Peter Rader

Here's the deal. It just takes a little bit of courage and then flow will flow in, right? It's about taking that first step. And a metaphor that we love to use is rusty water. If, in the old days of steel pipes or whatever, you went away backpacking all summer and you came back and you wanted to take a bath and you turned on your bath, the water would come out brown, right? So what do you do? Do you panic? Do you stop? Do you call the plumber? No. You just let it flow, because brown water becomes clear. So you have to be willing to write the brown sentence if you're a writer, or whatever, or it's called dare to suck. Just get in there, fall on your face, because in that act then flow will embrace you, will lift you up.

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I remember when I read Carlos Castaneda in my 20s, it was like, oh my gosh, I know this. Yeah, I know this. There are some things that happen like that. There's a great book by Julia Cameron called The Artist's Way. And it is a three-month program. You read the book and you start doing this thing that helps you listen to that voice. Every journey begins with one step. So, take that first step. The Artist's Way is a great first step. Another great book is Shambhala, The Sacred Path of the Warrior by Trungpa. You know, get in the saddle, be willing to be a human warrior.

June 15–19, 2026 Paola di Florio and Peter Rader

In the creativity workshop that Paola and I co-facilitate, Source to Screen, one of the quotes that we use is Carl Jung, people don't have ideas, ideas have people, they find us. And it's kind of this weird, mystical, sacred thing where, like, get out of the way and drop in, drop in, and attune, and find your center, and then stuff comes up, you know, inward, outward, from beyond, it floats in. It's not even a chasing of flow. It's an allowing. It's an allowing of the sequence to play out the way it's supposed to.

I knew it was a good idea. And I put it in a drawer for a few years. I was still not totally following the call, and then I dusted it off. I think all creators struggle. It's part of the creative act, you know. It's the warriorhood. You got to get back in the saddle. It doesn't matter how many times you fall, fail, it's part of the struggle. It's discipline. It's warriorhood. And the payoff to it all is that in 2025, I'm going to get the rights back to Waterworld. There is a statute in the American federal copyright statute that allows creators to reclaim their copyrights after 35 years.

The four most famous rock stars on the planet decided that the outer world, material fame, success, money, access was not enough. It didn't bring lasting happiness. So they decided to unplug the Beatles and go to India, to Rishikesh, which is this tiny Himalayan foothill town, the birthplace of yoga, to study meditation with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and it moved the needle. And it was when they started meditating and going inward without any drugs that their songwriting became exalted, and the anthems that we sing to this day on peace, love, and unity were all written after India. All You Need Is Love, Across the Universe, Imagine, Let It Be, My Sweet Lord. All of these songs came from the Beatles finding their purpose. In our Come Together project, we really want to honor that moment in history and bring it to this new generation.

Magic happens when you're in purpose. Everything has meaning. My mother, who was a bit of a mystic, used to always say that to me. Everything happens for a reason. And I'm beginning to realize that the totality of my life has come to this point right here, talking to you. It all has some kind of meaning and purpose. A few years ago, I got a call from someone who was convening a roundtable at the United Nations to address the issue of rising sea levels. And some crazy person came up with the idea, what about floating cities? They actually enlisted a team and they invited me to the United Nations as this crazy screenwriter to comment on it. And, you know, it's wild what a journey this has been.

Do we have the courage, because there are so many inner obstacles, we all have them. I mean, I still have fear, doubt, all of them, but you have to persevere. Just take the next step. Just take one step. Everyone has the voice of doubt and I still have the voice of doubt, you know. I just meet it very quickly. I'm like, oh, there's that doubt. Yep. Okay, I'm still writing a sentence. Sorry, doubt. Okay. Yeah, it's a terrible sentence. It's a sucky sentence, but I'm still writing it. And maybe the next sentence will be a little better. Heed the call. Heed the call. Have the courage to heed the call.

I wrote that thing in three weeks. It's my first script. I was 25 years old. I wrote it on the original Macintosh, the one from the ad, and it just poured out of me. And then I knew a couple people and got it into the right hands, and within two weeks it was sold. And there was something very powerful about that story. And I don't even want to take credit for it because the way these things work, it's not even me. Something is coming through. And then, you know, like a decade later I'm like, no, I'm just a storyteller. And I kind of accepted the calling that was right in my face, like this has been handed to you, you know. So now I'm honored. I mean, I feel so blessed. I love writing. I love storytelling. That is my purpose.

And then I walked into a filmmaking class and that was an aha moment for me because it was like, wait, there's a whole bunch of technology here. So, I can geek out. I can definitely geek out on the tech, but also there's this storytelling thing. The idea of merging storytelling and technology to me was like, aha, this is it. I really felt that. I felt that walking into that room that first class, and I am a storyteller now. And there was something very powerful about that story. And I don't even want to take credit for it because the way these things work, it's not even me. Something is coming through. It was the flood myth. The flood myth is ingrained in our DNA.