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First of all, thank you
for your attention.
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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.
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It's a powerful feeling, to get attention.
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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)
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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
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to get a lot more
than my fair share of attention.
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And I'm grateful for that,
-
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,
-
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,
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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,"
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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 ...
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narrows.
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And everything else in the world,
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anything else that might be bothering me
or might grab my attention,
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it all goes away, and I'm just ... 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.
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For any kind of creative
expression, not just acting.
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It could be writing or photography
or drawing, music -- everything.
-
The channels of distribution
have been democratized,
-
and that's a good thing.
-
But I do think there's
an unintended consequence
-
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
-
is becoming more and more
of a means to an end --
-
and that end is to get attention.
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And so I feel compelled to speak up
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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.
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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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(One person claps)
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And -- thanks.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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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
a 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, Rocky.
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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,
-
"Because that's not what acting's about,
man, it's about the art."
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And they'd be like, "OK, 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
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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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(Laughter)
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"They don't just like me
because they saw me in 'Batman,'
-
they like what I have to say,
I've got a way with words."
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(Laughter)
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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.
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I try not to let it.
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But you know, I'd be sitting there,
like, 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
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that will be good and snarky enough
to get a lot of retweets,
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but not too harsh,
-
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
-
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 smartphones or any technology
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is problematic in and of itself.
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But ...
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if we're going to talk
about the perils of creativity
-
becoming a means to get attention,
-
then we have to talk about
the attention-driven business model
-
of today's big social media
companies, right?
-
(Applause)
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This will be familiar territory
for some of you,
-
but it's a really relevant question here:
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How does a social media platform
-
like, for example, Instagram, make money?
-
It's not selling
a photo-sharing service --
-
that part's free.
-
So what is it selling?
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It's selling attention.
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It's selling the attention
of its users to advertisers.
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And there's a lot of discussion right now
-
about how much attention we're all giving
to things like Instagram,
-
but my question is:
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How is Instagram getting
so much attention?
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We get it for them.
-
Anytime somebody posts on Instagram,
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they get a certain amount of attention
from their followers,
-
whether they have a few followers
or a few million followers.
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And the more attention you're able to get,
-
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.
-
And so it trains you
to want that attention,
-
to crave it, to feel stressed out
when you're not getting enough of it.
-
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,"
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but this is a real addiction.
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There's a whole science to it.
-
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,"
-
and, "Once I get to 100 --
-
Once I get to a million followers,
then I'll feel amazing."
-
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,
-
because I feel genuine shame
about how low the number is,
-
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, "Ah, I'm good now."
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And of course, there are a lot of actors
who are more famous than I am,
-
have more followers than I do,
-
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,
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you're never going to be
creatively fulfilled.
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But I do have some good news.
-
There is this other powerful feeling.
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Something else you can do
with your attention
-
besides letting a giant tech company
control it and sell it.
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This is that feeling I was talking about,
-
why I love acting so much --
-
it's being able to pay attention
to just one thing.
-
Turns out there's actually
some science behind this too.
-
Psychologists and neuroscientists --
-
they study a phenomenon they call flow,
-
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,
-
and manages not to get distracted
by anything else.
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And some say 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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But I can tell you,
for me, that is very true.
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It's not always easy, it's hard.
-
To really pay attention
like this takes practice,
-
everybody does it their own way.
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But if there's one thing I can share
-
that I think helps me focus
and really pay attention, it's this:
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I try not to see other creative
people as my competitors.
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I try to find collaborators.
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Like, if I'm acting in a scene,
-
if I start seeing the other actors
as my competitors, and I'm like,
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"God, they're going to get
more attention than I am,
-
people are going to be talking
about their performance more than mine" --
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I've lost my focus.
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And I'm probably
going to suck in that scene.
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But when I see the other actors
as collaborators,
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then it becomes almost easy to focus,
-
because I'm just paying attention to them.
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And I don't have to think
about what I'm doing --
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I react to what they're doing,
-
they react to what I'm doing,
-
and we can kind of
keep each other in it together.
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But I don't want you to think
it's only actors on a set
-
that can collaborate in this way.
-
I could be in whatever
kind of creative situation.
-
It could be professional,
could be just for fun.
-
I could be collaborating with people
I'm not even in the same room with.
-
In fact, some of my favorite
things I've ever made,
-
I made with people
that I never physically met.
-
And by the way,
-
this, to me, is the beauty
of the internet.
-
If we could just stop
competing for attention,
-
then the internet becomes
a great place to find collaborators.
-
And once I'm collaborating
with other people,
-
whether they're on set,
or online, wherever,
-
that makes it so much easier
for me to find that flow,
-
because we're all just paying attention
-
to the one thing
that we're making together.
-
And I fell like I'm part
of something larger than myself,
-
and we all sort of shield each other
-
from anything else that might
otherwise grab our attention,
-
and we can all just be there.
-
At least that's what works for me.
-
Sometimes.
-
Sometimes -- it doesn't always work.
-
Sometimes, I still totally get
wrapped up in that addictive cycle
-
of wanting to get attention.
-
I mean, like, even right now,
-
can I honestly say there's not
some part of me here who's like,
-
"Hey, everybody, look at me,
I'm giving a TED Talk!"
-
(Laughter)
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There is -- there's, you know, some part.
-
But I can also honestly say
-
that this whole creative process
of writing and giving this talk,
-
it's been a huge opportunity
for me to focus
-
and really pay attention to something
I care a lot about.
-
So regardless of how much attention
I do or don't get as a result,
-
I'm happy I did it.
-
And I'm grateful to all of you
for letting me.
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So thank you, that's it,
-
you can give your attention
to someone else now.
-
Thanks again.
-
(Applause)