I have become so frustrated with myself: with my acting training. There are times when I have fun but most of the time as of late it has been anything but exuberance. I feel as though I’ve lost the joy of acting. Most of my time is spent trying to push through, to not shut down, to not beat myself into a pulp. It seems like every night I am picking myself up from off the floor and with each time I get up slower and slower, more bruised and battered. It’s exhausting.
There are a myriad of things causing this—and to be honest I don’t care too much to try and navigate through them all. I have no motivation to reach some grand breakthrough. I have hit the wall that I have hit all my life. So what follows: defiance, rebellion, and all the ugly shades of myself I hide away. In the end though I just want to play. I just want to find the joy of being at the beginning all over again. I want to go back to that wide-eyed boy that came in soaking wet out from the rain, knowing no one, and wanting to just simply act.
I believe I can and I believe I will. I’m so tired of my own ego getting in the way—thinking I’m some “veteran” in these classes, like I know anything. We have peaks and we have valleys and currently I am in a valley and I have to admit that I am OK with that. Will I be here forever, no. Will I grow to a new peak and hit another plateau and go through this cycle all over again, yes. Through it all though my goal is to always remain this wondrous awe-struck child. I’m tired of letting my pain, my ego, my self-hatred and loathing, keep me from what I love.
I love being a child, I love getting messy. I yearn to get up and play with no concept of right or wrong—just pure joyous freedom. There is no one stopping me from that but myself and so it’s time to let that go: to shed away that holding. I have made my acting training too personal. A child may get sad, hurt, and upset, but in the very next instant they are laughing and playing again. There is no time for self-pity and mutilation.
Deep down through the muddled darkness of my soul I have found my inner-child once again. Now it is time to let him out to play again. To see this world and craft we hold dear in all its awe-struck wonder. May I always peer through the eyes of a child in my acting.