The Forge

"Live! I want to live inspired. Die! I want to die for something higher than myself, live and die for anyone else. The more i live i see--Live! I want to live on fire. Die! I want to burn out brighter, brighter than the Northern Lights, want to live to feel the daylight. The more i live, the more i see this life's not about me..."

~anberlin "Burn Out Bright"

Three scenes went up on Tuesday, and mine was the first. The professor held all feedback until the end. Then all of the performers and student directors sat down together to receive said feedback, and mine was first.

After a few accolades and comments, one of the directors spoke up, to the effect of the following:

"I feel like you're focusing on the audience response to you. It was really subtle, but it felt like you were registering our response and mentally trying to apply it to the performance. It was only at certain times, but it felt like you weren't completely in the scene." Another director agreed. "Sometimes you make these quick glances at the audience." The professor added her voice "I noticed that too, but i don't even think you're aware that you're doing it. It's subconscious."

The same professor who had previously pointed out photography as my major acting flaw returned to the subject when she said "You're soooo close. That's our one goal with you for this class, is to get you to stop being the cameraman, and get into the scene. Stop. Just stop it. Stop it."

I thought about this response for a good long while afterward, partly because i knew the improvement of my acting ability depended on my ability to follow the advice, and partly because i felt a certain hopelessness in ever fully abolishing such a deep subconscious part of myself. I wasn't sure why, but something in me said, well, dammit, i don't care. It's a part of me for a reason, and the last thing i'm going to do is perform surgery on my psyche for a grade.

Such a harsh response needed justification--real justification, something i could stand behind with full attention to ethos, and say this is who i am, and this is why i can't change. Having never owned a video camera in my life, and having only recently taken to photography as a hobby, i knew that this "problem" ran deeper.

My "problem," as defined by the directors, is that, unlike most people, i pay too much attention to myself and my surroundings. Not in a pretentious way--i do not necessarily assume people ought to be focusing on what i'm doing--but simply in an observant, third person way. Every action executed in such a way that a proverbial video camera would never catch me slipping up. That i do this is not the question, but rather why?

And then it dawned on me. I write.

I'm a writer. And what's more, i'm a writer of nonfiction. I do not write fantasy. I do not write action. I do not write romantic comedies. I write life. Specifically, i write my life.

I came to this college to learn how to write better. And perhaps i'll also learn to write differently. Perhaps i'll leave with a romantic comedy in my portfolio, or inspired to create the next Harry Potter series. In the meantime, my future seems to be stuck in the realm of the real. And since i am not privy to living the lives of other people, i am forced to draw from my own for source material. The minute i stop paying attention to what i and those around me are doing is the minute i lose my ability to write anything engaging, because i will have to depend on estimations of life rather than actual examples.

I will not--no, cannot--surrender this part of me. It is so deeply who i am that parting with it is not a goal i can conceivably allow myself to set. If that means that i never truly become an actor, that's something i can deal with. I'll have to deal with it.

So then, I enjoy acting, but i am not an actor.
I welcome the prospect of learning lighting and sound, but i will never become a professional technician.
I love music, but have neither been trained to sing nor play an instrument, and the opportunity to make a living from either is a ship that has long since sailed.
I love photography, and can definitely see it is an avocation, but i cannot stand being permanently relegated to a position behind the lens.
As i said, i am not a pessimist, but i am a realist. Whether i sound like i'm selling myself short or not, this is (save divine intervention) how things are going to pan out.

Which leaves me with writing. I enjoy writing, and have been told i am reasonably good at doing it. It is, as the saying goes, "what i do."

Michael Jordan plays ball. Charles Manson kills people. Nick Naylor talks. I write.

I've come to grips with what this means for my acting. But when advice i get from an acting professor becomes increasingly parallel to the advice i get from a friend about dealing with social issues, i am thrown off-guard. I can forego a career in acting, but i cannot in good conscience embrace a career in friendlessness. Doing so is to inherit the world at the forefeit of my soul.

As a friend recently put it: "friendship is about the other person. So whether they like me at that moment or not almost really doesn't matter. What matters is that I care for them. I just do. Unconditionally. Well, that's the way it should be anyway."

I don't really know how i'm going to reconcile my dependence on self-reflection with my need for selflessness, but i know such a reconciliation is necessary. That's the first step to recovery, no?