Fight The Dawn
An Abstract Legacy

Author: Tyler Boettcher

Ramblings

There Is No Meaning

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I hate myself, but find these empty words more repugnant

A silver lit face glitters in the shadows; a secret kept so expertly it has all but been forgotten. The sun creeps up to steal the shadows away, looking to expose their villainous enterprises and burn their plights down into fine grains of sand. His feet dig ever so slightly into the graveyards of hearts saturated in blackness. Fragments of ambition cut shallowly into his skin as he absorbs their expired deeds.

Snuff the wick of this dear heart or suffer the burden of its pain

A shadow is still cast by the man as he peers out upon the landscape of the world; his domain. The sun beats across his skin warping the curves and folds of war worn hide. Energized light battles to break through to the last shadow remaining but the guardian stands breathing in the tainted air around him.

There can be no chalk outline for that which was never alive

Black veins creep up ever so slightly to find their way to the promise land of emptiness. As the blackness grows the shallow cuts open up to deeper wounds. Blood pours forth freely engulfing the blackened sand around the man. Rivers and tributaries of blood as black as the night frantically stream forth. Crystallized dreams break down and sprout forth veins like vines that slowly twist and turn, gnarling their way back towards the source of this river.

Freedom comes in many forms and for me it’s the release of this body

Greeting the sinking man they twist and tighten around his limbs growing in strength and vile. Splitting and fracturing they spawn forth new growths that all immediately drive forward into the man, staking their claim and share of the blood. His face disappearing beneath a sea of jet black veins like hair he is pulled down further and further into the abyssal sand.

Let me sink to the bottom of the confines of my soul

As the man slips beneath the gooey void the silver lit face takes control, shining brightly forth in full match of the sun. With no shadow to protect its glistening smirk the sun attacks with a full bout of radiance. The silver lit face smiles deeply as it matches the brilliance of the sun. Darkened vines burst forth with great speed stretching out like great anchors towards the sun. With great power they strike forth and berate the benevolent glare of the sun. As they infect and dampen the glow of the sun the silver lit face’s smile broadens.

Hope is the greatest lie told by man

As quickly as the battle begun the sun is extinguished and all turns to black. Darkness consumes all. Time ceases to exist. The void is infinite. Lost among the void is the smallest spark; too fragile to behold. After eternity a brief flash of light is ignited and with great fury, pours forth, feeding off all the darkness. A supernova ensues to crush and blind the abyssal void that has taken over. The silver-lit face is dispatched, burned out of existence, and all that remains is a golden hue.

Acting, Truth

Chains of Ego

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True self-confidence never needs to degrade the confidence of others in order to grow and survive. If it does, it’s not confidence at all. . .it’s ego.
– Charles F. Glassman

There is a monster inside me waiting to devour those I lay eyes on. It seeks out to find those that are weak and punish them, consuming them in raw fire; taking their energy to feed its ugly endeavors. For those that are stronger it lays patiently dormant, waiting for the exact moment when they fail or grow weak. On that note it discordantly strikes and greedily feeds on the poor misfortune of that once kingly soul.

In any achievement or acclaim it feigns humility in reverential bows considering itself low while it sits with its nose on high looking down at the world. In hardships and failures it disappears into the shadows waiting to strike on the misfortunes of others to rise again; a King sitting on his throne elevated to his status by the bodies which he has devoured to get there. It is jealous of its own endeavors and envious of other’s successes. It can never be contented and is always famished, needing to feed on the misfortune of others.

People ask me why I have a hard time taking compliments and it’s because I am scared that this ugly mangy wolf will come out from hiding. I have been so scared of my own ego that I have killed all ambition lest it grow to feed it. So anytime success becomes a reality, anytime dreams seem to be within grasp, I self-sabotage for the sake of ego. I was a runner because of ego.

If another gets an audition over me how will I react?
Will I paste a fake smile on my face and offer half-hearted congratulations while stabbing them in the back with my talk of them later?

If I find another is going for the same audition will I hold back from auditioning as well?
Will I self-sabotage myself to save face lest I lose out or feign benevolence for not taking a risk to fail? Is self-sabotage anything but fuel to the fire of ego?

What a coward I have been. I act so low in feigning ignorance of keeping my ego at bay, yet while I cower it is only my ego I am feeding. Through not addressing it I am enslaving myself to its hidden desires. For it is ego to sit lower than where you are – thinking you are truly higher – as well as to be higher than where you are. Instead will I bravely sit exactly where I am?

Self-confidence is the true counter-part to ego. Achievements, acclaim, and compliments do not need to be dodged for ego’s sake but accepted for self-confidence’s sake. For as self-confidence grows the ego will be beaten back. In being confident with who and where I am I can truly admire and make soar those that rise above me, as well as lift and pull up those that are below me. The measure of a man is not found solely in his ambitions and desires but how he treats others. For what is it worth to gain the world’s possessions and fame and lose my own soul.

Nothing I can dream of for myself is worth more than the enjoyment of sharing with others. The elation in collaborating with others. The delectation of watching others succeed and prosper. The gratification of watching or helping one to rise higher than where they were yesterday. My coach has given up so much to see the future of this craft progress forward in her actors she has brought up. She has struggled with her own ambition, yet all I see is a 10 plus year program of empowered talent that is unstoppable. There is something worth more than its weight in gold of Oscars or fame.

If there is anyone who exudes self-confidence and has rooted out her own ego it is her. For now I might struggle, but one day I will win out, and every day I currently do it grows weaker. Every day I stand taller and confident in my own skin and ability is a break in the chain of the slave master of ego.

 

Dreams

Truth In The Eyes

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I dreamt that I was in a movie about a future dystopian world that was run by warlords. These warlords ran great empires by use of machines to enslave the masses and propagate their will and desires. It was all an allegory to method acting. Patsy Rodenburg was the heroine in this movie, who was also the main assassin and bounty hunter for one of the warlords. She had found and retrieved a defector, myself, and brought me back before the warlord to stand judgement. I was mercifully forgive and spared by the warlord, who of course was played by a well known method actor, because he dreamed of a different future for this world. One where warlords didn’t run great empire by use of machines, but rather the people could all be enlightened and contribute themselves. I was tasked to be under the tutelage of Patsy Rodenburg to help realize this dream.

Shifting, I was now apart of a team that dealt with artificial intelligence. It was the future and AI had progressed far beyond the point that humans envisioned. There were growing reports that some had become sentient. My team was a task force to root out these supposed new creations and shut them down. We were dispatched on this one raid to find an AI that had been reported to go against its self-preservation code to never endanger another human. It was reported that it had killed humans to protect another robot it had developed feelings for, another malfunction in its core systems. My partner, who was also my wife, and I tracked this robot team down. A battle ensued and it went after my partner. In saving my wife’s life I took down this robot and before shutting down he looked in my eyes, “You see, you’ve done the same as me. Am I not you?”

Shifting again, I awoke in my dream, to myself standing in front of the mirror. I had grey hair peppered throughout and an undeniable feeling inside that I was old. I did not seem older as my mind still felt young, but it seemed like my body had betrayed me. I was confused and partially saddened, asking myself, where did my youth go? I still feel young inside. Why must my body wither while the mind stays sharp? There was a small feeling of happiness though. A small budding feeling that I had become more sagely and wise.

Acting

Onward Vanguard

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Last night was the last night for a dear friend of mine. A send off night as he departs for LA to pursue professionally this craft we all take part in. I’m not always one for being sentimental but on occasions such as these I cannot help but be. This man was a great inspiration, friend, colleague, artist, mentor, and so much more to me.

When I came into acting nearly 2 years ago this man was already considered a veteran to newbie actors such as myself. He was a force to be reckoned with and filled whatever room he entered with his aura and charm. He commanded respect and was gentle and warm to new actors who stuck it through. He was all these things and still is.

He can make you laugh on the saddest days and he can move you to tears with his performances. He can talk your ear off endlessly. My greatest regret is that I never had the great privilege to work with him on a scene in method class. Although I am very blessed to have witnessed his work and artistic growth these past years. A conciliation prize that is more than I could have asked for.

I’ve watched him struggle and I’ve seen him push past barriers. There is a brotherhood formed between fellow actors who go through such a training. It is a personal window and connection into one’s soul that even family members don’t often get to see. I am thankful to him for all his work, all his bravado, courage, failures, triumphs, and perseverance through it all. He is an inspiration.

He will be sorely missed and a gap is felt. Those of us that are left must rise to what is leaving. This art is not beholden to any one person but humanity as a whole. New energy will have to rise out of the remnants and we will move on to continue this birthing of artistic beings. Anthony, my friend, you go forth as the Vanguard. Courageously leading the charge into the frontier. Others have gone before you but for me you are the Vanguard. I hope to see you on the front lines soon brother.

May we always revel in our art Anthony – best of luck in everything you do and achieve!

Dreams

Well Worn Traveler

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I dreamt that I was an investigator, a young and naive investigator. The type who is out to prove something and believes they can truly make a difference. An investigator who hasn’t been jaded or humbled by the true atrocities of what people can do to each other. I still believed I was invincible and that the old generation and way of thinking was absolute and needed a fresh new look.

I was partnered with an older investigator. One who was wise and grounded from all that they had seen. A veteran who knew the atrocities that we as humans could inflict on each other, who had seen it first hand time and time again. A person who knew the cruel mistress of defeat, and had watched the guilty party get away time and time again because of some bureaucratic red tape debacle. A resilient figure who had picked himself up countless times and set one foot in front of the other to continue on towards justice. Never one to give in to shortcuts or selling one’s soul for a bust, but an artifact that stayed true. Who’s integrity was more than worth its weight in gold.

I was on a case with this archaic partner, a remnant from a harsher time, and we had followed a lead to an abandoned house. We set up shop there, staying close by. One night I stayed around to take a more in depth look into one of the rooms we were examining in this house. This room was covered with mirrors at varying angles to disorient and confound the mind. I was sure there was a clue in this room when all of a sudden a smoky figure and voice presented itself to me.

It knew what I was doing in this house and who I was looking for. He told me that he had the answer and would be willing to share and assist me in this. In exchange all he wanted from me was to make a pact that would bind us together. I would be the best detective this world had ever seen and in exchange he would simply be released from the confines of these mirrors. I told him that I would have to think it over.

I spoke with my partner the next day, noticing a twitch along the crease of his eye when I mentioned this smoky figure. He told me sternly not to mess with the like. He knew them and nothing good would come from it. We didn’t need his help in finding this murderer and he had come across some evidence that might be the break we need.

I shrugged off the thought of the smoky figure initially, but when my partner’s lead became garbage and things were looking dim, I forced my hand. I entered that room and made a pact. The lights grew dim and the room went dark. I exited and had my answer, I was on the path to becoming the greatest detective this world had ever known.

I went to my partner with my findings. He knew. He explained that this was not what I thought it was going to be. I had unleashed a dark and terrible being. I could go down this path but I would turn into the man I was currently hunting. I had an option, become the villain I so desperately wanted to capture, or let it all go.  Letting go of this notion of being the greatest detective of all time as well as the idea that we were going to capture this man. If I let this go would I end up like my partner? Wasn’t this the something new and different I was setting out for anyways?

In the end I decided to let it all go. I walked back up to that mirrored room and told the smoky figure that the pact was off. I renounced him. The smoke came first, filling the whole room. Shortly followed the screams, thousands of them, howling and piercing through my hands covering my ears. As they grew to a crescendo the mirrors in the room burst forth and shattered into a million pieces. My partner came in and saved me in the nick of time as we made our desperate escape.

I found myself covered in dust and with blood dripping out of my ears traveling down a worn out road with my Partner by my side. I might not be the greatest detective now but whatever I do become I will be a true detective. My focus now is the task at hand. What tomorrow brings I do not know, but it is no matter to me, for today is enough to worry about.

Ramblings, Truth

Waves of Entropy

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One of my favorite things to do, which I unfortunately don’t get to do anymore, is to sit on the beach and watch the waves crash endlessly against the shore. A hard fought battle that has raged long before any of us were born and will continue to rage long after we are gone. This slow, methodical, and relentless assault is mesmerizing to me in contrast to this fast, busied, and fleeting lifestyle we humans have created for ourselves.

I wonder if the waves and grains of the sand view us like we view humming birds. These deftly flying birds that float whimsically through the air beating their wings at around 60 beats per second and live for a span of simply 5 years. Or what about the monarch butterfly which only lives two to six weeks? A month’s time to live out a life here. A blip in the memory of these waves; a small but brilliantly spark to these grains of sand.

Death and taxes are the two guaranteed things in a human’s life but I would add that one can never escape change. It’s all around us, affecting our lives whether we are privy to it or not. It’s in the very building blocks of creation, entropy, the gradual decay of order into chaos. The waves break down the sandy bluffs. No matter how strong they seem, they will still always erode. The waves themselves, these agents of entropy, will eventually cease as the oceans go still and even the oceans and the Earth as a whole will eventually dissipate.

Yet we progress forward in our short lives constructing order out of chaos with great fervor. Order that will all eventually be consumed by these waves crashing against this earthen bank. Sitting there face to face with my lovely foe I pensively watch the world go by through the peripherals of my soul. In this moment I feel above and apart, a lost sailor at the mercy of the waves. Watching others flicker in and out. Seeing their accolades rot and erode in this stormy breach, I search for what it is all worth.

Yet, while I breathe I will build my monuments. I will ride the faces of these crashing waves, using your destructive and chaotic power for a brief moment of order. All the while knowing that when I am gone you will wipe away all my monuments, all my accomplishments. That all my establishments and legacies will churn into foam and be sucked away into the blue oblivion. That all memory of me will one day cease to exist.

Yet today, today dear waves, I still do yet draw breath and with all that I am I will live. For there is beauty in order, beauty in creation, beauty in life. Even if this life is a mere flash of lightning in relativity to the eye of the cosmos it will be the brightest flash that the universe will ever witness. For to live any less is not to live at all.

Sonnets

À La Douce Mémoire

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I wake each morning to the smell of you.
Small hints of Lavender do greet my nose,
As sweet melodies in my ear ring true;
A view to behold of my sweetest rose.

I feel the warmth flow from your hand to mine,
And taste your skin with every kiss I find.
Each loving caress cause hairs to incline,
Electrifying passion as hips grind.

Lost deeply in those eyes for all of time
Unable to escape all I can see;
A slow fall down the depths of beauty’s clyme
In search for that which was taken from me.

This memory is all that I recall
For with you gone, life has become banal.

Sonnets

Curse & Blessing

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The words that drip from the tip of your pen
Do haunt dreams of that which pass through my mind.
Still restless in your grave to plague us men,
Tormenting me to lash out most unkind.

The flavor in your words contain such weight
Such that my tongue is confused with all speech,
And in my mind I suffer sim’lar fate,
And do curse all those who in your name teach.

I struggle endlessly to find escape
from machinations formed in your name;
Such genius I read with my mouth agape
with every letter perfectly in frame.

Yet cursing you is futile exercise
For without, I would not one word devise.

Acting

The Well Within Us

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There are moments which mark your life. Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same and time is divided into two parts, before this, and after this…
– John Hobbes (Fallen)

For me that was yesterday, when I truly decided to give into all that I am as an artist. To give everything I have, every bit of who I am, to this craft and journey. To finally grow up and face the music.

It started with a conversation and a realization about myself. I had always claimed that I’m an all in or all out type of guy. Yet that is not entirely true. I like to always keep 1-9% in reserves. That way should I fail I can always fall back on the thought that well I didn’t really give it my all. So I can cowardly walk away with the notion that well if I really would have given it my all then I would have made it. I delude myself into accepting failure when in truth I never really failed because I never dared to risk it all.

After the conversation I realized there were only two paths now left to take. I could continue my road of accepting an idealized view of failure and move on to something else, or I could actually dare to give every bit of myself towards my passion of this craft. It was a test of my self-proclaimed passion. There were no other paths to continue on, as the truth was revealed to myself and my coach. It was decision time and truthfully I battled that decision for the hours leading up to when I went up on stage to do my work for class last night.

In my first run through I struggled. I was still battling the instinct to hold back. Luckily my coach is very adept and could see this and had me go through a second time and take my time after each beat. It was exactly what I needed. I struggled through each line and in the breaks of the beats it wasn’t just my character who was struggling to find the words, struggling to articulate and win this battle raging inside of him, but it was me as well. With every word I was putting everything of who I am on the line.

I wanted to hold back. I wanted to shut down. I wanted to not bring everything of my past, of who I am, of all my experiences good and bad, into this piece. I took my time and fought through it all. I fought through all my bullshit, all my debilitating ego, and in the end I touched something. I dug into the beginning of my well; I scratched the surface of my imagination. Through the clearing of all my own self I found that I was not empty inside, but filled with artistic creativity. There was an artist deep inside.

It was just waiting for me to uncover it, to access it and let it come and play. I have a much greater understanding now for what Stella Adler uncovered in her meeting with Stanislavski in Paris. It’s not that we shouldn’t start with ourselves and our own experiences but we cannot stop there. On certain days our own experience might feed us, while on other days it might completely abandon us. Still further, it can only provide so much.

After I finished my piece my coach told me that that was just the beginning. It was a great step forward, but now there is no going back. Now I have to ask more, to dig deeper. At first I could not comprehend how this was possible. After reflection and seeing what it was I uncovered, this well of imagination that I had kept from my work, this is of course just the beginning.

It’s the beginning for the artist inside of me, the 1-9% of myself that I have kept out of my work. In truth it is the most vital part of me in my work. There is no limit to where I could go, where any artist can go with digging into his well. Our soul is infinite and alive, and if we are brave enough to expose it to the depths we dare, there is no limit to what we can achieve in our art. The only thing holding us back is ourselves.

With this realization I have reached a turning point in my work. There is no going back, and there is no more holding back. This well is exposed now and I choose to dive head first into it and explore the infinite possibilities it contains. The hard work isn’t over, no, rather it has just begun. Anything less than last night is unacceptable. One can only move forward from here.

It does help to have amazing artistic friends and colleagues who understand and share in this struggle. So to all of you I say thank you. I would not be where I am today without your work, courage, and inspirations. You all deeply humble me.

There is a deep well of life in our imagination which stretches to depths immeasurable.

Acting

Farewell My Few Good Men

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There are certain rare moments in life where you are experiencing something so great, and are fully realizing it in the moment. Last night was one of those moments, the last and final show to A Few Good Men; my first production and play ever. These moments are absolutely brilliant and extraordinary, the things which dreams are made of. They are so precious, twinklings of stars, there for a moment and then gone forever. I have been incredibly blessed to be a part of something so great.

The greater these moments the harder it is when they are gone, but that is the truth and beauty of our art. We capture and encompass those fleeting moments in life, holding up a mirror to nature, and they can only exist for that brief estimate of time. Their brevity and intensity is what makes them so valuable. So while I am doleful that it has all come to an end, I am so ecstatic with what was achieved. We created art, together in a collaborative fashion. Not with an individual battle of egos but a coalescence of egos to create something bigger than ourselves or anything we could do alone.

It wasn’t presented on a grand Broadway stage in front of 500 plus people, but in a humble building that was originally built for a different purpose. It wasn’t enjoyed by artistic elites or global names but local friends and families, old and young, those new to art and those well involved in art. For art is not a mistress of vanity even though it might seem that way. She is inside us all, waiting for us to be brave and bold enough to show it. I am truly humbled by the art of my peers in this show.

And while that art is done, with only the memories to play on, these new relationships will continue on. As well there will always be more art in the future. May we never cease to be brave and bold. I have to thank everyone who was involved, from those of my fellow actors in the lights, to the glorious crew out in the shadows. I have learned so much from all of you and this was the best first production I could have ever asked for, with the best group of people I could ever imagine. And of course to a Director who took a chance on a new face allowing me to grow to a new occasion and level.

As always I am terrible with goodbyes. So I don’t write goodbye but so long. May there always be great art pouring forth from within ourselves and may these friendships and connections never die.