11:22 pm - Weds 1/5/05
Looking For The Inner Circle

Weds 1/5/05 (7:21 p.m.)

I can tell when I'm feeling especially positive about the future when I start to worry about "the next phase" of my life here in L.A. (Which suggests I believe there will be a "next phase" of my life here in L.A.).

As I said in my letter to Kevin, I'm worried about having to basically generate my own income as an "independent contractor". Though I imagine when you put yourself in a position where you have to make things happen, you make things happen.

And I'm worried about being lonely. Should be used to it by now�and to a certain extent, I am�but without the regular social contact of my sad little bookstore job, I'll have no regular "social contact".

Once again, anything that happens I'll have to make happen.

My hope is that, with more time to work on career stuff, more career stuff will happen. And with more career stuff, maybe longer-term career stuff (A couple weeks on a movie or play, for example). And with that longer-term career stuff, maybe the possibility of making, not just good contacts, but maybe some good friends.

Maybe even something more (Hey, a man can dream, can't he?).

I'm putting a lot of eggs in the "Success As An Actor" basket (But not all my eggs, or else I wouldn't be planning to become a Mobile Notary). I want acting to be artistically rewarding and emotionally fulfilling, I want it to pay the bills, and I want it to lead to friendship, and maybe romance.

Now I may get all that out of it and more...but whether I do or not, it won't be enough.

And that's where the fun really begins...

I am an actor, yes. But what else am I? Assuming I have the success as an actor I crave out here, and it leads to other good things, what else do I want? What else do I plan to do with myself?

Take acting out of the equation, and who am I?

I have a feeling figuring that out is gonna make being a professional actor look like a walk in the park...

An actor's a guy who, if you ain't talkin' about him, ain't listenin'.

As Homer Simpson might say, "It's funny because it's true".

I want that to not be true about me, but honestly, that is my tendency: I'm often so desperate to tell people about myself, in the hope that someone will be interested, that someone will care, that I overlook the fact that people might want to tell me about themselves, in the hope that I will care.

What complicates the issue is that a lot of the people I do care about don't really need me to care about them. They don't need to tell me their stories, to reveal their truest feelings, to open themselves up to me, because they've pretty much "already got it covered". I'm ready to listen, but they don't have anything to say to me.

I'm not in their "inner circle".

But I'm at least on "the outer rim", and that's all right.

And they aren't the only people in the world.

And if I actually start making the effort to listen--for at least a moment or two at a time--maybe I'll find the people who need to tell me their stories, to reveal their truest feelings, to open themselves up to me, because they don't "already have it covered".

And maybe in the process, I'll find "an inner circle" of my very own.

I don't know what I wanted out of it�To feel like "a good guy"? To feel like I was "making a difference"? To express my gratitude to the universe for the fact that I'm not currently dead?�but whatever it was, I didn't get it.

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

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