The Lighthouse, a period thriller directed and produced by Robert Eggers, is a movie about cohabitation, endurance, and mental health. It features confinement, battling rough surroundings, and holding on to methods of survival. The movie is set in black and white and has two characters, who only have each other to keep both the lighthouse and themselves alive. The movie is dark, pungent, and tense. Characters might show cold affection at times but also revenge and punishment. Strangers at the beginning, the two lighthouse keepers start developing an apparent friendship that only turns dark towards the end of the film.
How much are we actually prepared to live our days like that, confined in either an office, design studio, or our homes? How much are we subordinate to senseless requirements and outdated ways of executing things? Confined to processes, our own ways, and self-imposed methods of survival it’s easy to fall under a similar dark path.
In my personal view of a designer’s curve of self-confidence and resilience, we learn to accept those requirements and come out of the curve successfully. At the beginning of the curve we are vulnerable but willing to do whatever it takes to meet the requirements. Once we’ve earned people’s trust, we become more determined and comfortable with collaborating. At the top of our game, we become confident, unafraid, and outspoken about issues and ideas. At the top of this curve is were things get risky as change beyond our control may occur. When that happens, our decisions become questionable until we feel trapped and inefficient only to fall into the defeated powerless hole where we feel the lack of purpose. The only way to get out of the bottom of the curve, where we will not want to hang out for too long, is by re-engaging with the world but mainly with our craft.
If we think of different circumstances in our lives such as working with clients—if you are a freelance designer—or at your own job when working on a project, or even when loosing your job, you will start seeing this pattern.
What does this mean to a designer? In order to stay afloat at the top of the curve, designers need to keep executing their craft the best they can as a method of self-care. By looking inward to reach outward we become vulnerable again, only to reclaim what belongs to us. We then go on by re-calibrating our sense of purpose and spreading our humble but intelligent dedication to the world who needs clearer choices.