Sanity is Overrated
Jul. 7th, 2009 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vinceconawayThe best part about staying in hostels is meeting new people and getting different perspectives. This was especially true today, when I was explaining my profession and lifestyle to a Korean roommate. When I gave my usual line of “I’m a little crazy” he responded, “to be successful as an entertainer you almost have to be” (I’m paraphrasing).
This is very, very true. Many of my best friends are entertainers of some sort or another, and we’ve sat around a lot of kitchen counters, bar tables, and breakfast nooks discussing our lives. In my mind’s eye I can recall the success stories, the careers made, the experiences created. But at the same time I can also count the failed marriages and personal setbacks.
The very characteristics that help me as a performer betray me in other settings. Stubborn ambition combined with crippling insecurity is a potent combination in forging an act, but isn’t the best way to stay close to friends and loved ones. A willingness to sacrifice comfort and nonessentials in pursuit of an objective makes life on the road possible, but tends to weaken relationships. Add to this a hearty dose of “carpe diem”, essential to embracing opportunity but potentially devastating when it comes to fidelity, and it’s amazing any of us lasts long enough to get married in the first place.
But I love what I do, and cannot imagine a life doing anything else. A friend of mine wants to tattoo the Japanese kanji for “choose” on her arm, because our choices define us as nothing else does. Hugh MacLeod (http://www.gapingvoid.com) has written that “the price of being a sheep is boredom, the price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care”. I have, and I’m good with that choice.
Being of a spiritual bent I often think in terms of sacrifice, and sometimes the king really does need to bleed to make the corn grow.
This is very, very true. Many of my best friends are entertainers of some sort or another, and we’ve sat around a lot of kitchen counters, bar tables, and breakfast nooks discussing our lives. In my mind’s eye I can recall the success stories, the careers made, the experiences created. But at the same time I can also count the failed marriages and personal setbacks.
The very characteristics that help me as a performer betray me in other settings. Stubborn ambition combined with crippling insecurity is a potent combination in forging an act, but isn’t the best way to stay close to friends and loved ones. A willingness to sacrifice comfort and nonessentials in pursuit of an objective makes life on the road possible, but tends to weaken relationships. Add to this a hearty dose of “carpe diem”, essential to embracing opportunity but potentially devastating when it comes to fidelity, and it’s amazing any of us lasts long enough to get married in the first place.
But I love what I do, and cannot imagine a life doing anything else. A friend of mine wants to tattoo the Japanese kanji for “choose” on her arm, because our choices define us as nothing else does. Hugh MacLeod (http://www.gapingvoid.com) has written that “the price of being a sheep is boredom, the price of being a wolf is loneliness. Choose one or the other with great care”. I have, and I’m good with that choice.
Being of a spiritual bent I often think in terms of sacrifice, and sometimes the king really does need to bleed to make the corn grow.
