The Other Side of the Wall

I just saw a production of The Fantasticks, a show in which a wall (sometimes actually seen, sometimes not) is a fairly major character. Which led me to think about how, quite often in my work, I am in a control room that is on the other side of the studio wall. While we in the control room see what is happening on set on multiple monitors, and hear what is happening beyond the wall over speakers and over headset, we really just see and hear what those things allow us to, making our view beyond the wall a fairly limited one (as in the musical).
 
Thankfully, I have had ample opportunities to spend part of my time on set, seeing how the cameras get the shots we see on screen, how the actors feel their way around the sets, what the assorted people who hear me on headset deal with in addition to the voices shot straight into their ears all day. It is much needed perspective that makes me do my job better and helps me help the team better as well.
 
For most of us, there are many, many walls in our lives, some solid brick, others we build in our minds. Sometimes they serve a purpose, sometimes they just serve as an obstacle to living fully. There's nothing wrong with making those divisions. Sometimes a wall protects our family time from the intrusion of too much work. Sometimes a wall protects our quiet time from too much noise. But sometimes, we need to peek past that wall so that we don't completely miss what is on the other side. It's all in the knowing when to peek.
 
So, here's to the walls--necessary and unnecessary--in our lives. We may not live in a musical, but as in The Fantasticks, how we deal with the walls makes all the difference in our world.