Barring Any Unforeseen Success
Life’s been good, too good some might say.
Some being me. I say it’s been too good. Relatively speaking of course in regards to everything else.
For every production a play of mine earns a human right is struck down.
Not in some Faustian 1:1 dynamic but it is genuinely hard to balance elation with despair.
I’ve looked through the photos that my colleagues who took part in the same prestigious festival last month have shared and I see a stark difference in their experience. We’re equally excited, grateful, and talented, yet their enjoyment of the day seemed so much more rooted in revelry than my own. Most folks took a photo in front of the iconic Off-Broadway theater where our pieces were being presented. Many posted photos of packed audiences and jubilant afterparties.
While my audience was nothing to sneeze at and there was an afterparty hosted in the lobby of an even more lavish Off-Broadway venue down the block courtesy of my friends Denise Manning and Paula Ali; I took no photos in front of the theater, I took no photos of the audience, I got to the afterparty carrying my son’s easel that we had used as a prop and left before it began because I had to get up to take him to school the next morning. I didn’t have enough money in my account to get past the turnstile so I piggybacked off of my friend Luke Bond’s monthly card at the Port Authority station, hopped my A-Train uptown, smoked a bowl, then went to bed.
I’ll pause here to denote that I’m not placing value judgements on either of these. There are fractals of reasons in various arenas as to why someone might prefer to celebrate one way or another but autism and introversion aside, I felt a deeper difference in the spirit of our celebrations than the particulars of how we decided to get down with our bad selves.
There’s no arguing that my play’s inclusion in this festival is significant for my career. It’s a very good thing and it went very very well thanks to the work my friends put into making it and the labor put in to coordinating the festival. I met very cool people who said very nice things about a piece that exposes my tender sociopolitical belly for the world to see. That said, I felt/feel that in the bigger scheme of things, this really isn’t that big of a deal.
I’ve put up several shows on my own in the last 8–9 years and have learned to savor every minute of the experience; from the bitter taste of a near-empty audience to the swelling ego that results from reading a rave review. In either case, the result was the same, I went back to work on Monday.
No matter how well or poorly these endeavors go, the clock strikes midnight, my carriage turns into a pumpkin, and I somehow lose a shoe to some handsome stranger. Some handsome stranger being me.
I’m very bad at keeping track of my personal belongings.
In the ups and downs of indie theater goblindom, the number of times I’m finding myself winded, wondering if it’s worth doing it again, is becoming increasingly frequent.
Is the career I fantasized about when I moved here still the one that makes the most sense for the person I grew to be?
How do I parse the intense feelings of disappointment? After all, when I moved here it was only a matter of time until I was the talk of writer salons city-wide and gobbling up awards. I couldn’t possibly be so simply satisfied with a measly one-night performance in a space where shows run for weeks only to then return to the drawing board, freshly defeated with nothing to show for it. Could I?
Turns out I so was.
The disappointment, I realized, was centered more at my lack of “ambition” to “capitalize” on the momentum I had built with this glorious flash in the pan. If opportunities came from the effort, so be it. Otherwise tomorrow was a new day with a new opportunity to either get this script out there again, create something new, or better yet exist.
The process of divorcing my creative practice from a results based mentality is difficult and ongoing, but it has resulted in the healthiest relationship I’ve had to my art in my entire life.
For years I’d occasionally find myself blessed with a morsel of motivation, only to find that what I wanted to do was draw, not write. This was a bummer because I really wanted to finish the play I was working on because that was the pursuit that would get me the most potential return in regards to my career advancement.
A play can win awards, get readings, etc. My goofy doodles get 10 likes then turn to dust. Worse, what if I wanted to play guitar? Something I literally do not know how to do?
Which of the above seems like a better investment of this precious resource?
This internal friction usually then would burn up what motivation I had leaving me at zero once more.
I haven’t written new play in almost 2 years. I wrote a series of shorts for Playground NY but that was because I was compelled to, a valuable lesson in and of itself for someone who wants to do this professionally.
As of today, I’m proud to say that I’m 9 months into a comic strip on Instagram that hasn’t cracked 100 followers. I draw when I want to draw and I’m getting better.I noodle on my acoustic when the mood strikes and I’m getting better. It satisfies the need in my head.
Because that’s what all of this is folks, your poetry isn’t a means to publication and notoriety; it’s how you express a certain thing a certain way. Therefore, it is my opinion that to limit your expression to what you feel has the most social/fiscal feedback can’t be what the practice is about , at least for me. Not anymore.
Does this mean I’ll forego some opportunities? Does this mean that I may not make it to the heights of whatever I think achievement looks like? Maybe, but I’ll also model the life of a creative person who is satisfied to be an artist living in the present moment for my son. I don’t want him to think, like I did, that living a creative life is a noble pursuit wherein financial stability needs must be sacrificed lest ye mutate into a bitter has-been in the late-stage of their relevancy.
It’s about expression, stabilization, and feeling what it’s like to be alive by archiving my reactions to threats both internal and external, that pillory my better faculties on a daily basis.
This is a call to do the thing you love to do more than the thing you trained to do because it fills you up and makes you a better you. To that end, steel yourself from resentment the by allowing successes to move past you as you wish failures would. Put no expectation on your art other than that it have been made by you and that it served some greater purpose, no matter how abstract. Despite our best efforts, we can’t hold on to the moment, to try is to risk breeding resentment. This is easier
It is now my goal to string together a wide ranging collection of moments that will hopefully lead to some fulfilling forms of expression and maybe a few dollars on the way if I’m lucky.
Otherwise, I’ve got work on Monday.