“If I Only Knew Then…”

“You ruined my life! I haven’t lived! I never lived! Thank to you I destroyed the best years of my life!…My life is over. I’m talented, I’m smart…If I’d had a normal adulthood I could’ve been a Schopenhauer or a Dostoyevsky.” -Vanya speaking to Serebryakov in Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov (Annie Baker translation)

“If I only knew then what I know now I woulda…”

Okay fine. Maybe you blew it. Maybe you should have worked harder or made a different decision or chose a different path or whatever.

Or maybe you just got a bad break.

But either way, that was about one particular thing. One moment in time.

Don’t let that define the rest of your life.

Instead, use what you know now to go kick ass at the next thing.

It’s never too late.

Go make your art.

”Hearing You Talk Just Now…”

“If you are not doing what you love, you are wasting your time.” -Billy Joel

“Everyone has been made for some particular work, and the desire for that work has been put in every heart.” -Rumi

If someone ever says to you some variation of the following…

“Hearing you talk just now was so inspiring. I could feel how passionate you are about this. How much you care. It really speaks to me. I’m fired up.”

…Then it’s safe to say that whatever “this” is, it’s what you should be doing with your life. Or at the very least, what you should be doing next.

Go do it.

Reference Point

“If we did all the things we are capable of, we would literally astound ourselves.” — Thomas Edison

Once you get through a difficult time or do a hard thing, you have a reference point.

You now understand what it takes and what you’re fully capable of.

That way, when future challenges arise, you can go back to that reference point and have confidence that you will get through it.

The Frustration Is A Gift

“People need trouble—a little frustration to sharpen the spirit on, toughen it” -William Faulkner

“What are you fighting for, and how are you working to get what you want?…An actor is looking for conflict…Conflict is what creates drama. [In life] we are taught to avoid trouble [so] actors don’t realize they must go looking for it. Plays are written about the extraordinary, the unusual, the climaxes. The more conflict actors find, the more interesting the performance.” -Michael Shurtleff, Audition

The frustration you’re feeling right now is a gift. Both in your acting and in life.

Don’t waste it.

Do something with it.

Channel that frustration and conflict and energy into action.

Change things for the better.

Capture The Spirit

“Burn your bridges, start again. You should burn them every now and then. Or you’ll never grow!” -from the musical Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim

For the actor…

Age, type, experience, marketability, look, etc…They all pale in comparison to “spirit.”

If you capture the spirit of the character, then you will capture us. And after about 5 minutes, we’ll roll with anything.

Our Vs. reading this past week and the fantastic high school production I saw tonight both reminded of the fact. Ages were wrong. But the spirits were oh so right.

P.S. – This is why you must produce your own work. Don’t rely on people to see you the way you see you.

1,500

Start close in,
don’t take the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take. -from the poem “Start Close In” by David Whyte

Dear Reader,

I just wrote my 1,500th post. When I started this blog about 5 years ago (January 1, 2020), I could not imagine writing 1500 posts.

Wow.

It’s been a helluva ride.

But more meaningful to me is the fact that YOU have been here for 1,500 posts.

Thank you from the bottom of heart for reading, for sharing, for commenting and for encouraging.

I don’t take your time or attention for granted. It means the world to me. I vow to keep showing up every weekday and share something that is personal, actionable and hopefully inspiring to you on your artistic journey.

Keep making your art. I will too.

Love, JC.

Everybody Wants Some

I took a mobile light, lookin’ for a moonbeam, whoa
Yeah, ya stand in line, ya got lost in a jet stream

But everybody wants some
I want some too, whoa yeah-ah
Everybody wants some
How about you
Ohh yeah
Ooh yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah-yeah -song “Everybody Wants Some” by Van Halen

I can’t stand this indecision
Married with a lack of vision
Everybody wants to rule the—
Say that you’ll never, never, never, never need it
One headline, why believe it?
Everybody wants to rule the world
All for freedom and for pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world -song “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” by Tears For Fears

So if you’re tired of the same old story
Oh baby, turn some pages
I will be here when you are ready
To roll with the changes, baby
Roll with the changes
Ah, you know you know you know you got to
Oh yeah
(Keep on rollin’) Ooh roll with the changes
Keep on rollin’ (Keep on rollin’, keep on rollin’)
Oh, now roll with the changes, oh, baby -song “Roll With The Changes” by REO Speedwagon

“The difference between people who make it and people who don’t isn’t talent or luck or connections. It’s that when the plot changes – and it always changes – they adjust the strategy but never change the want.

Most people give up when the first plot twist happens. They think that’s the end of the story. But successful people understand that plot twists are just part of the story, not the story.

The story is the want. Everything else is just figuring out the how.” -Jesse Itzler

Everybody wants something.

Few know exactly what that is.

Even fewer know why they want it.

Very, very few are willing to make all the necessary sacrifices and roll with all the changes to get it.

P.S. – This will get you going in the morning.

Bird By Bird. Brick By Brick.

Two inspiring passages to help you when you just can’t seem to get started on a project: (They are both so good I’ll just let them speak for themselves.)

When she’s stuck or feeling overwhelmed by a big project, the writer Anne Lamott likes to think of a story “that over and over helps me get a grip.” When her brother was ten years old, he was stuck on a school project for which he had to write a report on birds. “He was at the kitchen table close to tears,” Lamott writes in Bird by Bird, “surrounded by binder paper and pencils and unopened books on birds, immobilized by the hugeness of the task ahead. Then my father sat down beside him, put his arm around my brother’s shoulder, and said, ‘Bird by bird, buddy. Just take it bird by bird.’”

In Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a young girl is assigned to write a five-hundred-word essay about any topic. She chose to write about the United States. Her teacher—the book’s protagonist, the wise Phaedrus—suggested she narrow it down to Bozeman, Montana. When the due date arrived, she didn’t have a single word written. “She just couldn’t think of anything to say,” the narrator says. “Not a spark of creativity in her anywhere.” Phaedrus gave her an extension. But this time, Phaedrus said, “Narrow it down to the main street of Bozeman.” Again, when the due date came, she had nothing. “Narrow it down,” Phaedrus said, “to the front of one building on the main street of Bozeman. The Opera House. Start with the upper left-hand brick.” She went to the hamburger stand across the street from the Opera House. She started writing about the upper left-hand brick and then the brick next to it and the one next to that. “It all started to come and I couldn’t stop,” she told Phaedrus the next day when she handed in a five-thousand-word essay on the front of the Opera House on the Main Street in Bozeman, Montana.

H/t to Billy Oppenheimer’s terrific weekly newsletter for providing.

Conviction

“Calamity is the perfect glass wherein we truly see and know ourselves.” -William Davenant

“A smooth sea never made a skilled sailor.” -Franklin D. Roosevelt

The word “conviction” originates from the Latin convincere, meaning “to overcome” or “to conquer.”

The only way to know your convictions is when they’re put to the test. You actually have to overcome something. So be grateful for the hardships for they reveal a lot.

Put another way…

No test. No conviction.