“Hard work doesn’t guarantee success, but without you don’t stand a chance.” -Pat Riley
“I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” -Thomas Jefferson
Hard work isn’t a badge of honor to be displayed for all to see.
It doesn’t guarantee success.
And it’s not an input/output function. Meaning the more you do, the more you get.
It’s pretty mundane. Ordinary. Just something you do when you love the thing you’re doing.
“People look for retreats for themselves in the country, by the coast, or in the hills. There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in their own mind…So constantly give yourself this retreat, and renew yourself.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
“People enjoy their food, take pleasure being with their families, spend weekends working in their gardens, delight in the doings of the neighborhood. And even though the next country is so close that people can hear its roosters crowing and its dogs barking, they are content to die of old age without ever having gone to see it.” -Excerpt from Verse 80 of the Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)
“Wherever you go, there you are.” -Jon Kabat-Zinn
“Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”
“Yes, every once in a while.”
“Do you know that in abou thirty- five more years we’ll be dead?”
“What the hell, Robert,” I said. “What the hell.”
“I’m serious.”
“It’s one thing I don’t worry about,” I said.
“You ought to.”
“I’ve had plenty to worry about one time or other. I’m through worrying.”
“Well, I want to go to South America.”
“Listen, Robert, going to another country doesn’t make any difference. I’ve tried all that. You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There’s nothing to that.” -Robert and Jake conversation in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
When you’re lit up by something, when you’re on fire with passion and purpose, when you’re truly living out your vocation, you may not need or ever want to take a vacation.
P.S. – “I’m on vacation!”
The sooner you figure out who you love and want to spend your life with, the more time you get to spend with the person you love.
The same holds true for your work and art.
The sooner you figure out what you love to do, the more time you get to do the thing you love.
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” -Barack Obama
“When people lead, the leaders will follow.” -Mahatma Ghandi
A common childhood dream–or at least I hope it still is–is to one day become president.
If that’s your dream (or whatever your dream is), please don’t let anyone or anything stand in your way. Go for it.
In your moments of self doubt, remind yourself that being president is still just a job. Like any job, someone’s gotta do it. Why not you?
“And in every one of us, there’s a war going on. It’s a civil war. I don’t care who you are, I don’t care where you live, there is a civil war going on in your life. And every time you set out to be good, there’s something pulling on you, telling you to be evil. It’s going on in your life. Every time you set out to love, something keeps pulling on you, trying to get you to hate. Every time you set out to be kind and say nice things about people, something is pulling on you to be jealous and envious and to spread evil gossip about them. There’s a civil war going on. There is a schizophrenia, as the psychologists or the psychiatrists would call it, going on within all of us. And there are times that all of us know somehow that there is a Mr. Hyde and a Dr. Jekyll in us…There’s a tension at the heart of human nature. And whenever we set out to dream our dreams and to build our temples, we must be honest enough to recognize it.” -Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
“The commandment that prohibits desiring the goods of one’s neighbor attempts to resolve the number one problem of every human community: internal violence.” -Rene Girard
The “Story of the Two Wolves” is an ancient tale that’s been a part of the Native American tradition for generations. Although the exact origin is unknown, historians typically attribute the tale to the Cherokee or the Lenape people.
The story features two characters, a grandfather and his grandson, and a conversation that goes like this…
“I have a fight going on in me,” the old man says to his grandson. “It’s taking place between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf embodies positive emotions. He is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. Both wolves are fighting to the death. The same fight is going on inside you and every other person, too.”
The grandson took a moment to reflect on this. At last, he looked up at his grandfather and asked, “Which wolf will win?”
The old man replies. “The one you feed.”
“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, “O me! O life!… of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless… of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?” Answer. That you are here – that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play *goes on* and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?” -Mr. Keating (played by Robin Williams) in the film Dead Poets Society (screenplay by N.H. Kleinbaum)
Can we evaluate art? Objectively? Should we even try? And what’s the criteria?
Either way, what truly matters is how it affected YOU. (Even Captain Keating would agree, I think.)
One of my favorite things in life is watching movies with my kids. And nothing’s better than showing them a movie I loved and they dig it too.
Recently, my younger son Truman and I watched Dead Poets Society (a film in my pantheon). He dug it and I could also tell it affected him. This was our car-ride conversation the next day….
Truman: “Dad. I’m giving Dead Poets 5 stars on Letterboxd.”
Me: “Wow. 5 stars. Nice…How many movies do you give 5 stars to?”
Truman: “Very few.”
Me: “What’s your criteria for 5 stars?”
Truman: “Three things…It has to be entertaining. It has to hold my attention the whole time. And it needs to change my perspective.”
(Beat)
CUT TO:
Me smiling with pride and awe.
Yeah, he’s a lot smarter than me.
P.S. – “Rip it out!” This scene.
P.P.S. – “Interesting.”
I see the words on a rocking horse of time
I see the birds in the rain…
I’ll ride the wave where it takes me…
How I’ve opened up, release me
Release me, release me, ah, release me -Pearl Jam, song “Release”
“Therefore the Master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn’t possess, acts but doesn’t expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever.” –Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)
“Make me an instrument of you peace…grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love…” –The Peace Prayer Of Saint Francis
What happens if you release…
…the need to be right?
…the need to be thanked?
…the need to be praised?
…the need to be remembered?
…the need to feel good?
…the need to make lots of money?
…the need to have power?
…the need to feel secure?
…the need to be certain?
…the need to be assured?
…the need to feel loved?
What are you left with? What would you do?
Do that.
“Clear the path for the people above you and you will eventually create a path for yourself.” -Ryan Holiday, book Ego Is The Enemy
“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” -Gandhi
“Find the most talented person in the room and if it’s not you, go stand next to
[that person.] Hang out with [that person] and try to be helpful.” -Harold Ramis
anteambulo: (Latin)
A person whose job it is to walk in front of another, such as an usher. In Ancient Rome, someone who walked in front of his patron to clear the way. Latin “ante”=before + “ambulare”=to walk + “-o”=noun-forming suffix.
When you set out to make something, especially if it’s a commercial enterprise, asking “Who’s it for?” and “What’s it for?” are vital.
So is asking “Does this, or something closely like it, already exist?”
If yes, don’t dismay. You’ll find something else. Trust that.
In the meantime, be happy that it’s already in the world. Become a fan. Try out the product. Demo the service. Listen to the podcast. Read the book. Watch the movie. Etc.
And if you truly love it and have the wherewithal, offer to help the creator get the work out to an even larger audience. Clear the path. Be the anteambulo. Use your talents and platform to spread the word.
Helping someone else who’s striving for excellence fulfill their potential is its own creative act. It’s also one of the most generous and beautiful things you can do.
P.S. – Happy Valentine’s Day! Enjoy this awesome and super catchy song. (Thank you Noah for creating it and AK for sharing it with me.)
For the actor…
Speaking of repetition, you can’t rely on the director or other actors or rehearsal process to allow you much time to “find it.” (If you’re fortunate to have a long rehearsal process and patient director, thank your lucky stars, as it’s not the norm.) And if it’s a film, forget about it. Time is money and money is time. You’re expected to show up on set pretty much fully formed.
But you need to get your reps in somehow. You gotta figure out the character, especially if it’s a complex one, and this part of the process is largely a solo endeavor. You gotta do what you gotta do. This is where a little ingenuity and creativity and a producing mindset can serve you.
Josh Brolin tells a great story about preparing for his role as Eddie Mannix in Hail Caesar by the Coen Brothers…
I’m lucky to have a good voice and I’m good at mimicry, so with Eddie Mannix, he was a different kind of role and doing his voice wasn’t easy. It was New Jersey and Abbott and Costello. I actually rented a theater in LA and treated the script like a play. Even before we began working with the Coens, the other actors and I would rehearse, and I have to say, this part of the process I enjoy more than anything. It’s like building a house. Planning to build your house is amazing, and living in the house after it’s built is amazing, but building the house is a pain in the ass. Acting is a lot of work and a lot of trial and error; it can be an embarrassing thing, things can not be working, but you keep going, and you find the magic in that not working and the reaction to it. It’s like painting a picture—sometimes an accident is the best part. But acting is truly a profession of humiliation.
No one cares or needs to see how you got there. All that matters is you got there. Whatever you need to do, do it.
P.S. – You can read the rest of the Josh Brolin interview Here.
“Do you know anything about the Quakers? The Quaker religion? I went to this Quaker wedding once, and it was fantastic. What they do is, the couple comes in and they kneel down in front of the whole congregation and they just stare at each other and nobody says a word unless they feel that God moves them to speak or say something. And then after an hour or so of just staring at each other, they’re married.” — Jesse (played by Ethan Hawke) to Celine (played by Julie Delpy) in the film Before Sunrise
“An ounce of behavior is worth a pound of words.” -Sanford Meisner
Actors and directors (for rehearsal)…
After the scene ends, resist the temptation to fill the empty silence by talking or commenting on it. Especially if you have nothing meaningful or impactful to say.
Be like the Quakers. Wait for it. And if nothing comes, trust yourself to just do the scene again.
More often than not, the actors just need reps. Like an athlete, they’re warming up. So the best thing the director can do (or actors working privately in scene study) is just go again. And again. And again.
Eventually through sheer repetition, you might just find the magic.
P.S. – Speaking of repetition.
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