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?

I've come to the conclusion that i'm not paranoid. There was a time when i thought perhaps i was blowing things out of proportion--and i'm sure i was--but just because something is blown out of proportion doesn't mean it's nonexistent.

I've had the opportunity over the last several weeks to work tech for the one-act festival and a sorority-sponsored fundraiser, and had a small acting role in the mainstage production. I've had the opportunity to see the same people day in and day out, sometimes for five or six hours straight.

I've also had the opportunity to stand there in a room of over a hundred people and watch them, in small groups and large groups, filter out of various black boxes, stages, dressing rooms and hallways, chattering and laughing with one another as they left. I've had the opportunity to catch the formation of plans to eat at restaurants, take shopping trips, and nominate places to hang out.

I've had the opportunity to stand in a room of over a hundred people and watch over a hundred people leave me perfectly alone.

With the single exception of an offer to go to a bar after one performance (which i gracefully had to turn down), i have received no invitation to go anywhere or do anything at all with these people.

I wonder how many people know what that feels like.

I just don't understand it. It's not even like i'm somewhere else when these plans are made: i'm standing right there, literally within a physical yard of the people discussing what they're going to go do, and yet i'm never part of the conversation. If i were to (as i have been known to) stay behind, i would not be (as i have not been) missed. No one turns and says "Aren't you coming, Adam?" or "Oh come on, you have to come!" No one turns and says anything at all. No one turns, period. Or if they do, it is simply to gut me with a parting. It is like poisoned chocolate, seeming sweet--for they say "goodbye Adam!" and "see you tomorrow"--but it hurts more than silence would have, as silence could not have said "you are not invited" as eloquently as such a parting.

The conclusion i must come to is that either i am not the sort of person worth including in the lives and activities of others, or that a good thirty or so people with whom i spend most of my extracurricular time are not the sort of people worth getting involved with. Either is a troubling prospect, since in the first case i cannot help but be who i am and in the second i am doomed. Consider that the path i am on dictates that i be heavily involved with the theatre for the duration of my stay here. Thus i am forced to more or less abandon any hope of pursuing deep commitments outside of the theatre community (i simply haven't time to be elsewhere). If i cannot truly befriend these people, then i shall live a friendless college career.

And what is the nature of a friend? He is more than one with which you get along while working; he is more than one with which you get along in general. Strangers can sit together at random for a meal and have a good time, but it takes a friend to plan the meal and send out the invitations; without friendship, a story is begun with meeting and ended with parting, but with friendship a story has a history and a future, and we play out the present with both in mind.

I cannot imagine someone a friend who pays no mind of me when we are not within eyesight of one another. If he never greets me outside of the demands that societal norms impose upon him--that is, when we are in close company, or else passing with proximity on a sidewalk or in a hallway--well then he is no friend. If i receive no call, no letter, no e-mail, no slight measure--indeed, no indication that he is aware of my existence--well then he is no friend.

Likewise, if i have wronged any that might desire me a friend in not exercising what i preach here, then a true friend will reprimand for the sake of the relationship. I say that he is no friend that does not send from time to time a token of the friendship; if there be any who feel they have been slighted of such tokens from me, i would happily have them tell me so, and i would be quick to recompense them in double measure what they have lacked in the interim.

In the meantime, i cast off the heavy burden that is the pursuit of friendship. We are warned to avoid being unevenly yoked, and i cannot think such words apply only to faith and romance, as the narrowminded are wont to consider these but words to keep the Christian from the pagan or the Jew. No, i think these words are fair warning for all relationships, and so must be carried across to the realm of friendship. Is it fair that one ox do all the pulling so that the work be done? Certainly not. Therefore, i refuse to be the ox that is used by a lazy partner. If a friendship demands that i put forth all my effort to yield but meager results, and that the other half, my "friend" would be equally happy being unyoked altogether, then what value can possibly be laid upon the friendship?

The answer is none. I do not have the energy or resolve to pour myself into unyielding bonds that wear a facade called "friendship" but are beneath this mask as far from true love as day from night. On this path i will soon exert myself past exhaustion, and find all my labor for naught besides, as my failure to continue the effort will mean the effort fails to continue. I'd like to believe that my earnest heretofore would be enough to prompt the other oxen to pick up where my efforts trail off, but--and call me a cynic if you must, but--i cannot in good faith expect that to happen.

I say that a friend is ever endeavoring to stay connected. If you read this, and in reflection discover that i have been ambitious in targeting you with such endeavors, then weigh carefully my meaning. I do not say that your friendship is worthless inherently. I do, however, say that after all this time if my affection has been unrequited, and if it continues to be so, then you expect a steady decline in such endeavors as i have more recently been engaged in. This is not to make anyone value more what they already hold in esteem, but to make aware those who currently hold our relationship in such slight esteem that it is soon to be abolished entirely, unless they give indication that they desire otherwise.

And so i give up being friends with those who would as happily not be friends, which is to say i give up nothing, as a friendship not worth maintaining was never a friendship at all. Consider that, then, a test to the bonds between us. If you would be my friend, then be it, and i will endeavor to be an equal partner in the enterprise. I would like nothing more than to be proven gravely wrong about my forebodings, to find that the paranoia was entire, and that the issue blown out of proportion were no issue at all.

Yet i am no optimist. I am no pessimest.
I am a realist, and reality tends to sting.

But that's perfectly fine with me. I have my epinephrine ready.

You're not worth it.
None of you demons in my head is worth the cost. So you might as well give up.
No. I can't make that decision.
It's not my decision to make. It's--complicated, i guess. I'm just saying, it's not mine. I can't--it affects more than just me.

This is what it's like. It hurts lots of people. Well, a few, anyway, directly, and then others maybe. No way to really know. But it's like, it hurts me. And it'll hurt God. And then it'll hurt someone else. Someone i may have never met before. Or maybe a really close friend. I don't know. Not my place to know. But the fact is, it's there, the reality of it all, and i have to deal with that. I can't keep being so naive.

It's too difficult to make that decision. See, me, well...i can do that. We all do it. We love to hurt ourselves, we do it all the time. Every time you pull through a McDonalds Drive-Thru. Or take that slice of cake. Or let your treadmill go dusty. Those papers you save for writing right before the deadline. The hours you should have been resting, but spent gallivanting around the city, or glued to a computer screen. You say you love yourself. Most of the time you say that to justify your actions. But if you really, and i mean really loved yourself, you'd take a lot better care of yourself. Face it. You know it's true.

But, okay, you don't care about yourself. So then there's God. That's easy, too, because you cheat him so often it's hard to consider the ramifications of just one specific action. Whenever something goes wrong, you blame him. You like the idea of it being his fault, because then you don't have to take responsibility for yourself. You live in a country that is at once the most self-centered and egocentric in the world, and yet least willing to accept personal responsibility for its actions. So you point the finger at God, and step nonchalantly in to the next Burger King, the next night club, the next adult video store. You don't care about God at all. Besides, what's one more lash on an already broken back?

But then it comes down to the other and you get real still. Because that's different. Stab me, stab my religion, whatever. But most people can't just stab their friends. And even fewer can stab a total stranger. Especially in this case. It's the most beautiful person you've ever seen, even if you don't realize it yet. Someone you'd like to spend your whole life with. Providence says you can do so. But here you are, taking that beautiful face, and spitting in it, kicking it to the ground, grinding it into the mud with your boot, and all for what?

You can't justify it. None of you can.
Just not worth it. None of the demons in your head are worth the cost.
So tell them to give it up and leave you alone.
It's not your decision to make.

Cut the vines.

Last semester i had to select two works from our survey of British literature and draw comparisons between them in an eight-page paper. This was my opening paragraph:

In 1925 Thomas Stearns Eliot composed "The Hollow Men," describing a collection of individuals stuck between two kingdoms of Death, forced to remain in the first out of anxiety about the second. Yet the hollow man is not limited to Eliot's imagination; he exists everywhere, if one is careful enough to observe. Eighteen years before Eliot alerted his readers to the presence of these beings, James Joyce was completing the fourteenth chronicle of a work he would call Dubliners. It was the story of Gabriel Conroy and his experience on one particular January 6th, the feast of the epiphany, and like each story in Dubliners, "The Dead" emphasized the paralyzing effect that Ireland's capital could have on its inhabitants. Gabriel, much like Eveline (of another Joycean chronicle), is a man who experiences a great deal of passion, only to have it snuffed out by the most improbable of matters. They are people stuffed with ultimately fruitless emotion. The inhabitants of Dubliners are, in short, archetypes of the hollow man.

I assumed most people would be familiar enough with "The Hollow Men" to make alluding to it in my own poem a worthwhile endeavor. Otherwise my omission of the final line of the poem (which you are meant to anticipate as the entire point of the poem) sort of undoes the effect. For those unfamiliar with the poem, i'd suggest a read through. The hollow men are many things, but the area i focused on was motion through the poem: they begin "leaning together," and are found subsequently swinging, trembling, groping, dancing and, finally, running. Clearly the energy of the poem is mounting with each passing stage, until we get to the final four lines.

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

Compare this with my summarized version:

Building, spinning, raging, on the threshold of a brand new day, a brand new dream, a brand new kingdom, and then
Nothing.
This is how the world ends.
This is how the world ends.
This is how the world ends.

I then proceed to explain the whimpering finale, and why i wanted, for a moment, to disappear entirely.

It's strange, really, that when i wrote my paper, i'd never considered myself among the ranks of these poor, destitute creations. In fact, i don't think i considered translating their story into real life at all. To me, while the hollow man could be found many places in literature, it was never considered that he might also exist many places in my world. And yet, as i wrote my poem, i realized the true meaning of Eliot's words, because i was experiencing them first hand.

It's difficult to really explain what happened that night. From the moment i woke up, my day began to build in momentum. Class discussions were fun and lively, work was canceled, and before i knew it i was at the outlet malls buying clothes for that night's homecoming dance, which i thereafter attended. I moved from group of friends to group of friends, and as the night rolled on i found myself quite happy with the way things had worked out. As far as i could imagine, the party would rage on until 11:30, and then "Closing Time" would play, and i'd slip happily back to my room and crown my exciting day with well-wanted sleep.

And yet, as quickly as the energy had mounted, it was gone. Absolutely abolished. And all for one little thing. Well, little in the eternal significance of the event, but as far as my night was concerned it could have had severe ramifications. "I saw her see me seeing her." Eliciting no response despite the clear fact that eyes had met, my energy came crashing down. I had imploded. Somewhere, echoing in the distance, a man walking his dog heard a whimper.

I never really recovered from it, at least not for the rest of the night. We watched a comedian on television for awhile in Jordan's room, and i was laughing and such, but something must have been tugging at me subconsciously, because "i left his room, left the hall, left the floor, left the building, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and then suddenly i wanted nothing more than to step out of existence."

Some people live for entire months and years in the heavy shadow of depression; i simply passed through its kingdom for a moment. There was an undeniable urge to just start walking. I was still in party dress, sans suit jacket, and therefore entirely unprepared for long exposure to the elements. And yet, air chilling my breath, i stared down the sidewalk and momentarily considered just walking until i passed out on the side of the road.

Thank God my eyes teared up and i was struck with inspiration to write that poem. I'm not depressed, nor am i in any way suicidal. But i daresay anyone who has lived in the realm of heightened emotion comes to this point some time or another. Faced with the fork in the road, the desire to end the struggle must at least for a moment seem more appealing than a road marked with suffering. And so it must have for me, in a moment i still consider surreal, as i stood there, numb in more ways than one, considering my options.

Yesterday's homecoming was gorgeous. The parade was thrilling--well, i love music, anyway--and the light was perfect for photography. Sure, we lost the football game, but then again it is Grove City. And the fall party was quite fun, even if i knew barely half the people there. So, clearly, the road of suffering has its merits.

I saw her again and she was laughing. Sparks flying.
Maybe she didn't see me that night after all.

"They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true.
What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up."

I said "ashes, ashes, we all fall down." That's the nursery rhyme. It's a game, a dance, that involves running in circles. Energy builds. And then the children collapse to the ground. Dust. Cold. No spark at all.

But that's not all. Because it's just a game. Everyone plays their part, and their part involves ashes and falling down. But then they get up. Children laughing. They move on. We move on. Time breaks free of the chilling grasp and resumes, hot, ready for whatever comes next.

There’s a part of me I’ve compromised,
buried somewhere under ghosts of lies.
Make it quick, make it sick,
turn the crank and just play the greatest hits... sigh.
There’s a part of me that I despise,
pull the curtain back and see what dies.
Emerald spires of the near profound,
let’s burn this lousy city down.
~BS2

Not as far from Titan as i'd hoped;
Perhaps Reese has been reading my mind.

(For How to Stop Acting, Part II visit http://genialscribe.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/how-to-stop-acting-part-ii/ )

After acting class today, the professor pulled me aside. She said "I know where i need to get you to." I wasn't quite sure what that meant, and so she explained. "You are not the character. You are still Adam. And Adam is very smart." She told me i over-think. I'm constantly analyzing my performance as i'm trying to give it, constantly trying to imagine how i look and sound, and that until i break through that barrier and actually "enter the scene," i am not going to be able to pull it off. She told me that "happens a lot with smart kids."

To make matters worse--and it was funny, the sort of epiphany she had--i'm a photographer. It's how i've wired myself. I've learned to be ever aware of what's going on, what shots will look best, what composition is worth having and what might well be discarded. When she passed me at the football game over the weekend, she didn't recognize me at first. I was so intent on the game, looking so sharply at the players and trying to anticipate the action so as to be aiming in the proper direction at the proper time. Nothing else mattered.

That's the sort of concentration i need for acting. Except, instead of concentrating on what the scene looks like, i need to be concentrating on who the character--who I am. I need to stop thinking and start doing.

Recall what i wrote in a recent entry:

"I see myself in this situation," I said. "That's the problem. I see me." I'm stuck watching myself live life, rather than jumping out of the director's chair and actually playing my part. Like it's more worth my time to analyze my problems than to actually buckle down and fix them. What's funnier is that my entire problem--i've come to realize--is that i realize i've got a problem. Catch-22. Only way to fix my life is to forget it needs to be fixed.

So it's not just acting. It's my life. The whole problem is that i'm observing it rather than living it. And now it's not just me who has noticed this problem.

As i was leaving the building, one of the directors asked me how the scene rehearsals were going for class. I told her about what the professor had said to me, and then commented on how humorous it was that not too long ago, i'd been writing the same thing in my blog, except that had been about "real life" rather than acting.

I said "When one is a photographer, one learns to look at the world from that standpoint. Sometimes you spend so much time observing life that you don't take time to live it. I've often gone places and realized only afterward that i really wasn't there at all. But i've got pictures of it. One must step back from time to time..."

And i think to myself, Damn that pronoun, one. Damn all the essays i've ever written. They've become how i see the world; how i see myself.

I no longer do anything, notice anything, i am no longer subject to anything; I can neither cause an event nor be affected by it. Who i ought to be is replaced with the ambiguous one: one thinks, one notices, one is subject to; one causes things to happen or else one is affected by such things. In the meantime, I am reduced to a permanent literary character with as much control over my situation as a bullet over its trajectory after leaving the gun (an aside: i actually had to correct this sentence; i originally said "over his situation." If that doesn't prove the point, i don't know what will).

The director reflected on what i'd told her, and then she said "It's funny, isn't it? You're learning the most about yourself in a class that's about being other people."

I guess that is funny.

The question is, will I learn the lesson this time?

by Casting Crowns

(I just find that this song speaks so well to my position right now. I'm on my way up, but find my footing has gotten slippery):

Somewhere between the hot and the cold
Somewhere between the new and the old
Somewhere between who I am and who I used to be
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me

Somewhere between the wrong and the right
Somewhere between the darkness and the light
Somewhere between who I was and who You're making me
Somewhere in the middle, You'll find me

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender
Without losing all control?

Fearless warriors in a picket fence,
Reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end
And we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences,
The God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His
Or are we caught in the middle?
Are we caught in the middle?

Somewhere between my heart and my hands
Somewhere between my faith and my plans
Somewhere between the safety of the boat and the crashing waves

Somewhere between a whisper and a roar
Somewhere between the altar and the door
Somewhere between contented peace and always wanting more
Somewhere in the middle You'll find me

Just how close can I get, Lord, to my surrender
Without losing all control?

Fearless warriors in a picket fence,
Reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end
And we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences,
The God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His
Or are we caught in the middle?
Fearless warriors in a picket fence,
Reckless abandon wrapped in common sense
Deep water faith in the shallow end
And we are caught in the middle
With eyes wide open to the differences,
The God we want and the God who is
But will we trade our dreams for His
Or are we caught in the middle?

Lord, I feel You in this place
And I know You're by my side
Loving me even on these nights

When I'm caught in the middle
Caught in the middle

I let it go.

I let it all go. Poured out until i was sure there was nothing left, and yet it still kept coming. It's like one of those fountains with an electrical pump replenishing the water supply: I thought that maybe spewing forth everything within would empty me out, but the only way to stop the stream is to unplug the pump and let the water evaporate.

It's a timely process.

So yeah. I let it go. A good friend came by and i told him everything. Names, details, the enormous irony in my situation that, perhaps, we'll all get a good laugh at one day. But not today. This well runs too deep.

I wrote a word on my wrist today.

This evening i decided to sit in on play rehearsals. I'm only in the fifth act, and a very short portion of a scene, so i didn't need to go. But i wanted to. I like these people. They're fun, and good to talk with. Some are even my friends. I was telling a few people about some issue i'd had. At the conclusion, one of them said (and i couldn't tell whether this was a valid summation, or else a way to end my explanation) "wow, ---."

I lifted my wrist up and tried to show them the word i'd written. No one looked.

The last few days i've likened my heart to a thunderstorm. The climax came when a real thunderstorm deposited lightning right outside my window. It's been crazy. Hard to deal with.

Really, the word suits me well.

I needed to tell someone, after all, about what i was dealing with. I knew it couldn't go anywhere, but everyone kept asking why and i needed to answer, even if the person i told hadn't asked me. Believe me, i've got good reasons. It's under control. And i like the way i explained it all, because that was real, it was from the heart, it was raw energy. It was truth. But maybe i overstepped the boundaries.

Maybe too well.

Anyway, whatever i needed to do, i did. It worked. The writing maybe. Or the monologue i wrote. He said it was amazing. "You don't need to edit this or extend it." Stellar work. I'll believe him. Maybe because i like that idea--that i made something amazing. Or maybe just because it has to be amazing. Good literature is life. Some guy said that. He said few of us write good novels. But all of us live them. He was down to earth. He wasn't too ---.

But i am. Always have been.

Just need to calm down, you know? Like the Energizer Bunny. Someone needs to stop him. He's so busy beating that drum of his that he never gets a chance to sit down and just live. He's been all over the place, seen lots of people, maybe they liked him, even. But he never gave them the chance to love him. He just kept going and going and going.

Wow. I think i just called myself a pink rabbit.

Thing is i get too far into it. The grit and grime. I want so desperately to be understood, and i take so many pains to understand myself first. But no one really understands themselves. It's why shrinks can't fix their own lives. We're experts on everyone else's problems but blind to our own. It becomes an obsession. We can't stop til we've fixed ourselves. But it's too much.

My friends had a rabbit once. It died.

"I see myself in this situation," I said. "That's the problem. I see me." I'm stuck watching myself live life, rather than jumping out of the director's chair and actually playing my part. Like it's more worth my time to analyze my problems than to actually buckle down and fix them. What's funnier is that my entire problem--i've come to realize--is that i realize i've got a problem. Catch-22. Only way to fix my life is to forget it needs to be fixed.

If that doesn't prove it, i don't know what will.

Too much energy. I'm not unique. We've all been in these places, with these people, doing these things. Nothing new under the sun. But for some reason, i have to be. I imagine myself as standing out. I blow things out of proportion. "Mountains out of mole hills," he said. Yeah. Molehills.

This is so hypocritical. Go ahead. You know it is.

"I eat most of my meals alone." I told him that. I don't usually bother telling people that. Feel bad about it, because it makes me seem like i'm trying to drop a hint that i'm not trying to drop. He knows that though. Knows i was just making a point. Point is i've got lots of friends, nice people, people who think i'm a nice guy and who sometimes think to call me and ask if i want to hang out. 'Cept usually when they don't call, i get paranoid. Like i did something wrong.

Figure it out yet?

Last year i blamed me. Said i wasn't good enough for friends. Needed to fix something about me, make myself more likable. That's not it. Never was. I keep seeing it as them forgetting me. They see it likewise. Oh, he's in a group. They all wear the same shirts and go do things together. He doesn't need us anymore. Funny, really. they never gave me a shirt. Whole group goes out to do something, and i can't wear the shirt. I don't have one.

What are you laughing at?

So yeah. It's hard to say. I can't just call, and say these things. Yeah, please invite me to dinner. Otherwise i'll eat alone, because no one here will ask. Hard to imagine. I try not to. I just go and eat alone. I don't mind it, really. I like to think. Except then i think of myself, and how i'm eating alone again, and how wouldn't it be nice if someone knew, and maybe i'll tell someone one day.

Right.

So i did. Told all. Showed my hand, as it were. I've got a bleeding heart, and i can't stop it, because i've got psychosomatic hemophilia.

As in...mhmm...i told you it was the right word.

Well anyway, the point is that i figured out the problem. And the solution. And they're the same thing.

Wait for it.

We can't fix ourselves. We weren't meant to. You can spend your whole life mulling over the broken parts, the pieces that don't quite fit, the reasons why you're inadequate to love or be loved. And when it comes down to it, the only thing holding you back is yourself. You can love yourself, or you can choose to be so damn fascinated with yourself that you're unwilling to let the test subject leave. That's when you become unlovable.

-

The moment you're comfortable with loving yourself is the moment someone else can start loving you. Until then, you've allowed yourself to be your own idol. So shatter yourself. Break yourself into a million pieces, and then leave it like that, for someone else to pick up. Maybe God. Maybe a lover. Maybe some good friends who you take for granted. Just do what i did.

I let it go.

Introducing the Forge's companion site, "The Empyreal Emporium." The following entry here also serves as the first entry there.

“Forge.”

There’s something irrevocably harsh about that word. It implies all that it can ever hope to be: something hot, crude, and bright. It has been, and shall continue to be, most fitting for my forge to be the birthplace of heavily philosophical or severely self-searching entries. But i’ve come to recognize a need for a lighter place, one where we can forget about the things that make life so very hard to live, and dwell on those things that are, i believe, most reflective of what heaven shall be like.

I leave for my forge dwellings on sin, pain, and depression.

“And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

Although i've been somewhat outspoken in the past as to my views on the Roman Catholic church (more to the institution and its hierarchy than to the devout that follow it), i must say i've always found the concept of the Seven Deadly Sins to be, if nothing else, romantic, in much the same way that one appreciates medieval architecture or Gothic novels. There's something foreboding and utterly unforgivable in it--that is to say, the notion that any sin be unforgivable--and yet the concept is an attractive attempt to, in seven sins, encapsulate nigh all a man can do that is not perfect in God's sight.

To that effect, there is for every deadly sin a parallel virtue, a trait one must uphold so as to escape the grasp of its counterpart transgression or else, it being too late to avoid the snare, to take up fervently that virtue's practice as a form of penitence.

By way of casual musing i have come to the conclusion that i must be condemned of three of these seven cardinal sins: that i have, as i dare say any man has done (not that that alleviates the charge), lusted, and been consumed by such habits as shall necessarily follow unfulfilled lust; that i have for the great part of my life taken to consume whatever and whenever it suit my fancy, and in embracing such gluttony have caused much physical and social damage upon myself; and that i have spent far too much of my life in lethargy, whether it be induced mostly by my state of mind or my physical ability to sustain active exertion.

Lust. Sloth. Gluttony.
Thus fall the charges.

And in the interest of redemption, if i am to believe that willful acts of virtue might cleanse me of sinful habits, even if the actual redemption takes place only by the good grace and blood of my savior--well then, in the interest of redemption, i shall endeavor to embody the virtues that play rival to the sinful urges: wherefore lustful behavior had been my master, be it now replaced by chaste thoughts and actions; wherefore much drowsiness and procrastination have been allowed to rule, may they be deposed by routine of physical activity and well-budgeted time; and wherefore food had been consumed in gross portions and with little consideration given to the contents thereof, may there now be some semblance of control and intent in all repasts.

Chastity. Diligence. Temperance.
Thus falls the sentence.

Of course, there is a certain degree of irony in saying that a primary issue of mine is my inability to initiate, bear with, and complete any sort of plans, and then to say i've a plan to fix my issues, and that such irony is difficult to overcome even when the matters at hand are not of a spiritual nature.

In thus recognition, i ask for prayer support, and in addition to the prayers you may offer i would humbly request that, if you know any group that is taken to praying in an intercessory way, that my name be given them as well.

I mentioned, not long ere, that my first step to recovery was to get out, and to keep my chin up, and to be less socially inept. I've taken, i should say, strides in that direction, but in doing so have come to all the more despise those parts of me i deem least in keeping with a healthy being.

Also, if my manner of writing be formal (which, of course, it is) allow me to blame it on the profusion of Shakespeare and Hawthorne i've been (for lack of a better word) plagued with over the last week or so.

And so, without further ado, shall i attempt this trifecta of virtue.

Whether due to my presentation having had the semblance of potential or the number of male auditions being disproportionate to the number of male roles to be filled, i haven't the foggiest--either way providence has selected for me the role of William.

A quick read-through shows that William has only a handful of lines, and that his role is comically tragic, as he is in love with a woman who--zounds!--shall choose over him to be betrothed to a clown.

Anyhow, it's a small part, but a fun scene, and exactly what i was looking for when i said i wanted "a position that will get me used to being in front of an audience without giving me a chance to make a real fool of myself."

So, bravo.

William it is!

So that was audition number two in my scintillating attempt to get on a stage (that is to say, while the curtain is not drawn). We'll see, tomorrow, how that fares, but in the meantime, some observations.

I have notoriously been harsh when it comes to the acting demographic. The division i noted was and shall always be in existence, however not nearly to the extent that my paranoid self claimed in earlier, less experienced postings. In our first acting class, the instructor noted the great importance of not shunning technicians, something i know all too well from having worked nothing but (tech, that is) in previous shows.

But when it comes to auditions, i'm stepping into actor territory.

And although theatre ought to be a fun place for people of all walks to gather, i understand that there are many who either a. are terrified of never getting stage opportunities again after leaving college, or b. need as full an acting resume as possible in aspirations for a career in the field. In either case, there are a limited number of positions on a cast and everyone auditioning ostensibly wants in. Friends or not, the moments before stepping out onto the stage each person has one thing on his or her mind: i'm going to put forth my best, and i sure hope it's better than everyone else's best.

And i understand that such feelings are mutual among actors. Allow me to step outside my usually narrow viewpoint to make the observation that tension even between the seasoned veterans of the acting troupe is fairly high. And then you throw someone like me, the technician, into the mix.

I imagine it's a rather humorous circumstance to be in, for the actor, seeing me walk through the door and fill out a sheet. It's as if we're awaiting tryouts for the high school track team, and everyone else a runner. They recognize me as someone whose experience with running the extent of which, to date, has been running the stopwatch. This almost guarantees that i've no acting chops (something i'll fully admit--this is all about experience at this point) and, for the most part, stand little chance of acquiring their part. Which allows for some small talk, some joking around, because i pose no threat whatsoever.

I like the idea though. The play we're doing this year is Shakespeare's "As You Like It," and from what i understand there are 20 male roles. Assuming that this includes fringe characters, i see myself not after any sort of leading role but simply a position that will get me used to being in front of an audience without giving me a chance to make a real fool of myself. You don't become CEO at a major corporation upon entering (unless you're Eisner)--you enter as the janitor, and maybe advance from there. Yet there's no clear way of suggesting your intentions when you audition--no mop and bucket to make clear what you're here for--and as such you must appear at least somewhat audacious as you take the stage and, in my case, fumble.

Let me clarify, before you jump on that word--fumble. I have never acted, and my last audition attempt was half-hearted (i'd like to think of this as more 3/4-hearted). Therefore i have no standard of comparison to judge my performance by, except that of the more seasoned performers. So when i say i fumbled, i mean only to say that the bit of practicing i did before a webcam in my dorm room this afternoon was tighter and a little bit more entertaining than what happened when i stepped before Ketler Auditorium this evening. Granted, i'd not planned to audition (i only signed up today around 2 p.m.) and as such i can't be expected to have prepared as diligently as those who've had their eyes set on a role since the day they stepped foot on campus this semester. Not really an excuse, but more of a slight reprieve for me.

As to the others auditioning, i indicated that my key reason for attending was to watch what i considered successful auditions (or not so successful, depending on your experience, i'd guess) and, either way, take notes on what struck me as well-done, something that i could try to emulate in the future (like, say, tomorrow when i audition for the one-acts). The list i compiled was somewhat short (there were not very many people left to audition after me) but here it stands:

Location-specific accents are a great way to showcase your abilities, if you have any. One performer had a great Southern drawl (far more developed--and, i should think, more oft-used--than the British accent i slobbered over during my take) and, despite the fact that this was a Shakespeare role, demonstrated her willingness to toss aside the normal speech patterns if her character had no use of them. I suppose my best accent is Aussie, so i ought to have gone for that (or maybe something French?).

Movement with purpose. That's it. Despite a minute amount of blocking i'd attempted in my dorm rehearsals, i remained almost frighteningly still on-stage. Hm... i guess that's stage fright, huh? I wasn't afraid to move, i simply forgot to. Speaking of which...

I also forgot about verbal pacing. The point of a good delivery versus a poor one is that the same words are presented in a different way. It's almost funny in hindsight that all of the pauses i took on-stage were supposed to be lines and all of the hurried lines i delivered were supposed to come after well-mimed pauses. No one prepares everything he is going to say ahead of time, and thus neither would any well-played character. This, i noticed, is perhaps the best mark of a good performer: the ability to speak in a way that allows you to forget they are reciting someone else's words.

Universal humor is another thing i ought to have considered. Granted, i had limited resources, but even then i forgot about the option to use film/television as subject matter for my comic piece. Desperately i scanned my bookshelf for something amusing and found a Bill Bryson book--a type of humor i find subtly hysterical--and selected a passage. The issue is that most people don't appreciate British humor, and Bryson's is usually drawn-out (thus impossible to fully demonstrate in a 60-second snippet). Which reminds me...

What was up with the time limit? I guess it was a frame of reference, but it seems that (based on the several-minute monologues delivered un-impeded by the director) the 60-second parameters were "more like guidelines than actual rules." In the future, i'll try to remember that time is not my master: it's better to have a longer piece with a bigger punch (and be prepared to stop if asked) than to be succinct and then awkwardly stop where the writer never intended you to do so.

That was pretty much all that i gathered from the other performers, although i noticed in reflection a major problem with my approach today. I made, it seems, the mistake of thinking that just because i like to (and often succeed at) making people laugh, my character doesn't necessarily need to be the jester. I find i am also drawn to violent, sinister characters, and so perhaps in the future i will attempt a villain rather than a hero.

Well, i just figured i'd let everyone know that i went out for another audition. In the excitement, i forgot to call home, which is kinda crappy, but there's always the weekend.

In the out-on-a-really-long-and-questionably-firm-limb event that i get a part, i'll update tomorrow (Friday, for those of you who aren't up til all hours of the night) with that info. Otherwise assume what i'm assuming now--that this has been naught more than a learning experience, and a good one at that.

My new desk is set up in such away that, from time to time, i can look up from my computer screen and directly down the street and into the obscurity of my vision. That is to say, my desk is under a window.

There is not an inherent problem with windows that i would like to address. They are beautiful things, designed to let light intercept what would otherwise be sheer darkness, and therefore admirable on principle. Most people look out windows to see if there is anything worth participating in outside. I look out my window to see if there is anything worth observing. And that makes all the difference.

I recently was assigned to read an article for my American Literature class that brought to my attention a huge problem with the way my generation, and i in particular, exist in the world today (this, by the way, is the time where you read that article before continuing, since what i'm about to say won't make a whole lot of sense without having done so).

The truth is, all of the observations that Mark Edmundson makes about my generation are, tragically, quite accurate. I had to laugh at the different scenes he described--scenes like the cell-phone whip-out at the end of classes, the facebook-checking during classes, the personal soundtrack on the way to classes--each something with which i could easily identify. But Edmundson's point isn't that my generation is overly intimate with technology or that we have a vendetta against the world we inhabit. No, his point is far graver: in our endeavor to be everywhere at once, we have ceased being anywhere at all.

I have been raised, at no individual's fault in particular, to believe that i should be ever-setting goals for myself, that i should always "keep my eye on the prize"--in effect, that i should live for the future. And while having direction in one's life is never a bad thing (and in fact, something i'm sorely lacking at present), i think a distinction ought to have been made somewhere that living for today was okay too.

Which is another problem, because when i say "live for today" a lot of people break out in carpe diem and think--as Edmundson indicates--that the only way to truly live is to be constantly on the go, in case the world we know and (think we) love suddenly crashes down and we're stuck where we are. And the natural course of logic presented here is that where we are is precisely where we never want to be. It's a last resort to actually inhabit your current location, and to be stuck in the "here" is the thing you end up living in fear of every day.

And that's the reason i have a problem with how i set my desk up under a window. Every day i look out and see friends throwing a disc around, or on their way to eat, or simply going somewhere to hang out and chat. But i stay here, browsing the web in an entirely mindless way, smiling at the thought that, isn't it nice to see Jack and Jill enjoying the beautiful weather?

What? What happened there? Why am i not running out to enjoy the beautiful weather myself?

That's a tough answer. The fact is, i like staring out windows. Because whatever's on the other side of the window isn't where i am, and the knowledge that there's a somewhere else is the only thing that gets me through some days. But am i really getting through? Have i actually been living if i've spent all day imagining i weren't doing so?

Sadly, no.

So i must conclude that i've spent a tremendous amount of time not living. So, first step in my little road to recovery? Get out.

It's the second step that i need help with. See, i clearly have a sort of Jekyll/Hyde issue when it comes to my social life. In some situations, i'm wildly outspoken, laugh loudly, and in fact probably could deal with shutting up every now and then. But other times, times where most people would raise their head and shout someone's name in response to the happiness brought on by seeing them, i duck my head down a little deeper and hope i'm not noticed.

I need to learn not only to get out, but to say hi to Jack and Jill and ask if i can join in the disc tossing. I need to learn to take initiative.

But in the meantime, could you do me a huge favor? Gimme a little push. If you see me walking past on the sidewalk, looking at my feet, yell at me.

Okay, not yell, but maybe something like "heads up, buddy." Maybe that's all it takes. Maybe i need to know i'm seen. Even if i've been seen all along.

And in return, i'll do my best to keep the head up.
And, you know,

Live a little.

Arriving at Grove City College for a second year has, as it were, awakened in me a sense of life that was gone a week ago, such lack the basis of my decision to hold up on the posting. Audrey had a valid point--that The Forge is as much for me as it is for anyone else--and hers is a point that i myself encouraged previously (see 'the emo complex').

Nevertheless, The Forge was doing as little for me as it was for the friend i mentioned. I don't want anyone to imagine that my decision to stop posting was due to a reliance on outside support for motivation; i have gone much of my life without anyone clearly supporting what i've been doing, and have no problem with pursuing a course of action without support so long as i feel it's the right thing to do. Sometimes that leads to my undoing, but often it doesn't (and even when it does, there's always a lesson to be learned).

It occurs to me that saying i'm changing my mind today would be rather pathetic (it being but a week since i made the decision) and besides, my mind hasn't changed: the forge does need to be reborn properly, and i do need to figure out a direction for both it and my life before i can make any sort of progress at all.

Yet there's that voice in the back of my head that's been screaming ever since i stepped foot on campus grass. It's saying "screw this. i want to write!"

So i'll tell you what. I figured out a way to compromise, a way to maintain the scattered humanity that the forge has been while creating a filter for people interested only in the uplifting aspects of my writing. It's not ready for an official unveiling yet (i want to actually format a bit, rather than deal with these stupid presets), however i can say that the empyreal forge is going to be a bit more like my ideal blog than this forge has been.

That's it for now. Except maybe i'll recommend that you check out a band i recently found called "The Morning Of." Their song "Reverie" is incredible.

-Adam

I was recently talking with a good friend of mine and the subject of this blog came up. He said, in a rather straightforward fashion, "I remembered why i don't read your blog. I checked it the other day, and i read the post about...and the post about...and then i stopped. I don't enjoy reading it. It doesn't do anything for me...you seem depressed."

And although my initial response was indignation, after some reflection i've come to realize how startlingly accurate his analysis of the blog is. For all the promoting i've done for this handful of entries, it has come down to nothing more than a scattered, disjointed collection of thoughts, sometimes happy, often sarcastic, and lately brooding. Without direction, it has become "a tale told by an idiot."

I used to enjoy doing this--i'd have something happen to me and think "oh my god. this is going to be a great blog." I'd postpone other activities so i could finish writing, and then i'd enjoy hearing people's reactions. Sometimes i'd have half a dozen people tell me that such-and-such entry had made their day, and that was enough to keep me going.

But i've changed. And as i've changed, so has this blog. I said, not so long ago, that my purpose is to entertain, and to make people laugh. That, too, is the purpose of this blog.

But right now, that is something i cannot do, something i cannot be. There are a lot of dark clouds gathered overhead in my life and until i've worked them out, there's no way i can be the man i've wanted to be, the man this blog was supposed to help me become.

And so, until further notice, i am closing down the forge. It will sit here, stagnant, until i've worked out who i want to be, and then what i want this to be.

I hope you understand, and if you would like me to send you an e-mail when i reopen, just send me a message or comment or e-mail. It will probably get depressing to come back here and see nothing new for the next couple months, if it comes to that.

Again, thank you. This place has been one of learning and meeting, one i hope will flourish in the future. But for now, it shall be laid to rest.

-Adam "Mr. Smith" Bogert

"Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more: it is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing."

new surrender.

Hey guys, Stephen wrote a description on the album title, check it out below:

we will all come to the point in our life where we have to admit that we
feel defeated, that something has conquered us.
we must change, not because we want to, but because we desperately
have to. we can not take life in its current suffocating state, even to
admit such desperation shows that we are feeling deserted,
wandering the barren desert,
a shell of our former selves.

it is only up from here, it is impossible to sink any lower into ourselves
or our circumstances.
but we can be salvaged, a deliverance.
no vice can stand, no fix can take.
the thorn in the side can be removed,
but you have to be willing to admit and surrender.
surrender your habits,
your lifestyle,
your past,
your present,
and your future.
this is your new surrender.
the new surrender.

new surrender.

Seems like anberlin is writing the soundtrack to my life again.
New surrender it is, then.

I sat in the passenger seat, gazing down the highway and up at the sprawling sky above it. I'd been doing a similar thing all day, but it struck me that the trees were a bit darker now than they'd been several hours ago. The clouds were a little bit more menacing, and some of the cars passing on the other side had their headlights on. Evening was upon us.

And that's when i was struck by the notion that i was living in a very, very little box. My little box has a clock in the corner with twelve little points on its little face. I've come to understand that when the little hand on the little face has hit each of the little points two times, a little box in time has closed, opening a new little box for me to inhabit. There is no continuity in my little boxes, there is simply the inevitable, unstoppable progression of separate little units wherein only menial little tasks can be accomplished.

But that's not what life is supposed to be, not at all. Life is supposed to be one huge open-ended chain of possibilities. The clocks can be tossed out the window for all it matters, because all they really do is help us keep our cages locked up. And when we stop living in little boxes, the tasks we can accomplish are suddenly huge, meaningful, and can have eternal consequences.

I've been compartmentalizing my entire life. Despite every word i've ever uttered about being the same person in the dark as in the light, despite every time my integrity has been complimented, i've been living a series of well-calculated, well-separated lies. Actually, calling it a series isn't quite right--it implies progress. No, i've just been living in a collection of lies, each seemingly truthful when taken alone but disgusting when viewed together.

I'm not necessarily talking about a Jekyll/Hyde sort of scenario. I am, in mannerisms, speech, attitude, and most other manifestations of character the identical person in all areas of my life. God knows i have my dark secrets, but then He and i are working those out.

The point is that i have thus been unable to amalgamate the different facets of my life that i tend to otherwise list together as the parts of my whole. My church life, my school lives (here in Pawling and that at GCC), my gaming life, my family life; each is its own entity, only rarely overlapping with another and then in an entirely accidental way.

When i'm at college, i am engulfed by all that college implies. My friends, my home, my elders, my time, my activities are all located on or in proximity to the campus, and the world beyond that locus fades to the faintest of my thoughts. I'm sure my friends and family have noticed a sharp diminution in contact during the months i am not among them, but i don't think i've been much concerned with it.

The same can be said with each of the areas i listed earlier. When i am with the circle of friends i formed while in the Pawling school system, i tend to forget about the other friends. It has only rarely crossed my mind to intermingle, and while such experimentation has certainly not ended poorly, it has evidently not been successful enough for my subconscious to raise it as a suggestion more often than extremely occasionally.

My recent trip to Maine brought together a different, extraordinarily tight-knit collective of friends and family that drove me to (despite my numerous facebook updates) largely ignore or put off anything outside of Maine that might have been vying for my attention. Granted, this was somewhat the point of driving ten hours away, but the fact remains that i left messages from old roommates and new acquaintances by the wayside, unable to mentally deal with them until i had returned to the world from whence they'd come.

I mentioned in my previous update that i feel a strong need to redirect my life. Part of that, i'm discovering, is integrating the parts of me into something i can live with on a daily basis. I fully know that i wish to maintain good relations with friends and family on all levels, whether here in my own house or overseas via an xbox live connection. And the first step in doing that is to accept the fact that, as much as my mind wants me to, i cannot create barriers between the different dimensions of my life. It's nothing but self-deception.

As i looked at that darkening sky today, i realized that the sky was only really that dark because the massive terrestrial ball i am on was spinning, and that the point i inhabited was slowly moving to the side facing away from the sun. The glorious sunlight that i'd been enjoying a few hours earlier was now, in a limited sense, shining down on friends in California.

Viewing our lives in a limited sense is comfortable, and helps us deal with changes by pretending that they have not eradicated the past, but simply created a different present. But string theories can only take us so far, and besides all we are doing is trapping ourselves in little boxes.

Only when we accept the largeness of life can we truly begin to live it.

For the last couple days, i've been ill, physically. Doc says it's the good old-fashioned common cold, complete with sore throat, aches, fatigue, and more snot and phlegm than you can shake a... well, a lot of snot and phlegm.

I've always found the common cold to be rather entertaining. Not the symptoms, mind you, but the sickness itself. It's a simple viral infection that has seemingly been around forever, plaguing our ancestors in their straw and mud huts in the same way it plagues us now in our post-industrial, super metropolis world with lasers that can turn geezers nubile and prosthetic limbs good enough to get people into the Olympics. But we can't cure the common cold.

Of course, unless this is the first time you're reading something of mine, you know better than to assume this is actually going to be me talking about the common cold, because i only bother to talk about sickness if it involves hospital trips (and we'll ignore, for the moment, the convenient loophole where my doctor's office happens to be inside a hospital building). I am, of course, going to whip out some attempt at brilliance that ties our friend the rhinovirus into, say, a clever metaphor for sin, another small nuisance that has plagued mankind since the very beginning.

The problem with that, as i'd likely bring to light, is that unlike the common cold, sin has a cure, in the rudest sense of analogy, and that sin is Jesus. People just need to accept that cure. So that's not what this post is about, either.

There's something else funny about the common cold, though. It cripples you. Leaves you in bed for a day or two, or else it makes time spent out of bed a living hell. Which means you become reliant on friends and family. Things like meals and pills can be brought to you on a platter by people who love you.

And then comes the moment where the little triggers in your brain go off and you almost don't want to get better. After all, why would you? Everything you really need to survive is already there, delivered with a smile. You are surrounded by people who genuinely care for you, who don't expect anything in return. It's all so surreal.

I said i've been ill, physically, for a couple days. But my spiritual condition has been deteriorating for much longer. Used to be a dark couple days would be swept easily away by a simple chorus of "stiff upper lip." Wait it out, and things usually get better, or if not better they at least go back to how they were, which wasn't exactly bad. And that's okay, for awhile.

But take the same little struggles too lightly for too long, and eventually you lose sight of the fact that you're struggling at all. And then you stop fighting altogether, because so far as you're concerned there's nothing to fight. You're Jonah, no longer capable of seeing the whale, thus imagining away the possibility of the whale's existence. And when you do that, you forget about the whale's mouth, and you lose all hope of ever seeing the sunlight again.

So it is with me. Once upon a time, i had a point, i had a direction, i had purpose. Excuse the pitiful reference, but i like what Agent Smith said about that little thing called "purpose":

Without purpose, we would not exist. It is purpose that created us. Purpose that connects us. Purpose that pulls us. That guides us. That drives us. It is purpose that defines us. Purpose that binds us...Purpose.

Without purpose, we would not exist. And yet, somewhere long ago, i lost sight of my purpose.

I once told someone that my purpose is to be funny. I have a gift with words, i said, and that was given me by God so that i could bring happiness into people's lives. Donning the title "empyreal wordsmith," i established this forge as a place to bring together my faith and my gift to, hopefully, create good.

For awhile, it worked. People would tell me how they'd been having a bad day "until i read your blog. Dude, that was hilarious." For others, it wasn't so much the humor as the humanity that did it. I formed friendships through writing that i'd never imagined existed, and used the same writing to strengthen the ones i already had.

But as i allowed the battles in my life to grow bigger and bigger around me, i failed to feed the fire of faith that had been driving it all. I spiraled into darkness, and that spiral spewed forth from my pen to my readers, who began to worry. They could tell something had changed; the humor had turned sour long ago. I was becoming depressing to read, at best.

It's only now that i come to realize all this. Sitting here, pushing off the weakening grip of the common cold, i reflect on the fact that the comedy has, for a long while, ceased, in favor of a tragedy that this mortal life will never let me free from.

You want material? I've got a closet full of it. A closet full of broken lives, severed ties, divorce, deceit, and paralyzing ignorance. Each a brick to my own Hoover Dam, holding in an ocean of tears. For a long time i've wondered if i'm meant to write the next great tragedy, the next "Death of a Salesman," as it were. I'm sure i could.

But, you see,

That is not my purpose.

My purpose, as i saw it when i could actually see things, is to make people smile.
Laugh a little. Sometimes at others, sometimes at themselves, and if that didn't suffice, they could always laugh at me.

It's been a long time since i got to laugh for real.
And i'm guessing it's been a long time for you, too.

This week is winding to a close, and Saturday morning i leave for Maine. One full week with no one but friends and family. It's been too long that i've failed to appreciate either, and i'm not exactly sure i remember what that means...appreciate.

But i look forward to a week away from this world. I look forward to recovery.
And if this new light is any indication,

So should you.