"Take this sorrow to thy heart, and make it a part of thee, and it shall nourish thee till thou art strong again."
~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
I woke up this morning with a profound sadness. I have no idea where it comes from. I could attribute it to the legacy of depression that comes down to me from my family - two of my uncles on my father's side ended their lives abruptly - but that would be a copout. I don't have to own anyone else's depression. As much as it might be chemical, it is also my choice, just as it was my choice (and has been for 10 years) to go home after a play rather than hanging out with castmates at a bar. I usually come home, wind down, and begin to empty my mind through whatever means I can find: writing, playing guitar, sending out a few emails, maybe some Photoshop work. Whether I'm on stage or directing, doing a show takes a lot out of me, so I need to empty that before I go to bed or else that insomnia comes around again and I'm up all night thinking...feeling.
Wow...it sounds like I'm a big mess, doesn't it?
C: You think you're the only one who feels these things? A lot of people feel sad, they just don't write about it.
S: You think? I can't always tell what other people are feeling. I just see what they do....
C: So you label that and move on. Have you ever heard of the "benefit of the doubt"?
S: Yes, I have, smartass. Sometimes it's just easier to consider the worst case scenario and be nicely surprised.
C: Or maybe, Eeyore, it's easier to think that people, for the most part, have good intentions and when they do something wrong, they just might be human.
S: How did this turn into a conversation about other people letting me down?
C: How did you forget that this is a conversation between your conscious and subconscious? Do you think I don't know what's going on with you? (pause) Listen, I know that this is a big year of change ahead of you. I can feel the anxiety connected to that.
S: Damn, I keep forgetting I can't hide anything when I write these conversations between us.
C: I think you're leaving Playhouse for the right reasons. I think you're doing the right things for your career by starting to network your way towards Warner Bros.
S: Thank you.
C: But I also know what a leap of faith these things are. You're solid in both places right now.
S: It just can't keep going the way it's going.
C: Right.
S: And I can't become what I want to be by remaining what I am. What I do at Playhouse gets lost in the competitive atmosphere controlled by two people. What I do at work is rewarded and counted on, but it's so wrong. It's not what I'm meant to do.
C: So take that leap of faith. Change your life this year. Know that there will be mornings when you'll wake up a little sad -
S: I wrote that I had a profound sadness. Look at the top of this entry.
C: There will be mornings when you wake up a little sad, and that's just the aftermath of having done something you love doing the previous night knowing that it's going to end soon. You forget how great it is when you're not doing it, and you forget how much you're going to miss it when you're in the middle of it. This is about right for you, you know....
S: You think?
C: With every show you've ever done - I'm talking about beyond college - you're experiencing things a few weeks ahead of time. You know what that sadness of the final performance is going to be like. And then...what? What's beyond that? It's completely unknown.
S: Ohhhh that's scary. New school, new theater company, new roles.
C: But do you know what's great? You don't have any concept of failure with that. You don't see yourself returning to Playhouse to direct or produce -
S: That would be the failure.
C: So this bold move to walk away from ten years could be the thing that breaks life open for you. Think of all of the weekends you've spent there, the late nights rehearsing and all of the people you've worked with. You came to every cast having to prove yourself all over again because your reputation at that school has been smothered time and time again, but you did it and now you have all of this experience behind you.
S: I sacrificed a lot to get here.
C: And you're wondering if it was worth it.
S: Yeah.
C: You have one thing that many people don't have when it comes to the creative world, and that takes sacrifice.
S: What...? What do I have?
C: Instinct. You know how you react whenever something creative is broken down into structure, laying things out into a formula for everyone to follow? It's against everything artistic, isn't it?
S: Yeah, I guess I don't understand it.
C: That instinct will always be there for you. The sacrifice - while others have gotten married, had children, moved into big houses and indulged in their lives - helped refine the thing you love to do. The sadness in the morning is part of the artist that goes to bed at night. You don't put any of it on, it's part of your DNA now. DeoxyriboNucleicArtist.
S: Cute.
C: And before you begin to think about what it is you're not, and what you don't have in your life, show that depression the fact that you're sitting here working through this having a conversation in a virtual world.
Okay, so maybe that actually qualifies me for psychiatric help, but truthfully, I feel a little better now. When the credits start rolling, all it means is that this particular movie is over. There's always room for a new one, and if I'm standing alone at the end of the next one, all I can do is keep looking forward and try a new leap of faith.
"There is no future
There is no past
I live this moment as my last
There's only us
There's only this
Forget regret
Or life is yours to miss
No other road
No other way
No day but today"
~ Jonathan Larson
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Creation Took Eight Days
With the heaviness of that last entry, you might wonder what direction I'd have to go in to recover. The obvious answer is that I wrestled with the same question years ago. That's also a non-answer, bred out of avoidance and clever misdirection. The truthful answer is that the direction always changes. I had started writing a follow-up a few times, even considered deleting that story, but I can't. It's part of me. It explains a lot, I think.
So here I am, dealing with the issues of today: Work is a little difficult to maintain, my father is in the hospital recovering slowly from knee surgery, and of course, I'm watching the health of the rest of my family. Add all the change with my creative life, and that's more than enough to handle. Somewhere in the margin, my niece is finally getting her wish; She has collected enough friends to replace my family, and seems to be on her way North with her two sons, a distance that might still feel too close to any of the three families she seems to hate. Her philosophy is "Love me for what I am, not for what you want me to be", but that has to contractually involve the rule that she's not built like us. I remember someone who used to be in my life telling me that she's not "thoughtful and sensitive like you are. I can't be like you."
Yes, there are people who are not built like you, who can't appreciate what it is you're feeling at any given moment, nor are they interested in bridging that gap. They don't "get" you, they don't see the best in you, they don't, in the end, have anything in common with you beyond sharing the same space for a limited amount of time. I've said that I'm different many times in my own blog, so I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. I just tend to focus on the many people who will always be strangers to me rather than fully appreciating those precious few who actually fit in my world.
The direction at the moment is towards tomorrow, with a healthy balanced stand in the present. Who is with me? Who wishes I could be different, maybe someone I used to be? The sometimes unacceptable reality is that goldfish grow to the size of the bowl. My niece will leave and put us behind her. My sister will heal and grow without her and the boys. My parents will adjust to life as they get older. I, like them, can't ever go back to who I used to be, because I, too, have grown to the size of my bowl.
The people around me will just have to get used to that.
So here I am, dealing with the issues of today: Work is a little difficult to maintain, my father is in the hospital recovering slowly from knee surgery, and of course, I'm watching the health of the rest of my family. Add all the change with my creative life, and that's more than enough to handle. Somewhere in the margin, my niece is finally getting her wish; She has collected enough friends to replace my family, and seems to be on her way North with her two sons, a distance that might still feel too close to any of the three families she seems to hate. Her philosophy is "Love me for what I am, not for what you want me to be", but that has to contractually involve the rule that she's not built like us. I remember someone who used to be in my life telling me that she's not "thoughtful and sensitive like you are. I can't be like you."
Yes, there are people who are not built like you, who can't appreciate what it is you're feeling at any given moment, nor are they interested in bridging that gap. They don't "get" you, they don't see the best in you, they don't, in the end, have anything in common with you beyond sharing the same space for a limited amount of time. I've said that I'm different many times in my own blog, so I have to give them the benefit of the doubt. I just tend to focus on the many people who will always be strangers to me rather than fully appreciating those precious few who actually fit in my world.
The direction at the moment is towards tomorrow, with a healthy balanced stand in the present. Who is with me? Who wishes I could be different, maybe someone I used to be? The sometimes unacceptable reality is that goldfish grow to the size of the bowl. My niece will leave and put us behind her. My sister will heal and grow without her and the boys. My parents will adjust to life as they get older. I, like them, can't ever go back to who I used to be, because I, too, have grown to the size of my bowl.
The people around me will just have to get used to that.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Naked History
On a very special episode...of the blog: Things are explained and math is applied to abstraction. A brief retelling of the past explains the frustrating complication of the present, and whatever you do, you won't want to miss the final five lines. (This episode rated PG-13 for strong language.)
This is the story you don't know. You might understand human behavior, you might have met a hundred people who fit exactly the same description as me, but you don't know how I work. Some people may be predictable, there may be only about 700,000 words in the English language, but I utter one word and chances are good that I mean something different than the person next to me saying the same thing. I don't have all of the answers, but I am looking for them.
A little over a decade ago...holy shit...about a decade and a half ago, I fell in love. I found the singular answer to everything, the name and the face I wanted to see every single day of my life until the last sun set in my world and I slipped away to that perpetually moonlit sky. She was omnipresent, threading herself through every pore and every blood cell that went through my veins. In other words, it was absolutely crazy how important she was to me for the few years I knew her. She fit. I have to add at this point that I was a virgin before I met her - I didn't see any value in just wanting to get laid before or since - and as easy as it would be for you to assume that her role in that part of my life increased her importance to me, just wait before you snap a judgement.
I wanted to marry her, started talking about plans and knew in my bones that a life spent being a good husband and father from that point on would be the very thing I wanted. I was, at the same time, just starting to seriously study theatre acting and directing, so - Libra that I am - I started balancing. Her mind wasn't so made up. She wasn't exactly ready to settle down, nor was she convinced that I was the one. When I found out that she immediately wanted to be with someone else, I suddenly found myself on the floor of my bedroom on a New Year's Eve, seriously considering making it my last. I prayed with every cubic inch of my breath for a new answer to fill the void left by the old answer. Before I acted on anything, I had what my friend Eric Edwards called "a moment of clarity". I heard my family turning Dick Clark up in the living room and my thoughts switched to my annual tradition of dancing with my mom at the stroke of midnight. My soul was patched, my face was washed, and I went out to be with my family.
Sometime later, my answer once again rejected me for another, and I was suddenly staring at an empty bottle of sleeping pills, The doorbell rang, I answered, and two police officers stepped inside to check on me and offer me some sound advice. Something changed inside me. It was that instant of fear, the fear of letting down my parents, of suddenly falling into a downward spiral that I could not come back from. I had to face the friends who called because they were worried about me. I had to see her again.
Slowly things mended between her and I, but it was never the same. There were glimpses of hope, but late that year, the behavior returned and I found myself staring from the outside in again. What replaced the feelings of loss and fatality was fear. It was in that last conversation where I thought to myself, "Holy fuck, I can't keep doing this. I'm addicted, I'm hurt, and I'm lost, but I can't keep looking to her for an answer to who I am." It may have sounded like I was angry at the moment I told her I was done - she, by the way, laughed at that reaction - but I was scared to death. I knew a part of me was gone, and that I would have to completely rediscover myself. I hung up and did what I'm doing now. I pulled my notebook and started writing. When I was done with that, I had nothing but pieces around me and I wasn't wearing a single facade. I was starting at zero.
For the following three years or so, I didn't answer the phone. It wasn't just her. I didn't answer phone calls from anyone. I floated like a ghost to my college theater, left that place, went to another college to finish off my degree, and though I had sworn off of anything romantic, I got caught in TWO romantic triangles. Both ended with me running in the opposite direction as if I was on the downward slope of an avalanche. I left college without the degree and went to work.
What I couldn't deny was my love for acting and theater. I was a hard worker, too, sacrificing my creative life for the sake of the daily routine of working, going home, doing nothing, going to sleep early, and then repeating the same thing on the following day. As much as I denied that I ever wanted to go to that world of entertainment again, it was always right there. It was just outside my door, in my peripheral vision, in the back of my mind when I went to sleep, in all of the scribbles on the wall of my shower. They were snippets of stories, ideas for the next journal entry. Oh yeah, this very thing you're reading was my life support.
I enrolled at Playhouse West without any intention of being a working actor. I just needed to do it. I needed to study, to act, to read plays and see what it did for me. After only a short time, I was asked to work on productions, and that led to directing. That led to writing and producing. That led me to today, where I'm considering the next move of leaving Playhouse and starting up completely new somewhere else, ready to write, direct, and...teaching.
To this very moment, this very beat of writing this - oh Lord - very long story that I needed to write because I've never quite told the story, I still have that fear inside me. I still have a connection to that person on the floor with the knife and bottle of pills in front of him (wait - did I mention the knife?), like a string tied to a thumbtack and fixed to a moving point. I survived this long because I've always tried to stay singular of purpose, always conscious of being direct with the people I talk to, honest with my feelings, and not wasting my time being superfluous because with every wasted breath, I feel a little tug on that string. Sex clouded my judgement; I chose to be celibate and have kept it up since then without reservation. You might have wondered why I work so hard, sometimes coming home from a long day of work and immediately working on a project before I go to rehearsal. I'm running, my friend, filling my life with color and music, keeping every possible form of expression close to me and doing my best to reassure myself and everyone around me that it's great to be alive.
I am George Bailey running through Bedford Falls. I am the blip of the heart meter, pinging and giving signs of life. I can make a connection and then turn to the next thing because I've kept myself alive all these years. Whether people understand that I'm trying to be genuine and not throwing out words to be anything to anyone...well, that's on them. I only know how to give. I don't know how to ask. I have the life I never knew I wanted. How could I fault myself for that?
The girl resurfaces every few years or so, and I see her as the best friend I can never have. She's not the answer any more, even when I heard her voice again, because in the void she left behind, words, music, shapes and colors all fell in and became part of me. There are beautifully mismatched patches on my heart, and the scars left behind are all forgiven and drawn into the pattern of my experiences. Within the brief encounters I have with her - she always disappears suddenly, like my own little Brigadoon - I fall short of convincing her that my life is good. It is, simply, just me making the best of wherever I'm standing, with that hunger to live and keep moving towards the things and people who inspire me.
I'm not looking for the answer any more, because there are so many all around you, if you would only stop to take a look. The answer, as I've recently come to understand, is just being in the present, and suddenly I don't feel that tug on the string any more. This is how my life works, and I'm here to tell you that I love you, even though I don't know exactly who is reading this right now. You might be listening to your own soundtrack and none of this makes any sense to you, but the way I see it, I said what I came here to say.
I'm still alive.
This is the story you don't know. You might understand human behavior, you might have met a hundred people who fit exactly the same description as me, but you don't know how I work. Some people may be predictable, there may be only about 700,000 words in the English language, but I utter one word and chances are good that I mean something different than the person next to me saying the same thing. I don't have all of the answers, but I am looking for them.
A little over a decade ago...holy shit...about a decade and a half ago, I fell in love. I found the singular answer to everything, the name and the face I wanted to see every single day of my life until the last sun set in my world and I slipped away to that perpetually moonlit sky. She was omnipresent, threading herself through every pore and every blood cell that went through my veins. In other words, it was absolutely crazy how important she was to me for the few years I knew her. She fit. I have to add at this point that I was a virgin before I met her - I didn't see any value in just wanting to get laid before or since - and as easy as it would be for you to assume that her role in that part of my life increased her importance to me, just wait before you snap a judgement.
I wanted to marry her, started talking about plans and knew in my bones that a life spent being a good husband and father from that point on would be the very thing I wanted. I was, at the same time, just starting to seriously study theatre acting and directing, so - Libra that I am - I started balancing. Her mind wasn't so made up. She wasn't exactly ready to settle down, nor was she convinced that I was the one. When I found out that she immediately wanted to be with someone else, I suddenly found myself on the floor of my bedroom on a New Year's Eve, seriously considering making it my last. I prayed with every cubic inch of my breath for a new answer to fill the void left by the old answer. Before I acted on anything, I had what my friend Eric Edwards called "a moment of clarity". I heard my family turning Dick Clark up in the living room and my thoughts switched to my annual tradition of dancing with my mom at the stroke of midnight. My soul was patched, my face was washed, and I went out to be with my family.
Sometime later, my answer once again rejected me for another, and I was suddenly staring at an empty bottle of sleeping pills, The doorbell rang, I answered, and two police officers stepped inside to check on me and offer me some sound advice. Something changed inside me. It was that instant of fear, the fear of letting down my parents, of suddenly falling into a downward spiral that I could not come back from. I had to face the friends who called because they were worried about me. I had to see her again.
Slowly things mended between her and I, but it was never the same. There were glimpses of hope, but late that year, the behavior returned and I found myself staring from the outside in again. What replaced the feelings of loss and fatality was fear. It was in that last conversation where I thought to myself, "Holy fuck, I can't keep doing this. I'm addicted, I'm hurt, and I'm lost, but I can't keep looking to her for an answer to who I am." It may have sounded like I was angry at the moment I told her I was done - she, by the way, laughed at that reaction - but I was scared to death. I knew a part of me was gone, and that I would have to completely rediscover myself. I hung up and did what I'm doing now. I pulled my notebook and started writing. When I was done with that, I had nothing but pieces around me and I wasn't wearing a single facade. I was starting at zero.
For the following three years or so, I didn't answer the phone. It wasn't just her. I didn't answer phone calls from anyone. I floated like a ghost to my college theater, left that place, went to another college to finish off my degree, and though I had sworn off of anything romantic, I got caught in TWO romantic triangles. Both ended with me running in the opposite direction as if I was on the downward slope of an avalanche. I left college without the degree and went to work.
What I couldn't deny was my love for acting and theater. I was a hard worker, too, sacrificing my creative life for the sake of the daily routine of working, going home, doing nothing, going to sleep early, and then repeating the same thing on the following day. As much as I denied that I ever wanted to go to that world of entertainment again, it was always right there. It was just outside my door, in my peripheral vision, in the back of my mind when I went to sleep, in all of the scribbles on the wall of my shower. They were snippets of stories, ideas for the next journal entry. Oh yeah, this very thing you're reading was my life support.
I enrolled at Playhouse West without any intention of being a working actor. I just needed to do it. I needed to study, to act, to read plays and see what it did for me. After only a short time, I was asked to work on productions, and that led to directing. That led to writing and producing. That led me to today, where I'm considering the next move of leaving Playhouse and starting up completely new somewhere else, ready to write, direct, and...teaching.
To this very moment, this very beat of writing this - oh Lord - very long story that I needed to write because I've never quite told the story, I still have that fear inside me. I still have a connection to that person on the floor with the knife and bottle of pills in front of him (wait - did I mention the knife?), like a string tied to a thumbtack and fixed to a moving point. I survived this long because I've always tried to stay singular of purpose, always conscious of being direct with the people I talk to, honest with my feelings, and not wasting my time being superfluous because with every wasted breath, I feel a little tug on that string. Sex clouded my judgement; I chose to be celibate and have kept it up since then without reservation. You might have wondered why I work so hard, sometimes coming home from a long day of work and immediately working on a project before I go to rehearsal. I'm running, my friend, filling my life with color and music, keeping every possible form of expression close to me and doing my best to reassure myself and everyone around me that it's great to be alive.
I am George Bailey running through Bedford Falls. I am the blip of the heart meter, pinging and giving signs of life. I can make a connection and then turn to the next thing because I've kept myself alive all these years. Whether people understand that I'm trying to be genuine and not throwing out words to be anything to anyone...well, that's on them. I only know how to give. I don't know how to ask. I have the life I never knew I wanted. How could I fault myself for that?
The girl resurfaces every few years or so, and I see her as the best friend I can never have. She's not the answer any more, even when I heard her voice again, because in the void she left behind, words, music, shapes and colors all fell in and became part of me. There are beautifully mismatched patches on my heart, and the scars left behind are all forgiven and drawn into the pattern of my experiences. Within the brief encounters I have with her - she always disappears suddenly, like my own little Brigadoon - I fall short of convincing her that my life is good. It is, simply, just me making the best of wherever I'm standing, with that hunger to live and keep moving towards the things and people who inspire me.
I'm not looking for the answer any more, because there are so many all around you, if you would only stop to take a look. The answer, as I've recently come to understand, is just being in the present, and suddenly I don't feel that tug on the string any more. This is how my life works, and I'm here to tell you that I love you, even though I don't know exactly who is reading this right now. You might be listening to your own soundtrack and none of this makes any sense to you, but the way I see it, I said what I came here to say.
I'm still alive.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
But Not For Me
Bubbles are fun little space to live in. They refract light, hold a little environment unto themselves, and when they burst, they shed little tears of joy everywhere and leave a perfect circle where they land. How many things do you know of that leave a perfect impression when they come to an end? I suppose that depends on your particular definition of the word "perfect". It might depend on your reaction to endings.
I don't know if this will make sense, but I crave those endings. I have an addiction, a longing for that lingering final look when your eyes drink in an image for the very last time. There are a few things I wish would never end or change, for the most part, but everything else seems to have a blinking expiration date on it. I think...this comes from the fact that I've had so little closure with important things in my past. There has perpetuall been so little awareness of this thing we share together that I carry with me a collection of things and memories I alone put value in. Everyone else does their own thing - work hard, go home, fall in love somewhere along the line - but I feel like I fly beyond the radar across a quiet, ever-changing landscape. I see what I see, go where I go, and I exist in this little bubble of the blogosphere like a comet cutting through the solar system, only occasionally changing course.
This might be a mild, slightly bitter helping of insanity. Of course, I can't define this as insanity, because...well, what am I basing it on? What's normal outside of my life that I can compare this to? This is normal for me. No, I think that insanity only comes with hour after hour of frustrating therapy, and I haven't even invited that into my life yet. Isn't this supposed to be therapeutic? Yes - reality check - I'm writing this for me to sort out things in my mind and heart. It's a selfish act of lacerating self-exposure, hopefully walking the line of brutal honesty and entertaining literature ("Ohhh thank God that's not my life.").
I actually started this entry in a California Pizza Kitchen, which I didn't think would be crowded, but there I was having a white pizza and a Sam Adams in the midst of a Valentines Day crowd completely at ease with my singularity. I wrote the following few lines in my directing comp book before diving into this, which I'm finishing at a Starbucks:
In a little diversion...art stops for life and life stops for art, both turning to mirror each other. The air I breathe is filtered through pen & keyboard, so I validate myself by stating "I feel, therefore I am, and if you think this isn't normal, don't look."
This is me attaching myself to the moment, refusing to go home where I have work awaiting away from the work that I run away from. This is me treating myself to the road less traveled, towards doing what I want to do rather than what is easy to do. This is me practicing detachment and independence from the world, as seen through the walls of a bubble. The light is refracted, the world distorted, and I wonder sometimes if this is exactly what it really is, and not just the way I see it. I have that gift, of taking these moments to stop and look, but still I wonder. What is it that other people do? Do they simply work hard, go home, and fall in love somewhere along the way, never asking why or how?
If I change my life and only work on what I love to do, what would fill the void? What would I leave behind, once it's all over? I hope I leave something close to the shape of a perfect circle.
I don't know if this will make sense, but I crave those endings. I have an addiction, a longing for that lingering final look when your eyes drink in an image for the very last time. There are a few things I wish would never end or change, for the most part, but everything else seems to have a blinking expiration date on it. I think...this comes from the fact that I've had so little closure with important things in my past. There has perpetuall been so little awareness of this thing we share together that I carry with me a collection of things and memories I alone put value in. Everyone else does their own thing - work hard, go home, fall in love somewhere along the line - but I feel like I fly beyond the radar across a quiet, ever-changing landscape. I see what I see, go where I go, and I exist in this little bubble of the blogosphere like a comet cutting through the solar system, only occasionally changing course.
This might be a mild, slightly bitter helping of insanity. Of course, I can't define this as insanity, because...well, what am I basing it on? What's normal outside of my life that I can compare this to? This is normal for me. No, I think that insanity only comes with hour after hour of frustrating therapy, and I haven't even invited that into my life yet. Isn't this supposed to be therapeutic? Yes - reality check - I'm writing this for me to sort out things in my mind and heart. It's a selfish act of lacerating self-exposure, hopefully walking the line of brutal honesty and entertaining literature ("Ohhh thank God that's not my life.").
I actually started this entry in a California Pizza Kitchen, which I didn't think would be crowded, but there I was having a white pizza and a Sam Adams in the midst of a Valentines Day crowd completely at ease with my singularity. I wrote the following few lines in my directing comp book before diving into this, which I'm finishing at a Starbucks:
In a little diversion...art stops for life and life stops for art, both turning to mirror each other. The air I breathe is filtered through pen & keyboard, so I validate myself by stating "I feel, therefore I am, and if you think this isn't normal, don't look."
This is me attaching myself to the moment, refusing to go home where I have work awaiting away from the work that I run away from. This is me treating myself to the road less traveled, towards doing what I want to do rather than what is easy to do. This is me practicing detachment and independence from the world, as seen through the walls of a bubble. The light is refracted, the world distorted, and I wonder sometimes if this is exactly what it really is, and not just the way I see it. I have that gift, of taking these moments to stop and look, but still I wonder. What is it that other people do? Do they simply work hard, go home, and fall in love somewhere along the way, never asking why or how?
If I change my life and only work on what I love to do, what would fill the void? What would I leave behind, once it's all over? I hope I leave something close to the shape of a perfect circle.
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
Stepping Out of Line
I learned something about myself today. Okay, wait...let me backtrack for one second and preface that by saying that I've always said this about myself, and have tried to manipulate this into being true, but...wait, actually, I started seeing this on Saturday but today this little habit suddenly flicked me on the head and said, "No, this is actually the way you are."
If I find out that someone is doing exactly the same thing I'm doing, within the same circle of influence - be it something they do with a person or just something that would merely duplicate an effort - I immediately turn off of that thing and focus my attention somewhere else. It's instantaneous, once I acknowledge the dupe, and then the previous thing (what was it?) doesn't really exist any more. Ewwww it's kind of an L.A. thing, I think. It's that living in the moment reality .
It's okay. No, it's okay. It's kind of funny, actually. I figured it out at work, in that aquarium of uncertainty where the population is unhappy at the moment as the budget cloud looms above, threatening to poke holes in the ground with layoff lightning. That's the perception, anyway. The sky has yet to begin falling. Nevertheless, I enjoy the little distractions, and the people sometimes indulge in quirkiness that I can only assume comes from living most of the week inside an 8x8 box. These people have their own rules, but just the same, you try to have unique relationships with the people you work with. It doesn't always work out that way.
People are different at work. It's actually time for me to affect a change in my work situation. Maybe I'm getting cabin fever at the old twin buildings over in Woodland Hills. I roam the building like a caged animal sometimes.
I am beginning to see a few people for their patterns, and one clicked in today, suddenly changing my instinctive behavior around her. It has been a kind of domino effect over the past week or so, brought on by what I can only describe as a white hot focus on my own survival and the things I absolutely have to do. It's a little fireball of prioritizing things, so I found that my mind tends to switch things off.
Mi vida loca. I don't settle, apparently. It's my fear of mediocrity wreaking havoc on the things I do. It's also my practice of noticing patterns in everything, so...is it really weird that I can make abrupt turns and focus my attention in a completely different direction? Maybe not. I just thought it was funny.
Okay, maybe this didn't merit a whole blog entry. I just felt like writing.
If I find out that someone is doing exactly the same thing I'm doing, within the same circle of influence - be it something they do with a person or just something that would merely duplicate an effort - I immediately turn off of that thing and focus my attention somewhere else. It's instantaneous, once I acknowledge the dupe, and then the previous thing (what was it?) doesn't really exist any more. Ewwww it's kind of an L.A. thing, I think. It's that living in the moment reality .
It's okay. No, it's okay. It's kind of funny, actually. I figured it out at work, in that aquarium of uncertainty where the population is unhappy at the moment as the budget cloud looms above, threatening to poke holes in the ground with layoff lightning. That's the perception, anyway. The sky has yet to begin falling. Nevertheless, I enjoy the little distractions, and the people sometimes indulge in quirkiness that I can only assume comes from living most of the week inside an 8x8 box. These people have their own rules, but just the same, you try to have unique relationships with the people you work with. It doesn't always work out that way.
People are different at work. It's actually time for me to affect a change in my work situation. Maybe I'm getting cabin fever at the old twin buildings over in Woodland Hills. I roam the building like a caged animal sometimes.
I am beginning to see a few people for their patterns, and one clicked in today, suddenly changing my instinctive behavior around her. It has been a kind of domino effect over the past week or so, brought on by what I can only describe as a white hot focus on my own survival and the things I absolutely have to do. It's a little fireball of prioritizing things, so I found that my mind tends to switch things off.
Mi vida loca. I don't settle, apparently. It's my fear of mediocrity wreaking havoc on the things I do. It's also my practice of noticing patterns in everything, so...is it really weird that I can make abrupt turns and focus my attention in a completely different direction? Maybe not. I just thought it was funny.
Okay, maybe this didn't merit a whole blog entry. I just felt like writing.
Monday, February 05, 2007
Other People Do
I had written the perfect blog entry, the one that encapsulated the moment and mood, and in the end it pulled together all of the points and painted a simple lesson for me, colored in with a palette of perspective. It was a bite-sized blog economically written, complete with a bathroom break and a deceptive beginning, and then....
You know, sometimes as in life, you click on "submit" or "complete", or in this case you click on "preview & post", and you end up somewhere completely unexpected. "Preview & post" took me to a page of advertising. Going back one page took me to blankness. What was fed to the MySpace blogosphere as an intricate meal of ideas and feelings came out as a silly litle fart. Funny, how these little things remind me of the larger things I've done with my life. I especially go through this at work - all preparation and no fanfare - but the paycheck seems to make things easier.
Anyway, I started this entry in my notebook, the 5x8 ruled book, of which I have a large stack from over a decade and a half of journal writing. I could take that anywhere and often needed it with me as an escape. That's where writing scripts and poetry were born, the kind of lingering gaseous cloud that occasionally gives birth to a few starry ideas. This little book combined with frequent "Ctrl + A / Ctrl + C" keystrokes will hopefully prevent another lost entry. I couldn't recreate it; It was late at night and had spent myself writing it. It's time to move on. I guess that was one of the central themes to that lost entry. It's the whole moving on thing that I keep talking about, with constant reminders to live in the moment.
I opened a play last weekend, the last one I intend to fully produce and direct at Playhouse West. We had a standing ovation on opening night and a full house the following night. It felt right. If I'm going to work on a statement play, I want it to be received well, and I want people to see my actors loving what they do. All professionalism aside, I want people to hear what I'm saying as an artist, that apathy is unforgivable. I, like everyone else will tell you about themselves, like speaking my mind, and I try my best to word things as carefully as I can so that people know exactly what I'm saying. I've been called blunt. I've also been called tactful, but this is all good in everyday conversation. As an artist - and I almost hate using that term, but I wake up every day with the need to be creative - I see things that need to be commented on, or I feel stories that need to be told. That's why I could never walk away from this life. This is who I am.
Last night I found myself in front of a truly inspiring girl, a goddess with a magnetic smile, telling her exactly what I saw in her in the most poetic terms, without reservation or doubt. I had only one thing in mind, that I had to tell her who she was to me. I couldn't lose the opportunity. I know we live in a world that instigates comparison and fear. I know we work in an industry (entertainment) that constantly tells you that you're not good enough, or that we already have people like you. The people who succeed are either those who persevere or those who are the current flavor. Now, it would be too easy for me to say that I'm going to champion those who persevere, but that would be taking something away from what I do, and especially, from this girl. No, I will speak up because that's what I have to do with a gift of communication. If I can express ideas, if I can translate, then I simply have to say something.
First of all, my job as a director is to make a play common. I want everyone to recognize what's happening, to relate to what's happening in whatever medium I'm working in. A statement is pointless if I'm the only one who believes it. I have to make sure my actors understand what we're trying to say. I have to make sure that every aspect of what I create contributes to the idea. I'm not sloppy that way.
Okay, enough about the technical stuff.
The girl is amazing. She's sweet, smart, beautiful, and especially unique. She's talented, and there's something about her...that's completely enchanting. I equate her with that elusive idea of something romantic, as if she's always shot with that soft lens that blurs your vision slightly. I made a connection last night as the full moon rose above the roofline outside the theater before I went on stage last night. There it was, perfect and mysterious, rising above everything with a glow that makes it bright enough to make your eyes adjust, but still, you had to look. Every time I see the moon - I've always looked for it - it's hypnotic. So is the girl. When I see the moon, I'll think of her.
Have you ever seen someone like that? Open your eyes...and don't let the moment go by. I may have lost a journal entry, I may have created or worked on things in the past that only had meaning for me and nobody else, but the girl knew for at least a moment that someone was inspired by her, and loved her completely for it.
I don't know how other people go through life sticking to a schedule, filling the hours with work, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and distractions scattered throughout the weeks that slip by unnoticed. I don't know how people maintain. That's not me. I have a different way of doing things, and it has everything to do with recognizing the world around me. That's the life I've chosen.
Ahhh wait...select all...copy...now, preview and post.
You know, sometimes as in life, you click on "submit" or "complete", or in this case you click on "preview & post", and you end up somewhere completely unexpected. "Preview & post" took me to a page of advertising. Going back one page took me to blankness. What was fed to the MySpace blogosphere as an intricate meal of ideas and feelings came out as a silly litle fart. Funny, how these little things remind me of the larger things I've done with my life. I especially go through this at work - all preparation and no fanfare - but the paycheck seems to make things easier.
Anyway, I started this entry in my notebook, the 5x8 ruled book, of which I have a large stack from over a decade and a half of journal writing. I could take that anywhere and often needed it with me as an escape. That's where writing scripts and poetry were born, the kind of lingering gaseous cloud that occasionally gives birth to a few starry ideas. This little book combined with frequent "Ctrl + A / Ctrl + C" keystrokes will hopefully prevent another lost entry. I couldn't recreate it; It was late at night and had spent myself writing it. It's time to move on. I guess that was one of the central themes to that lost entry. It's the whole moving on thing that I keep talking about, with constant reminders to live in the moment.
I opened a play last weekend, the last one I intend to fully produce and direct at Playhouse West. We had a standing ovation on opening night and a full house the following night. It felt right. If I'm going to work on a statement play, I want it to be received well, and I want people to see my actors loving what they do. All professionalism aside, I want people to hear what I'm saying as an artist, that apathy is unforgivable. I, like everyone else will tell you about themselves, like speaking my mind, and I try my best to word things as carefully as I can so that people know exactly what I'm saying. I've been called blunt. I've also been called tactful, but this is all good in everyday conversation. As an artist - and I almost hate using that term, but I wake up every day with the need to be creative - I see things that need to be commented on, or I feel stories that need to be told. That's why I could never walk away from this life. This is who I am.
Last night I found myself in front of a truly inspiring girl, a goddess with a magnetic smile, telling her exactly what I saw in her in the most poetic terms, without reservation or doubt. I had only one thing in mind, that I had to tell her who she was to me. I couldn't lose the opportunity. I know we live in a world that instigates comparison and fear. I know we work in an industry (entertainment) that constantly tells you that you're not good enough, or that we already have people like you. The people who succeed are either those who persevere or those who are the current flavor. Now, it would be too easy for me to say that I'm going to champion those who persevere, but that would be taking something away from what I do, and especially, from this girl. No, I will speak up because that's what I have to do with a gift of communication. If I can express ideas, if I can translate, then I simply have to say something.
First of all, my job as a director is to make a play common. I want everyone to recognize what's happening, to relate to what's happening in whatever medium I'm working in. A statement is pointless if I'm the only one who believes it. I have to make sure my actors understand what we're trying to say. I have to make sure that every aspect of what I create contributes to the idea. I'm not sloppy that way.
Okay, enough about the technical stuff.
The girl is amazing. She's sweet, smart, beautiful, and especially unique. She's talented, and there's something about her...that's completely enchanting. I equate her with that elusive idea of something romantic, as if she's always shot with that soft lens that blurs your vision slightly. I made a connection last night as the full moon rose above the roofline outside the theater before I went on stage last night. There it was, perfect and mysterious, rising above everything with a glow that makes it bright enough to make your eyes adjust, but still, you had to look. Every time I see the moon - I've always looked for it - it's hypnotic. So is the girl. When I see the moon, I'll think of her.
Have you ever seen someone like that? Open your eyes...and don't let the moment go by. I may have lost a journal entry, I may have created or worked on things in the past that only had meaning for me and nobody else, but the girl knew for at least a moment that someone was inspired by her, and loved her completely for it.
I don't know how other people go through life sticking to a schedule, filling the hours with work, shopping, cooking, cleaning, and distractions scattered throughout the weeks that slip by unnoticed. I don't know how people maintain. That's not me. I have a different way of doing things, and it has everything to do with recognizing the world around me. That's the life I've chosen.
Ahhh wait...select all...copy...now, preview and post.
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