tell you
how many I have on Instagram,

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because I feel genuine shame
about how low the number is,

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because I joined Instagram
after "Batman" came out.

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(Laughter)

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And I search other actors,

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and I see that their number
is higher than mine,

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and it makes me feel
terrible about myself.

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Because the follower count

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makes everybody feel terrible
about themselves.

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That feeling of inadequacy
is what drives you to post,

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so you can get more attention,

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and then that attention that you get
is what these companies sell,

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that's how they make their money.

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So there is no amount
of attention you can get

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where you feel like you've arrived,

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and you're like, "Aah, I'm good now."

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And of course, there are a lot of actors
who are more famous than I am,

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have more followers than I do,

189
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but I bet you they would
tell you the same thing.

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If your creativity is driven
by a desire to get attention,

191
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you're never going to be
creatively fulfilled.

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But I do have some good news.

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There is this other powerful feeling.

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Something else you can do
with your attention

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besides letting a giant tech company
control it and sell it.

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This is that feeling I was talking about,

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why I love acting so much,

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it's being able to pay attention
to just one thing.

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Turns out, there's actually
some science behind this too.

200
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Psychologists and neuroscientists,

201
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they study a phenomenon they call flow.

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00:09:42,639 --> 00:09:45,044
Which is this thing that happens
in the human brain

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when someone pays attention
to just one thing.

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Like something creative.

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And manages not to get distracted
by anything else.

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And some say,

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the more regularly you do this,
the happier you'll be.

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Now, I'm not a psychologist
or a neuroscientist.

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00:10:01,554 --> 00:10:04,687
But I can tell you,
for me, that is very true.

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It's not always easy, it's hard.

211
00:10:07,593 --> 00:10:10,291
To really pay attention
like this takes practice,

212
00:10:10,315 --> 00:10:11,879
everybody does it their own way.

213
00:10:11,903 --> 00:10:13,796
But if there's one thing I can share

214
00:10:13,820 --> 00:10:18,272
that I think helps me focus
and really pay attention, it’s this.

215
00:10:18,958 --> 00:10:23,660
I try not to see other creative
people as my competitors.

216
00:10:24,121 --> 00:10:26,200
I try to find collaborators.

217
00:10:26,224 --> 00:10:28,291
Like, if I'm acting in a scene.

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If I start seeing the other actors
as my competitors and I'm like,

219
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"My God, they're going to get
more attention than I am,

220
00:10:34,586 --> 00:10:37,942
people are going to be talking
about their performance more than mine,"

221
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I've lost my focus.

222
00:10:39,157 --> 00:10:41,450
And I'm probably
going to suck in that scene.

223
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But when I see the other actors
as collaborators,

224
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then it becomes almost easy to focus,

225
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because I'm just paying attention to them.

226
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And I don't have to think
about what I'm doing,

227
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I react to what they're doing,

228
00:10:56,330 --> 00:10:57,746
they react to what I'm doing,

229
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and we can kind of
keep each other in it together.

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I don't want you to think
there's only actors on a set

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00:11:03,090 --> 00:11:04,702
that can collaborate in this way.

232
00:11:04,726 --> 00:11:07,132
I could be in whatever
kind of creative situation.

233
00:11:07,156 --> 00:11:09,954
It could be professional,
could be just for fun.

234
00:11:10,636 --> 00:11:14,501
I could be collaborating with people
I'm not even in the same room with.

235
00:11:14,525 --> 00:11:16,897
In fact, some of my favorite
things I've ever made

236
00:11:16,921 --> 00:11:19,192
I made with people
that I never physically met.

237
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And by the way,

238
00:11:20,406 --> 00:11:23,363
this to me is the beauty of the internet.

239
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If we could just stop
competing for attention,

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then the internet becomes
a great place to find collaborators.

241
00:11:31,411 --> 00:11:36,037
And once I'm collaborating
with other people,

242
00:11:36,061 --> 00:11:39,529
whether they're on set,
or online, wherever,

243
00:11:39,553 --> 00:11:42,902
that makes it so much easier
for me to find that flow,

244
00:11:42,926 --> 00:11:45,299
because we're all just paying attention

245
00:11:45,323 --> 00:11:48,080
to the one thing
that we're making together

246
00:11:48,104 --> 00:11:51,783
and I fell like I'm part
of something larger than myself.

247
00:11:51,807 --> 00:11:54,076
And we all sort of shield each other

248
00:11:54,100 --> 00:11:57,442
from anything else that might
otherwise grab our attention

249
00:11:57,466 --> 00:12:01,940
and we can all just be there.

250
00:12:03,763 --> 00:12:06,030
At least that's what works for me.

251
00:12:07,486 --> 00:12:08,771
Sometimes.

252
00:12:08,795 --> 00:12:10,422
Sometimes, it doesn't always work.

253
00:12:10,446 --> 00:12:13,664
Sometimes I still totally get
wrapped up in that addictive cycle

254
00:12:13,688 --> 00:12:15,094
of wanting to get attention.

255
00:12:15,118 --> 00:12:17,021
I mean, like, even right now,

256
00:12:17,045 --> 00:12:21,050
can I honestly say there's not
some part of me here like,

257
00:12:21,074 --> 00:12:23,923
"Hey, everybody, look at me,
I'm giving a TED talk!"

258
00:12:23,947 --> 00:12:25,193
(Laughter)

259
00:12:25,217 --> 00:12:28,132
There is, there's some part.

260
00:12:28,629 --> 00:12:31,042
But I can also honestly say that

261
00:12:31,066 --> 00:12:33,895
this whole creative process
of writing and giving this talk,

262
00:12:33,919 --> 00:12:36,533
it's been a huge opportunity
for me to focus

263
00:12:36,557 --> 00:12:39,643
and really pay attention to something
I care a lot about.

264
00:12:40,802 --> 00:12:46,397
So regardless of how much attention
I do or don't get as a result,

265
00:12:46,421 --> 00:12:47,688
I'm happy I did it.

266
00:12:48,236 --> 00:12:52,096
And I'm grateful to all of you
for letting me.

267
00:12:52,593 --> 00:12:54,611
So thank you, that's it,

268
00:12:54,635 --> 00:12:56,897
you can give your attention
to someone else now.

269
00:12:56,921 --> 00:12:58,071
Thanks again.

270
00:12:58,095 --> 00:13:01,812
(Applause)