My Life Feels Like a Coming of Age Film: How our media intake influences how we experience the world

Photo by author

In recent years, my life has been feeling like a coming of age film. When I was younger I found the coming of age genre boring, there was too little excitement. Where was the drama, the thrill, the jump scares? Where were the crazy situations, unexpected plottwists, and major changes? I wanted fantasy worlds, futuristic ideas or outer space, not films about life as I knew it. I did not like life as I knew it.

The last few years my taste in films has been changing, unconsciously. For me, that change in taste reflects changes in how I experience life. For many years, I did not allow myself to feel a lot. So, for a film or any story to make me feel something, it had to be extreme. I also used to dislike the world, so a film had to help me escape from it.

Now I feel a lot and very deeply and I love the world in many ways. Now my favourite stories are coming of age stories because I prefer slow stories - stories that take my emotions on more gradual waves. I want films about life in which I recognise the complexities and intensities in seemingly simple situations. Because that is how I experience life now. I do not mean that I am not doing crazy and exciting things and that my life does not constantly have major changes - quite the opposite when you are living a fulltime nomadic life on various continents. But all that I do, I am experiencing much more profoundly than I used to.

Photos by Markus Schütze (film)

I have come to experience life itself so deeply that films with drama, thrill and jump squares are sometimes even emotionally overwhelming now. They drain me. And although I still love fantasies and films about other worlds, I am also infinitely fascinated by the magic ours holds. For me that magic comes out in everything as long as I am present and consciously experiencing - something that I see reflected in the coming of age genre.

We live in a media world in which you have to capture someone's attention in the first seconds or phrases or they will scroll. Lives are made to look more exciting and intense through music, especially on short-form content. Even songs themselves are rarely longer than four minutes anymore, what happened to the two minute instrumental solos or intros?

In a conscious act of resistance, I have been increasingly posting videos on Instagram without added music, just letting the sounds of brief filmed moments of life speak for themselves. Similarly, I want to share stories through writing, and visual stories through photography and documentary, that reflect the magic that is all around.

Photos by author

Adding music to visual stories is fantastic to enhance or call in emotions, but what happens if we become too dependent on the intensity it adds? How do we experience daily life off-screen if there is no soundtrack guiding our emotions?

A few days ago, I was sitting on my surfboard in the Pacific ocean looking around for my surf teacher. Within a few seconds I see him a few meters behind me, lost in his own world as he is clapping his hands in front of him so that the water splashes up between them. Not wanting him to become self-aware of his playful moment, I allow myself to watch only a few seconds before I turn around, smiling. This man surfs at this bay every single day and still he plays with the water.

No matter how familiar (you think) you are with a place or person, the magic of life as we know it does not disappear. We just have to pay attention to it - by listening, by being still, by being conscious.

Photos by Markus Schütze (film)

My point is not to get you to prefer coming of age narratives, or to ditch media altogether - the latter would be quite counterproductive considering that I am a storyteller using various media platforms. My point is rather that the media we consume - in whatever form - interacts with how we see and experience our own lives. My hope is that both storytellers and the ones listening, reading, and watching become aware of that.

In terms of our media intake, then, an interesting question to reflect on is what type of content you are drawn to at what times in your day or life. What is your favourite genre in films or books and does that say anything about what you are looking to experience in your life, or what you are missing? Has your taste in media changed and do you think there is a reason for that - albeit unconscious? And most importantly, how do you experience your own life when there is no music playing, newspaper on the table, or when you are not interrupted by your phone or computerscreen?

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