Alright people. I know what everyone's thinking. You're thinking "Wow, Richard really sucks at blogging. He must have fallen victim to the Blogging Suckfest." Well here I am dragging myself out of said suckfest, and the Blogging Nazi's that think I should be blogging more often than I am, which is to say more than once every 2 months, can back off. Haters. I am terming the Blogging Suckfest as the delusion that something important must happen for one to blog. My friend Sue Roweton is particularly accomplished at making all of her posts very interesting, while not all are life changing from her perspective. Or so it seems, Sue. I won't presume to make definitive statements on here, for fear of starting a blogging war. More on that in another post. The Blogging Suckfest, or BS for the intents and purposes of this post, make blogging seem like a chore, rather than a simple draining of your mind through the rapidly depressed type pad of my MacBook. The BS is dangerous. Watch out for it. It disguises itself as anything. Your job, your hair, your new book, your family, your friends, coffee, sleep, exhaustion, fractured metatarsals. Anything. So that is what I was dealing with.
Now that that's out of the way. Portland has been crazy. Or rather I guess it hasn't been crazy, rather I have just been crazy. Neuroticism runs rampant here, and it seems to have jumped on my wagon as soon as I left the prairie behind. (For more information see post #2 [which is from September {so in turn see the first paragraph of this blog post}])
Small plug, I am heading into tech week for The Nutcracker at the Portland Festival Ballet. Click on it, to be taken to the site and educate yourself on where I am, and the people that are fostering my creative development.
So, what have I been doing here. Dancing. A lot. Duh, but more than that. Mr. Magnus, my ballet master and basically life coach, has really tried to instill in his trainees that to not only be a good dancer, but to become an artist, you have to know who you are. You have to have an idea of who you are as a person, in the turest mind of yourself, to be able to stand and show an audience who you are as a character. And also the auditioners that I will be making myself ultimately vulnerable to as I dance my little booty of for jobs in the coming years. The more he said this to me, and the more it sunk it, I realize that that is what my teachers at Missouri State are teaching me as well. It just took me in a pair of booty shorts, trying to stand in tendue derriere (which is much harder than it looks thank you very much), being told off by Mr. Magnus, 2,000 miles from home to realize it. But realize it I did, none-the-less.
I was then struck with a new problem, which is actually an old problem given a label.
I don't know who I am.
I thought I did, but I didn't really like the man he was becoming. So I did some evaluating and made some changes that weren't hard to make, but were sometimes hard to keep to. The newer me was much calmer about things, and much less hard on himself. But I am still continuously told that I am too hard on myself. If I don't hold myself to the highest standards, though, how will people see the best of me?
I think this dilemma also stems from the fact that I don't know who I want to be. I know what I want to do, and I know how to get there, because I'm doing it right now, but I don't know who I want to be while doing it. It's making me doubt many things, and forget about many others.
So, right now I am on the ultimate search anew. I'm not worried... much, I just wish it was a little clearer.
I WILL be writing again soon, so don't forget my blog. This was going to be an update on what I've been doing. But it has become a divulging of my soul in what I have found that I need to discover.
Whoa. That was profound. Reread that last sentence, and you'll see what I see.
I've been there, Bro. Most certainly. The search for self, I believe, is constant; it is the journey of great men and women.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if you know this, but I collect quotations on a number of different themes. This being one of them. I must have several hundred by now. Here are just a sample that might speak to the situation.
All my love,
Jonathan
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
--Aristotle
"People do best what comes naturally."
— John F. Kennedy
"Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each."
— Henry David Thoreau
"I don't sing because I'm happy. I'm happy because I sing.
-- William James
Oh how sweet the journey becomes.
ReplyDeleteSoul searching is a right of passage. Can I tell you who I think you are? Oh, you know Rachey says what she wants, so here we go....You are beautiful. You are a good man. You are the most wonderfully talented person I have ever known. I get misty eyed every time I think about you, which is a lot. You are genuine. You are you who are. That's the best part. Tall, Dark, and Handsome. Saved. Devoted to your craft. Hard working. Amazingly intelligent. Loving. My favorite person to hold hands with. (you too, Miss Lydia). My shopping buddy and fashion guru. Loyal, Dependable, Understanding. I can tell you anything, and then you smile. You are my nearest and dearest Ricky Nebel. My fuzzy peach. I think of you daily, and love you every minute.
ReplyDeleteRachey