Fear & Loathing On The Picket Line

Five tools that help me move through fear.

Outside Netflix in LA, photographed by J.W. Hendricks

How can we sit with fear, and take action despite it?

For the past month, I’ve been out of work and on the picket line.

Since January, all anybody talked about in LA was the inevitability of a writer’s strike, so I wasn’t surprised. But on May 2, once it became a reality, panic took over. The studios’ refusal to even discuss mini rooms, AI, and streaming residuals felt existential. When would I ever work again? How would I survive financially this year? Every dollar I spent felt irresponsible. Sitting down to write felt impossible.

Then I went to the picket line.

The energy on the picket line is electric. We are angry. We are afraid. We are burnt out. But we are in it together. Feeling part of a larger community all working towards a collective goal is a magical antidote to fear. I leave the picket line with hope: Hope that we’re going to fight until we get what we need. Hope that there’s a collective understanding of the extent of o…