The Second Person Lesson

I left this till the last minute today. It's 10:48 PM and I'm just now sitting down to write. What's wrong with me?

Nothing, Sam; you're living your life.

I find it strangely soothing to talk to myself in the second person. It's oddly satisfying when I'm being kind. Believe it or not, I'm often not.

Not as kind as my grandmother, anyway. Yesterday, I received a lovely package in the mail from her of two newspaper clippings, one about Steven Spielberg and one about a Santa Rosa high school graduate who just finished making his first independent film. Perhaps this is why I'm suddenly interested in movie-making again. Or, perhaps that's what I really want. At the moment, I can't tell.

I'm terrified. What if I fuck this all up? This being my life.

See, I told you I'm not so kind...


I don't have much to say today. There's no real lesson.

Maybe the lesson is to be kinder to yourself. And I just said that in the second person.

I Think I Want to Make Films...

I think I want to make films.

Eventually, I want to be a writer/improviser/actor version of Steven Spielberg. And I want to execute each facet (writing/improvising/acting) exceptionally well.

I want to create movies, not just direct them.

But what does this mean?! Does this mean I'm doing something wrong? Should I throw my current work of learning exceptional Voice Over, Improv, Acting and Writing away? In any one area, I'm still not yet fantastically enough!

Alright, Sam, let's slow down and ask this: do you, my dearest reader, feel the same? Like, you're not in your early twenties anymore and you're ready to make a change for something greater, a go big or go home sort of game changing switch in your career, but you don't have all the skills or equipment or the exact know how you need to make the next step? What would you do?

Let me simplify it and ask you this instead: would you just trust your vision and continue to keep doing what you're currently doing or would you make bold changes to bring your field of vision into action? Or, better yet, would you combine the last two question into one, trusting your vision while making smaller changes to augment your path?

I think I've just answered my own question.

I'll tell you what: I'm not in a rush anymore (at least, I don't think I am). I'm ready to move at my own pace. I'm ready to walk a little slower and learn things in my own time. I will no longer sacrifice my happiness for an idea because I'm not that young. BUT, and this is a big but, if that idea, along with my action, generates happiness, then I will go after it, in my own time, with minimal fear and abounding love.

In an article about his upcoming film, "Tintin," Spielberg commented that he started making movies because he was depressed. He made a short film, watched it, and felt, suddenly, better. He was happy. But not for long. He quickly became depressed again, so he made another short film. Happiness followed. So he made another and another and another until he became the Steven we know today.

I wouldn't mind copying the heart of that story.

Right now, I'm dealing with a ton of uncertainty in my life. I'm freelancing, yet I feel like I'm doing something monumentally wrong. It's unconventional, dangerous, risky and without the benefits of insurance. That's HUGE. But, if I sit quietly with myself, I know this to be true: I'm happier now that I'm doing work that I love. All of it is still growing and refining and developing, with all the uncertainty that those characteristics entail, but I'm learning to trust that my focused efforts will be worthwhile.

Perhaps, what I'm really doing, is starting to live my life. That's better than any film.

This might be cheesy...

This might be cheesy, but I’m learning that before I do anything else, I have to accept myself.

For instance, I always feel pressed for time when writing these entries. But you don’t mind that, do you? I mean, you wouldn’t even know I felt this way if I didn’t tell you.

But maybe you can see it in my writing. Regardless, whatever your opinions may be, I want you to know: I’m working on changing this.

Change my mind, change my life. That’s what I’m after. 

The only reasons I can think not to do this is because I “shouldn’t”. And that word is inevitably followed by any number of excuses: because it’s not right, it’s not perfect, it’s a waste of time, people will think it’s dumb, because it won’t yield any results, I can’t predict what the results will be, because it’s not customary, right, normal, real, important, good enough, etc.

I think you get my point.

I know I shouldn’t think this way (that word again!), but I can’t just knock it. I’ve tried. I’ve told myself to knock it off, to relax, to stop it and any number of interchangeable phrases, but all of them essentially lead me back to “should” or “shouldn’t”. And then I’m back to square one.

What I’m still learning is this: I have to acknowledge whatever I’m feeling; I have to accept it as me first. I even have to respect my feelings! If I don’t, it’s back to should/shouldn’t. 

I know that’s cheesy, but if you can get to success while living happily and healthily without acceptance, I’d love to know your secret.

Until then, I’m sticking with my cheese.

11/10/11

Sometimes pieces just fall into place. Today was that day.

Needless to say, it was a very good day. A piece of my imagined life—making a living as an actor and an artist—came to me in reality.

Here’s the kicker: most of it occurred without explicit action. Forces beyond my direct will came to my aid. I was Theseus furnished with the yarn necessary to slay the Minotaur.

I had a Voice Over gig in the suburbs that, without the aid of a car, would have been nearly impossible to meet. Yet, this never occurred to me. I presumed that I could easily use the Metra to get to my destination. 

However, still ignorant of the problem, yesterday morning (and only one day before the actual gig in the burbs), my girlfriend insisted I join she and her family for dinner, stay in their Northbrook home (merely a short jaunt by car to my job), and barrow their minivan the next morning.

Incredible. Her whole family came to my aid. The result: today went off without a hitch and I worked as a professional Voice talent.

Today was a very good day.

Here’s another example of the same phenomenon: Over the last few years, I’ve been talking about blogging. Usually, I said this in passing, wishfully and with a subtext of “if only I were so lucky.” Today, my father, a very practical man not known for his wild support of the arts—there’s no money in it, after all—sent me an email lead on credible blogs that pay. 

Incredible still! I didn’t ask for this. He did it of his own accord.

On one hand, and in both cases, I’m a very blessed by someone or something out there. On the other, I attribute this success to a new addition to my life: active positive thinking.

Now, you can picture this way of thinking through the old saying, “if you put your mind to it, you can do anything.” However, by substituting the word “mind” for “imagination”, you move from an object to the object of an object. In other words, mind is a thing, imagination is a result.

If you can imagine it, you can make it happen. It may not occur in the exact same way, but somehow either that picture, or something different yet as good or better, will, along with the how, manifest. I guarantee it.

Just be sure to go with the flow. And, like Joseph Campbell says, “follow your bliss.”

I understand that’s not always easy. I’m really still learning this myself. But, if there’s anything you can learn from me, do it, follow it and see what happens. And you too, can be like Theseus.

Why my Mission Statement helps me Make a better Living

Today, I was Mario (as in Super Mario) and I hated it.

Admittedly, it was my choice to do it and I did it for the cash.

I wasn’t alone. There were 90 bad Halloween-costumed Mario’s in flight mode with a raccoon’s tail and ears roaming Michigan Avenue. It was ridiculous.

There is nothing about this that resembles what I want to be doing with my life—except maybe “entertaining” in the broadest sense of the word. There is nothing about this that shares the qualities of my mission: human interest, play, storytelling, acting or truth. There is nothing about this that I want to do!

However, here the good: in knowing my objective now, I can at least point to the incongruities and, hopefully, avoid such distracting jobs in the future.

What I did today was unnecessarily scramble for some dough out of fear.

This is okay. Sometimes I do things I don’t want to do in order to have cash to eat or live under a good roof.

Yet, more often than not, I’m finding when I “flow my bliss” (Joseph Campbell) the rewards are much more lucrative. 

Tomorrow, I have a Voice Over job that pays, in one hour of work, over three-times more than I made as Mario in four hours of work. Even better, I like what I’m doing!

I don’t have to sell my soul to do something that pays well. I don’t have to sell anything at all.

Is making a living really this simple?

Post Script: one hour in total where I mainly edited out sentences to make a story.

How to Trust that you don’t Need Much and How to go with Precisely Enough

While I accomplished a lot today – booking another agency, a small Voice Over gig, mind-writing and Bikram Yoga – I still don’t feel like I’ve done enough. 

Maybe, then, this should be my new goal: to conquer this fear of lacking, or if not to conquer it, to tame it into a manageable place. Mark Twain said something about courageous not equaling fearless, but rather that courage is continuing to act in spite of what’s treacherous.

So why am I still afraid? I’m continuing to move forward. My actions are being met with success in spite of my doubts. But there’s still this: the uncertainty of freelancing. Essentially, in regards to money, will I make enough?

I read a version of the Theseus myth last night (from Joseph Campbell’s “The Hero with a Thousand Faces”). In the story, Theseus, the hero, arrives to Crete as one of a group of men to be sacrificed to the half-bull half-man monster, the Minotaur. No one has ever survived the Minotaur before. Worse, even if one did somehow beat the odds and slay the beast, the monster resides in a maze so dangerous, there’s no getting out. It was built without a map.

Now, as he’s walking down the gangway of the boat, the daughter of the king sees him and falls deeply in love. Knowing that his life is hanging by the thinnest of threads, she summons the man responsible for creating the maze. She begs him for help. Unfortunately, the maze was so complex when the creator finished it, he nearly didn’t get out himself.  Without anything like a compass or markers to offer, he, instead, comes up with an incredibly simple gift: a ball of yarn.

Upon entering the labyrinth, Theseus ties the yarn to the doorway. Unwinding it to the center of the maze, he slays the Minotaur and follows the thread back out to life again.

While he didn’t have much, he had precisely enough.

Maybe it’s time to trust that my own thread will get me into the heart of the cave and out again. Either that, or maybe it’s time to go after my own yarn.

Post Script: Nearly an hour in total. Maybe I should change my guidelines. This seems more manageable. Even when I aim for less editing, I still end up doing more.

Then again, I love the restriction. I never worry that this is going to take my long because  I only set out to sit for 30 minutes, no more.

11/7

I am very strict with myself. I work terribly hard to get things done.

So in response to this knowledge, I’ve been focusing on developing plans and setting goals in order to operate from a place of relaxation, freedom and ease. I feel like I’m beginning a transitional period in my life and everyone I speak to about this reaffirms my feelings. They say, “You’re 26? Ah, yes, well…that’s when life starts changing.”

I can feel the change coming, but I don’t know exactly what it is. I’m circling around my purpose and GOD BELIEVE ME I want to tack it down. I’ve often thought of myself as someone with a clearer purpose than most, but then, whenever I’m asked what is my goal, I often respond with something like, “Well, I’m an actor sort-of—I mean, I went to school for it—and I’m doing some theatre and a little improve…and I write…and well, I like movies but…I don’t know, I’m in a sketch comedy show right now and that’s fun, but not everything I hoped it would be and there’s maybe, well, another sorta film I might be doing but I’m not sure yet cuz I’m kinda sorta in this place of trying to figure out what’s next, ya know?”

And then, just as Bryan Cohen, friend and author of the book “The Post-College Guide to Happiness,” put it, my audience is passed out on the floor from boredom. With an answer like that, I cannot blame them.

Thanks to the help of Bryan’s book, I’ve strengthened and rearticulated my purpose. So the next time someone asks me, “So, what do you do?” or, “What’s your Goal?” I can confidently say something like:

“Well, my purpose is to play, act, love, and develop deeply meaningful experiences that change and free the world.”

It’s a bit lofty. And it’s also a bit vague, but for the time being, this is deliberate. It’s easy to get bogged down by a title, letting it dictate the course of decisions without real consideration of my true values. Like, by saying I’m an actor, I box myself it to a category of perceived actions that may or may not be accurate. As a result, I exhaust myself without my desired level of achievement.

Play is super important to me. It’s always been a large part of my life. However, it easily slips away through the palpable power of work, a product of my staunch middle class upbringing. If you’re not working you’re being lazy, wasteful, or even dangerous. However, if you make play work, it’s ceases to be both and strictly becomes the latter.

“Deeply meaningful experience” is an object that is beginning to sit right with me. I’ve always been a Jack-of-all-trades kind of person, loving the many different types of storytelling equally. However, I feel like I’ve been trying to force myself into a storefront theatre box when my ambitions are really wider and multifaceted.

I think what I’m about to do is to create a better platform for myself. This is what is meant by deeply meaningful experiences: that I’m opening myself up to the endless possibilities of my love. That’s why I like that phrasing.

Post Script: 20 minutes of writing and a once-through 30 minute sweep of editing.