Letting Go

Cla-Zel ending long run as movie theater
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""People say [a theater with such films] makes them feel warm and fuzzy - and say, 'I just don't have time to take in a movie.' Warm-and-fuzziness does not correlate to dollars, unfortunately," Mr. Yon said."

When I first read this, I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to comment on it. I was drawn to how heartbreaking it was.

But I had another thought that made it powerful for a reason I wasn't expecting at all.

There are so many companies and organizations that are constantly trying very hard to make themselves relevant to people. Actually, they're just trying to survive. It's a human instinct carried over to business. But it has no place there. Business endeavors are successful because they are a reaction to what people already need. A service springs up because no one is providing it. A competitor springs up because some people want something a little different. All that is a win for everyone.

People start to lose when companies start competing for no other reason than an unrelending desire to win, make a lot of money, or to keep the comapany going.

If people don't need it, or don't want it, then there's no reason for that organization to exist. Period. I know there's a lot of grey area about what people want, what they think they want, what they think they need, but I don't think enough of the top brass of aging, irrelevant companies stop to think about this.

And what Mr. Yon says, sort of represents this to me. I realize I'm romanticizing it a bit, and his tone is a more discouraged and cynical than contemplative and refreshing, but I think in the end, it's precisely that.

For the record, if I own a theater, it isn't important to me that it have a legacy beyond my managership. Who would want to go if I wasn't there, anyway? :)