As a dreamer or visionary I can lose myself a lot of the times. I can find myself stretching so far for a dream while missing what is right in front of me. I can elevate myself with visions so high in space that I lose connection to the earth beneath my toes. This never lasts long however, and eventually I come crashing down to reality in beautifully humbling moments.

I am constantly reminded that this life, this gift, that I have and that we all have and is unique to each individual, is not just for or about us, but for things much greater than ourselves. Ultimately it is for others. I’ve always wanted to be a hermit and hide among the stars or in an isolated environment but realize that we are a communal species. Our strength is always as a community and we each have within us something to give and contribute.

These dreams and desires that we have are not meant for us alone but to be expressed and shared. Whether it’s to affect a single individual or a mass of millions of people, it is the same worth. The world might put more value with money, fame, and glory, on those that are more popular or reach more individuals but it would be a mistake to focus solely on that. Whether we are here to touch billions, millions, hundreds, or even to touch just one – there is no difference in greatness between them.

Our worth is not defined by what the world gives us back for our gifts. Our worth as individuals is the same regardless of that. We only lose site of each other and thus ourselves when we try to compare each others’ worth in such manners. It’s futile and self-destructive. How great we are as individuals. How great we are when we come together. How great the opportunity to change and affect even just one life. That’s a responsibility in it of itself that is regal.

Who then are we to judge our art? Who are we to self-criticize and hold back what we have because of ourselves? If what we have, no matter how small or seemingly insignificant, can affect someone, even just one individual out there, then we have a responsibility to share it. With this in mind each day I strive to perfect my craft. Not so that I can achieve critical acclaim, awards, or money, but because there is a gift inside of me that I cannot and will not hide anymore.

It’s been awhile since I’ve wrote here. I feel like I’ve been writing a lot lately, obviously for other projects and things, and I love it. I was reading The Dreamer Examines His Pillow and I loved what John Patrick Shanley wrote in the forward, “writing is acting.”

My acting coach told me there was a writer inside me. I didn’t know at that time what to make of that comment. I mean I had been writing stuff since high school. I loved stream of consciousness writing. It was catatonic in its own way and there was no judgement from myself on my writing in that form. I just wrote.

I tried and did write some stories for friends over the years. They enjoyed them but the stories were never any good but still I wrote. After my coach’s comment sunk in I did what I usually always did and rebelled. I first disagreed with her assertion that I was a writer and then was appalled at the thought that maybe she’s telling me I need to be a writer and not an actor.

I hated that thought as I wanted to act, not write. Of course with all things I settle down eventually and come to reason and understanding. I realized that my coach was saying the same thing as Shanley. She told me that as I grow in my acting I will grow in my writing and vice verse. That, echoed with Shanley’s statement that “writing is acting,” has truly set me free to combine into a single passion this craft of acting and writing.

Acting will most likely always be my primary focus and love but writing is something so much more personal to me. I still don’t feel my writing is any good but I’m also comparing myself to long established writers such as Shanley and I know I shouldn’t do that. It’s the same thing with my acting, I do it there too. So for now I’m trying not to do that and enjoy where I am in both acting and writing, working on them both, and growing in them both. So that in time, maybe one day, I will be among the greats. Or rather more simply, better than I am today, and still working on being better for tomorrow.

When you have confidence, you can have a lot of fun. And when you have fun, you can do amazing things.
– Joe Namath

I am beginning to better understand and appreciate the focus on relaxation by Strasberg and the focus on self-confidence in the actor by Meisner. After one week of rehearsals in a new play and one rehearsal for a new scene I’m working on I felt out of my element. I went home wondering if acting is for me and lamenting over the fact that I am just not a very good actor. It is amusingly frustrating how these insecurities of ours keep coming back.

After a few beers with a friend and colleague and sleeping the insecure feelings off I awoke to meditate on why this first week and rehearsal were so abysmal. I had worked for a year and a half on my artistic process and craft and had achieved many triumphs in which I had developed a confidence in myself as an actor. I had just begun to love being in front of people working my craft than alone or with my sole scene partner. So why was this past week a shot to my confidence and a step backwards?

It came down to pressure and stepping out into a new realm. This is the first production I’ve done since I was in a sixth grade production of The Sound of Music. Everything was new and I was out of my element, unsure of how to work outside of my guided classes. There was also pressure with wanting this first production to be perfect. I put it on a pedestal and set my sights purely on results. The same was true, I realized, for this scene work I’m doing. I was focused purely on results.

This new place and group of people for the production was a test to my confidence. I was shaken because everything was new and I was very unsure of how to proceed with a lot of things. But the overwhelming enemy was results based thinking. Looking back I could see how that encompassed my entire thought process and outlook on this production and scene. This caused my body to become tense. Which in turn that tension was what played through in my rehearsals, not allowing me to truly work my craft. That, in turn, allowed doubt to creep up and affect my self-confidence, which when mixed with this results based thinking only caused me to tense up more. A viscous cycle began on day one that culminated in a complete artistic breakdown by the end of the week. I couldn’t act because I was too tense to just be anything but tension and worry.

We have a saying in martial arts that in order to strike harder and faster one must relax more. Tension in the movement of a strike constricts the muscles and slows down and weakens the final strike. The same is true with acting albeit in a different way. Tension covers up any other acting by the actor and becomes the only visible thing to the audience. Tension is what plays, as my coach would say. You cannot “just be” when you are tense.

Which is why I think Strasberg felt relaxation was so powerful and vital to the actor. When we as actors are relaxed we can let out all the subtleties of our character and in short can “just be”. As well self-confidence is huge, as Meisner puts, for if we are confident in ourselves and our abilities we can be relaxed. Which, as I stated before, allows us to move into our craft unobstructed by tension. Self-confidence also helps us with moving into new productions and different environments. Our process of the craft and the work that needs to be done doesn’t change just the environment. If we can enter into each new work and new environment with confidence, we can be relaxed, and when we are relaxed we can then begin to act!

When a scene ends it’s always a little hard to let go. Especially a scene where you’ve truly grown in, sunk your teeth into the work, and started to truly merge that character with yourself. You’re leaving a little bit of yourself behind as you continue to move forward into a different character.

You’re also leaving behind a partner and another character they’ve grown to inhabit. A journey ends with someone where you both have struggled, failed, and rejoiced together many times over. I can’t help but feel like I’m leaving a little bit of myself behind; someone I’ve grown to love in all their faults and wonders. Someone in who I have opened the floodgates to certain truths and vulnerabilities inside for an audience to see. It’s like saying goodbye to an old friend, and I was never one who was good at saying goodbyes. I hope we see each other again sometime soon.

Yet, onward we must move into a new piece and character. While it might be hard to say goodbye, I really do love this aspect of the work too. I love it because it keeps things changing. This hunger for this craft grows in me with every new scene and character I get to take on. It’s a new challenge and opportunity to take everything I have learned and built upon in the past and put into this new creation. Another piece of my heart and soul gets to be stretched and infused in this character and more vulnerabilities are pressed to come to the surface.

It’s the true beauty of our art in my eyes. Each character becomes a new canvas to paint on with the colors of our soul. Every new character is a new experience of growth, like a hermit crab slowly moving into larger and larger shells. In that same vain though our progress can permeate backwards into our older characters as we step back into their skin and stretch it out with more experiences, work, and soulful color. So in a way we never truly say goodbye. Our work is ever moving forward and as such our characters are ever growing with us.

This goodbye then is rather temporary. A reprieve to continue growing as an artist and when the time comes to once again step into the life of File there will be more to fill it. So do not fret my friend, I will never truly say goodbye to you. For even if I wanted to how could I? You have become me and I have become you.

Why are we so hesitant to drag out of us, from deep within, this connection to our work? Why must I force someone else to draw out greatness from within me? I feel it’s a childish rebellion I put on. Is this an ugly side of ego which makes one work for the greatness within and if one isn’t willing to work for it, or draw it out, then they aren’t worthy to behold it? Very childish indeed. Or rather, am I still stuck in this classic rut where I cannot believe in myself unless another believes in me? That I cannot see the greatness within until someone else sees it for me and makes me believe.

I feel it is definitely the latter type of fault. A deep craving of validation yearns inside this darkened soul that has been so rife with self-deprecating nature. Yet I know, that until I can truly believe in myself, and that greatness within, that I will be nothing in my work. Others can realize it, see it, even few can pull it out, but if I cannot do that in it of myself than I am nothing. Then I would simply be a puppet with strings to a master who could wonderfully wield me or tear me down to the worst of forms.

The worst is I can feel it too. I can feel right when the performance starts that I am hidden inside, undiscovered, not wanting to come out to play. I must figure out why this happens. I must tear apart these insecurities and worthless derogatory forms that I have developed in myself. I must begin to see myself in a new light. It would be more ego and more harmful to hide behind this veneer of humility, hiding what is inside, then to accept what and who I am and let all that out to play.

I have an amazing coach who sees the full extent of potential inside each of her pupils. Yet, I will not have her there to always pull out what is within me, and neither should I rely on that, or be content with that. For no one can truly know the extent of who you are devoid of all your experiences and subconscious workings. We must realize the potential within ourselves and seek relentlessly to pour that forth, unabashed, and unashamed. The stage demands nothing less. We must all begin to see ourselves in new shades of light. Taking in the good with the bad and all the variations in between. We are human, we are faulty, and we are beautiful!