Part 1

In the mid 1990’s an idea for a movie captured me.

I set to work immediately on writing a treatment before I committed to the detail of writing a complete script.

It was a space opera about a young boy whose family had gotten thrown off course and separated from their group in a migration to a new planet. The planet they are on appears benign but seems to have no intelligent life.

While off exploring by himself the boy discovers a giant dormant robot that reawakens when the boy attempts to communicate with him. What we learn as the story unfolded is that the technology, including the robot, from the vastly superior beings on that planet destroyed themselves through the technology they had created.

So the challenge that the boy must navigate, is whether to take and use technology that had destroyed others or deny it and live a life of less, stranded far from the family’s goal of a better life.

Of course there were other antagonists whose superior technology put the family at risk of destruction unless the boy would use the power accessible through the robot.

And yes … I titled my treatment Robot Family Robinson. Sound familiar?

It was a rousing conversation, through story, about our need to struggle to control the “fire from the gods” that emerging technologies present to us.

What happened next though, is that my employer fell on hard times.

We had to move our family from California to the Pacific Northwest. From that move an organic food company got built and sold to General Mills. A hallmark of my career.

But the treatment stayed in a computer file and never got developed.

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Part 2

In her terrific book on creativity Elizabeth Gilbert describes how, in her words, if we do not act on the insiration that comes to us, that inspiration moves on to others who will bring it to life. Read it here, it’s an important cautionary tale for creators of all kinds.

So you might ask yourself, how did I feel when our family watched the terrific Amazon reboot of Space Family Robinson? It is, after all, almost exactly what I was developing and is enjoying terrific critical success.

My response is I love it. I love seeing what Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless, have done with this incredible reboot of the 1965 tv show. And I love what they are doing with the story that is different and surprisingly better than what I was writing.

But why, I asked myself, was I feeling appreciation instead of loss?

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Part 3

Perhaps the catalyst that brought this thought together was that K and I were taking a long weekend at the Chicago Art Institute and marinating ourselves in the Impressionist painters on display there. I confess I am jealous of the Impressionists in many ways. But perhaps what I am most jealous for is their conscious admiration, collaboration and competition with each other.

I’ve experienced that energy and intra-personal challenge from a group of peers in business ventures, and still do to this day, but never in a artistic creative setting. and I think that’s what got me thinking down this line

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Coda

What I realized watching the thrilling final episode of Season 2 of Lost in Space is that all of our work matters. And that instead of feeling loss for not being the person who brought that creative work to life I found myself enjoying the work that I did that was just as good and in some ways better.

Perhaps that’s because when I set that writing project aside I took on another kind of creative challenge that resulted in a deeply emotional reward. Building that organic food company. The recognition for that work gave me the emotional space to appreciate my good work that didn’t have the opportunity for recognition.

But it was all good work.

Whether it’s in my product or another’s.

At the end of the day what matters is doing the work. Every day. To the best of today’s ability.

Then the rest takes care of itself.