The Void You're Not Supposed to Heal: A Filmmaker, a 50-Year Friendship, and What Comes After 'Making It'
- StevenMiyao
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Simon Verhoeven spent years dreaming about a particular German Film Award, and the moment it was finally in his hand, the first thing he felt wasn't satisfaction, it was "okay, so what's next?"
He's one of the most successful directors in Germany, with films that became hits and got remade across Europe. The film that won for him, Ach, diese Lücke, diese entsetzliche Lücke, roughly "this gap, this terrible gap," is about loss, and he made it during the same years he was losing his own father. He'll still tell you plainly that the awards he chased never confirmed him as a person the way he assumed they would.
This episode is going up the week of Father's Day, which feels right. Simon and I have known each other since before we could walk; my uncle and his father were childhood friends, and we both lost our dads fairly recently while our mothers move through their eighties. So when he came on the Midlife Remix, we weren't really there to talk about filmmaking; we were two sons talking about what our fathers left us and what we're trying to pass to our own kids.
The thing a lot of my clients are living through ran through almost everything he said: the gap between external validation and internal worth. He chased that award for years, and when he finally held it, it gave him nothing, while the things that genuinely matter to him turned out to be ordinary ones: time with his kids, a hike, a walk. The gap between the success he was certain he wanted and the life that actually means something to him is what we talked about most. When I "made it" in my own career, I had a version of the same surprise, where I'd reach the thing and find out the thing wasn't where the meaning lived.
He also told a story from the day his father died. He was on set, his dad near the end, and during a break, he felt a wave of warmth move toward him and wrap around him, something he'd never felt before. Fifteen minutes later, his brother called to say his father was gone. Simon isn't religious, and he isn't sure what it was, but it changed how he carries the loss.
We also got into:
Why he won't delete his father's number from his phone, still listed as "Papa"
The idea that a void in your heart isn't supposed to fully heal, because that void is love itself
How caring for his aging mother means accepting he can't reach her pain, only being present for it
Why he thinks life is a coming-of-age story that never actually ends
The two things he'd ask anyone to try, one of them being to read, for two full weeks, the newspaper whose opinions you can't stand
If your own father is on your mind this weekend, whether you still have him, lost him, or are becoming one yourself, this is the conversation I'd point you to.
Listen on Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or the Coaching Metta Substack. Link in first comment.
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