Monday, February 18, 2013

What happens in a week

Mind work has become my thing as of late, being a person who works sporadically, and not booking the last couple of jobs I felt I would, led me to doing some mind work.  Now when I say that, what I really mean is taking the time to work on keeping your mind in the right frame.  The more that can happen, the less down you might fall when the reality of the bizz doesn't work out.  But naturally, you have to keep at it even when times are good.  Luckily for myself, not getting work helps remind me that I need to keep my mind in the right spot.  Fear plays a lot in my head.  Fear of not working.  Financial Fear.  Fear of not living up to expectations.  And giving it up works but sometimes that feels like a cop-out.  In my profession, control over how often you work is out of your hands.  But control over working is not.  How nice is that really?  I have been around enough to know that it isn't a waste of time, it is what I do.  And even though I'm not getting paid to punch in at this specific moment, it is and always will be training for when the opportunities come up.  There will be more.
Specifically, what I find the most challenging in this industry isn't when you don't do your best.  That's an easy fix.  Need more time.  More focus.  Let the job become more important that what I was trying to get in story. Instead the challenge lies when you do your job, everyone is rooting for you, you have all the people behind you (you think), and still no go.  That's challenging.  Because at that point, you look back on your work and question if what you thought was right or "good" maybe wasn't.  Then maybe your don't really have a clue as to what is good or bad, and down the downward spiral we go.  But truth be told, that isn't the case.  And I have hard statistics to show that.  That is why we go back to the work.

Wednesday, January 23, 2013

A strong B+

... is something I would be happy with in Grade School.  But it leads me to believe that there is more work to be done in the career that I've chosen.  Today had an opportunity to play out there in my chosen field, and spent a lot of time working on the material.  And my opportunity went well.  But Well doesn't  help me acquire work, and well is not what I expect out of myself.  That is what sucks about doing A+ work.  You expect to do that every time.  Kind of like golf.  Once you hit a shot well once, you should be able to do the same thing the next time and expect the same result, except you chunk it or slice it or realize that you are trying to hit the ball into waaaaaay to small a hole.
Luckily for me, and I say thing right now without really feeling it in my body, but I am happy to know that more work can be done.  "They ain't seen nothing yet." My competitive sports natured, "win and you did it right," attitude doesn't really apply to my career, so I have to adjust and learn new tactics.  And that can be hard to do at age ____.   Desire to do it though is strong. And each day it gets better.  And each day I learn a little something new.  That is what I am talking about.
On a side note when I went home for the holidays, which is in Maine where at one point the high temp was 6, my family's shower wasn't working properly.  It only allowed you to have a  hot shower for like 3 mins then would become very luke warm, not cold, just luke warm.  My father had no problem with this because he takes 3 min showers, something I have yet to learn how to do.  But 2.5 weeks of lukewarm showers helped me come to the realization that lukewarm is worse than cold.  Lukewarm keeps you in the shower hoping that it might get hotter.  Cold makes you just get out. Lessons to live by.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Forget self...

In reading through The mystic in the Theatre, I came across those words.  Forget self.  Meditation states it.  Athletes talk about it.  Artists strive to do it.  Forget self.  My wife seems to get it quite frequently, and maybe that is what is going to make her such a great nurse.  To forget self and ..... what?  Put others in front?  explore?  But I heard what I was reading this morning, and to overcome the fear of whatever you are going to do, most of the time that fear is of what others think, you must forget self.  What a grateful expression one can learn.

That was deep.  But I think I get it kind of.  It helps to have a greater purpose for all you do.  Forget self.  I like that

Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Nuther year to begin the begin

... whatever the hell that means.  Couple of things on my mind as of late.
1.  ( and I know that I am not supposed to ) I love using q-tips in my ears.  Never have any other use for them.  Why isn't that one of the uses labeled on the box of q-tips?
2.  Driving my Saturn and listening to any Tarantino soundtrack should somehow make it into a Tarantino film, because it's so un-cool that it's cool
And it is the beginning of a new year so it's time for my yearly blog. I guess that wouldn't make it a blog, more like a place where I go to say some shit once in a blue moon.  Last year, another amazing year.  Couple Series Regular's under my belt for a couple of pilots.  Looking forward to seeing what happens after that.  Biggest thing is reaching a goal of mine that was at sort of the top of my list, and becoming really really uneasy now that there is nothing else there.  What to do?  Re-discovered a mission statement.  Storytelling.  Period.  As honest as I am able to.  Period.  Every time I find myself thinking I should write that down, I don't.  Then when I get to write stuff down, it's gone and I just find myself kind of rambling on.
With my new found time, re-learning some old school stuff which seems silly, but great for brain power.  For example, when realizing that about 70% of the planet is water, I was dumbfounded. Then just felt plain dumb for not realizing that in the first place.  Cmon man.