3:58 pm - Sat 3.31.2012
A Lot Of "Eggs"...And One Sad Little "Basket" (My "Pre-Easter" Entry)

Started writing this entry a couple days ago...but as often happens when I let an entry sit, I re-read what I'd written and it bored me to death, leading me to think it would bore you to death as well.

So here we are.

There have been no auditions for the past two weeks, and that's been making Jim an unhappy boy.

A lot of that unhappiness comes from the "fiscal anxiety" these little audition-less times create - after all, no auditions means no bookings means no money (Save the pittance I make from WW) - but there's more to it than that.

It's the "putting all my eggs in one basket" thing I've wrestled with for years now; Acting is how I make the lion's share of my income (At least for the past number of years), but it's also what I like to do, and of what I do, it's the thing I care about the most.

Almost the only thing I really care about.

It's how I identify myself - and because of that, it's how I wish to be identified - "out in the world".

(I don't think there's anything wrong with working at WW, mind you...I'd just rather not. And I'd rather people think of me as an actor than as a guy that works at WW.)

Self-esteem, personal enjoyment/creative satisfaction, social interaction/friendship and financial reward/security - Those are some heavy-duty "eggs", way more than I should expect the "acting basket" to hold.

But here I am.

But really, it's always been this way; the only "egg" I've added to the "basket" since I came out to LA is "the need to make money".

I know this is a problem - a big problem, an ongoing problem (And one that's only gotten worse since moving to LA) - but I don't know what to do about it.

This is not stuff I'm going to solve in one journal entry - especially not since I just got off the phone with my friend Howard, and he wants me to come over an hour earlier than we initially planned tonight - but it's the stuff I need to think about, wrestle with, and fix.

Cause once you say to yourself, definitively, "This shit ain't working", you have to either do something about it, or admit to yourself that your life isn't working, that you're not happy, but you lack the brains, or the will, or the whatever, to do anything about it.

This isn't me saying "I don't want to be an actor" or "I want to give up on this dream"", or anything like that.

But it is me saying, "I need more than this". I need to be able to get at least some of my needs met other ways, because I'm pretty sure expecting acting as a career to satisfy every aspect of my being is...well, in a word, crazy.

previous - next