Playwrights…
What’s the play you’d write if after you finished–rather than sending it off to various theatre companies across the country, hoping against hope they’d read it and pick it for their upcoming season–if instead, this were the last play you ever wrote AND you were on the hook to produce it yourself?
Go. Write that one.
“The greatest danger for most of us is not that our aim is too high and we miss it, but that it is too low and we reach it.” -Michelangelo
The below parable is from author, psychotherapist and Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello. I highly recommend his book, The Way To Love. This parable is from Song Of The Bird and I came upon it in James Clear’s weekly newsletter. I highly recommend signing up for that and reading his book, Atomic Habits. I’ve posted about it before. In my opinion, it’s the single greatest book ever written about habits.
Okay. Without further ado…
“A man found an eagle’s egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chickens and grew up with them.
All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.
Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.
The old eagle looked up in awe. “Who’s that?” he asked.
“That’s the eagle, the king of the birds,” said his neighbor. “He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth—we’re chickens.”
So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that’s what he thought he was.”
(I just returned from a family vacation in the Northwoods of Wisconsin. Manitowish Waters. One day I was out on the lake standup paddleboarding. A bald eagle soared above me and then landed in the tall pine trees up ahead. A sight to behold. Talk about majestic!)
“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” -Maya Angelou
“Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail. There’s only make.” -Corita Kent
Acting requires ACTION. What is your action? What do you want from the other person? So much so that you’d “die” if you didn’t get it. It doesn’t matter if you pick the right action. It just matters that you pick something. Something strong, something playable, and something that confers maximum conflict. Whatever action you pick, put your whole shoulder behind it. Don’t “half” it. Play it to the hilt. See if it actually works…Do that and your work will always be interesting. No matter how “wrong” the choice was. You and the director can then work together and adjust your actions if need be. But more often then not, the wrong action becomes the right one. The surprising one. The memorable one.
The same holds true in life. Not sure which direction you should go? What you should do? Just decide. Pick something! Then, put everything you got into your choice. See what happens after a week, a month, three months, etc…of maximum commitment and then evaluate.
Worst thing that happens is that you made an incorrect choice. Okay. But you learned something. You gained new skills. You tried. And you proved to yourself and others that you’re capable of deciding and then committing to that decision. You also figured out what not to do. What you don’t like. Pivot and make a different choice. But again more often than not, the “wrong” decision ends up being the right one.
Or as Jerry says in The Zoo Story…”“Sometimes it’s necessary to go a long distance out of the way in order to come back a short distance correctly.”
Flashback. 1986. A great song and video from the phenomenal Ms. Jackson! Warning: If you do click the link and watch, be prepared for the song to be stuck in your head all day.
Great song aside, “what have you done for me lately?” is not the best way to think of people. It’s short sighted and transactional. But like it or not, it’s often the way the world works. It’s human nature. Even your greatest fans, who’ve loved and supported everything you do, hunger for more, for your newest thing.
You have two choices…either fight this fact and be miserable or make friends with it. Be thankful for it. Use it as fuel. To keep striving. To keep learning and growing. To keep pushing yourself. Don’t rest on past laurels and accomplishments. Never be complacent.
Yet on the flip side, don’t have a “what have you done for me lately?” attitude toward others. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Especially your family, friends and co-workers. Remember all the amazing things they’ve done, All the times they’ve come through for you in the past. Let that engender your empathy if they’re messing up or going through a difficult time. Assume positive intent.
Or put another way as the great Marcus Aurelius wrote, “be tolerant with others and strict on yourself.”
A great question to ask yourself…
“What am I the best in the world at?”
Or if need be, modify to…
“What could I be the best in the world at?”
Put real thought into the answer. Think of all your skills and interests. Think how they may combine and intersect with one another. Get specific and niche way, way down.
For example, “writing” is too vague.
But “punching up dialogue for action movies” is not. Or “copywriting scientific press” or “coming up with good jokes when the pressure’s on.”
If you can answer this question for yourself and focus like a laser beam on doing that unique thing, then theoretically you’ll always work. You’ll feel good about yourself. Because you’ll feel like you’re doing exactly what you’re supposed to be doing. Especially when it involves helping others.
And don’t feel stifled. Or that you’re putting yourself in a box. Far from it. You’re just recognizing your core competency. Think of a bicycle wheel. Your core competency is the hub, but you have many, many spokes connected to it. You can and should be doing lots of different things. Getting new experiences and gaining new skills. Those are your spokes. They add to and deepen and might someday even change the hub, the answer to…
…”What am I the best in the world at?”
“Be aware when things are out of balance. Stay centered within the Tao.” -Lao Tzu
““You paddle a little on the left and little on the right and you paddle a straight course.” -Jerry Brown’s “Canoe Theory” of Politics
Balance does not mean everything in harmony at all times. Yes, we ideally would love to have enough daily time and energy to attend to everything that’s important to us. Our spiritual, physical, mental, artistic, financial, etc…But let’s face it, when you embark on a passion project, it can be all consuming. Your overall balance will be out of whack. You’re like a car that’s out of alignment. It’s part of the trade off you make to do something you love. But trust that it’s only temporary and it’s worth it.
The key is to just be aware, and then the first chance you get, give time and attention to the other parts. Get tuned up and back in alignment. Back in balance.
And ready for the next project.
“There is one place that you have not looked and it is there, only there that you shall find the master.” –The Last Dragon
“I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.” -William Henley, Invictus
If you haven’t seen the 80’s cult classic, “The Last Dragon”, please do so immediately. The movie has it all–an awesome plot, killer soundtrack (courtesy of the film’s producer and Motown legend Berry Gordy), break dancing, giant boom boxes, kung fu, ninjas, a Harlem pizza parlor, music videos, and some of the coolest characters of all time including the stunning beautiful Laura Charles, the evil record mogul Eddie Arkadian, the wisecracking younger brother Richie Green, and of course, the one, the only…Bruce Leroy.
Still not convinced? What about the baddest ass villain of all time? Who actually glows he’s so bad? This dude…
Sho’nuff. The shogun of Harlem.
Are you freakin’ kidding me?!!! What a film!
Okay, but what does this have to do with making art?
Well…Bruce (his actual character’s name is Leroy Green) is on a quest to find “the master.” Leroy believes that when he finds the master, then everything will make sense. All his training and life’s work will be complete. Then, and only then, after finding the master, can Leroy confidently move forward, face his fears, face Sho’nuff, and be the person he wants to be. The person he was destined to be.
Is he right?
Will Leroy find the master?
Will he get the glow?
Will this blog post make any sense?
Sorry. No spoilers here. You’ll need to watch The Last Dragon and report back. I look forward to your quest to figure out “Who is the master?…”
“Today I will be master of my emotions. And with this new knowledge I will also understand and recognize the moods of him on whom I call…No longer will I judge a man on one meeting; no longer will I fail to call again tomorrow on he who meets me with hate today. This day he will not buy gold chariots for a penny, yet tomorrow he would exchange his home for a tree.” -Og Mandino, The Greatest Salesman In The World
You finally find your passion project. You decide to manifest it. You do so with excellence and generosity. You work your butt off. You’re proud of what you made as you truly feel you did your best. You’re excited to share it with others. You launch and…
What helps in the face of this seeming rejection? This self doubt?
First, realize that this is just not for them.
Okay. But what about the people you were so sure would love what you made? Who would show up and enthusiastically support you? Who would tell the others? Who were the people that inspired you to make the thing in the first place?
What happens when they don’t show up? Or show up and are like “Meh.” Or worse, they dislike your art?
Now what?
Add two magic words to the end of the sentence, “This is just not for you…”
They are: “…right now.”
“This is just not for you right now.”
Say it to yourself over and over.
“This is just not for you right now.”
“This is just not for you right now.”
“This is just not for you right now.”
That sentence will keep you going in the darkness. It will help you stay focused and finish out the project as best you can. Upon completion, it will help you honestly reflect and learn from it. And most importantly, it will inspire you to find and manifest something else.
Because someday, they and many others will come around. Count on it.
Never stop making your art.
The old school way of making a decision by jotting down pros and cons still works. (Another great exercise to do in tandem is “fear setting” which Tim Ferris explains here.)
But it’s not just the number on each side that wins the day.
It’s how powerful and meaningful they are to you.
A single meaningful pro can outweigh a dozen less significant cons.
For if that lone pro is connected to a strong enough why, the decision to proceed will always be a good one. In the long run, anyway.
Gradual bud and bloom and seedfall speeded up
are these mute explosions in slow motion.
From vertical shoots above the sea, the fire
flowers open, shedding their petals. Black waves,
turned more than moonwhite, pink ice, lightning blue,
echo our gasps of admiration as they crash
and hush. Another bush ablaze snicks straight up.
A gap like heartstop between the last vanished
particle and the thuggish boom. And the thuggish
boom repeats in stutters from sandhill hollows
in the shore. We want more. A twirling sun,
or dismembered chrysanthemum bulleted up, leisurely
bursts, in an instant timestreak is suckswooped
back to its core. And we want more: red giant,
white dwarf, black hole dense, invisible, all in one. -(May Swenson, “July 4th”)
Even the most amazing fireworks you’ve ever seen in your life replete with dizzying arrays of light and sound and M-80 sonic boom that command every second of your attention and imagination,
will pass
and become a distant memory.
Forgotten by you
and everyone else who was there to witness and celebrate.
Go make you art. Not because you want to be remembered. But because in that exact moment in time, you loved something so much that you just had to make it and share it with all of us.
The Vs. Studio Blog