Without continual growth and progress, such words as improvement, achievement, and success have no meaning.
-Benjamin Franklin

There is a story about Michael Jordan, one of the greatest basketball players of all time, and his practice routine in which he would shoot 1,000 free throws and be the last man leaving practice. This was also at a time when he was considered one of the best in the league, dominating the game. Here was a man at the top of his game and had achieved many personal records and team championships, and still practiced longer and harder than others who had done less.

This is the work ethic that inspires me. It’s not simply about being the best. That’s an achievement but not a goal. For a goal implies a future mark that when achieved is over; it has an end. Sure it’s something to aspire for and train for but what happens after that goal? Perhaps there is a new goal to keep one going but what if there isn’t?

There should be no end to progress in my mind. Even with all the achievements, medals, and awards there should still be something to aspire to; to strive and work towards. My coach has always talked about how there is always work to be done. Even in an Oscar winning performance there can be more play, truth, or character development. We are never finished with our work and it continues on unto the next character, film, play, or whatever it is.

The thing I love about acting too is that there is no prime. With physical sports such as basketball the body begins to decay and while you can still progress and push there is a prime age. A twenty year old will be able to outplay a seventy year old at basketball as the body changes physically with age. Whereas with acting we reflect nature and truth and that truth is independent of time. Yes it is expressed in a moment of time, but that moment of time is as truthful when we are seven as when we are eighty-five.

So in acting there is no prime age and with that, progress is unending. There is always work to be done, more truth to strive towards, and more empathy and understanding to explore. There is always room for more play. Which is why I love this story about Michael Jordan so much. It’s not about being the best because you can always be better. I knew coming into this craft that I was no artistic genius and that there will be people more naturally gifted at me in this, which is fine because I cannot control that. I can control how hard I work though, and so I want to be the actor that works the hardest, fails the biggest, and pushes forward the most.

I haven’t fully arrived there yet, and I never fully will. For again there will always be room to work harder, opportunities to fail bigger, and moments to push harder in. That is what inspires me day after day to keep fighting, struggling, and progressing forward in this great craft!

The more I learn, the more I realize how much I don’t know.
-Albert Einstein

It’s only been a short and small step into this grand journey so far and I’ve already learned a lot. Or rather might say had a lot of things thrown at me; from different scene studies to different classes and theatrical forms. There has been a lot to take in and absorb. Through this process one typically comes to the realization of how much one does not know about their area of study. It can be very overwhelming, even disheartening.

However, for the passionate and the disciplined it becomes the lifeblood of the craft. Everything I have learned are tools and techniques but in it of themselves they are nothing. They must be practiced. They must become ingrained in the body. It was an opening to realize further what rehearsal truly is; it’s experimentation, fun, and play, to get at the truth.

The truth, my truth, is what I had left behind in acquiring all this new knowledge and technique. As such even though I was progressing in knowledge I was failing and struggling more and more with acting and just being. Because the truth, our truth, is the lifeblood of method acting, everything else only serves to enhance that or help find it and bring it out. Without ourselves in the work, there is no work. Everything simply becomes fancy speech and lifeless gestures. It has to start with you.

I had applied all my tools, games, and vocal practice to this one speech only to have it fail over and over again. Until I started with myself did something finally come through. It sounds so simple but I lost it along the way. It’s a breath of fresh air though, finding it again, and now my passion, drive, and discipline has been kick started into a new gear to take this speech and from myself add on all the techniques and tools to bring it to life in the given circumstances and play.

I will continue to learn new things and grow in knowledge and practice in the things I know. I also know there is so much more out there to learn and apply and it seems so overwhelming. Still, I must always remember to begin with myself and my truth. It’s the only way to breathe true life into a character.

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
-Theodore Roosevelt

This journey has been anything but easy. I recall the pureness I came into this on my first read through in my very first class. I felt electrified, alive; full of something I had never been filled with in my life, a passion. This continued on into my first assigned monologue. The work was all there and things were simple in a sense but truth was evident.

Fast forward to last night and I feel things have extended away from me. That every monologue for the past year after that first monologue has been me chasing that truth and finding nothing but failure. I’ve learned a lot about this craft and read many plays and books in this past year to only have me progress backwards it seems. My intellect has taken over and I dream about great rehearsals. I imagine the perfect delivery of the lines, and the perfect behavior and action comes to life in my mind, but when I actually try to live it and express it through the body I fail utterly.

While my frustrations mount every Monday and I feel like I’m progressing backwards more than I’m progressing forward, I feel called to this the more so. I cannot articulate it or reason it out. I hope one day to find my truth in these pieces again. To unlock this artist inside me and let it shine. For now I struggle, and with much struggle comes much pain. Which is something I’m well acquainted with. For on the other side of this is something beautiful and even in the muck it is a worthy struggle. If I were to spend my life in this struggle never finding that truth again I would account it a life lived well and not wasted.

“Never give up on a dream just because of the time it will take to accomplish it. The time will pass anyway.”
Earl Nightingale

It seems sometimes you risk going a completely different direction and it benefits you nothing. If anything it gets you chewed out and feeling pretty terrible about your work. But that’s not even the worst of it. I hate feeling like I let my scene partner down and last night I did. I don’t know what we did, I can assure you it wasn’t the play, but why did it go the way that it did? I don’t even know what was so wrong about it; and that is what kills me.

It was obvious that it was wrong but I cannot articulate why. Which leaves me back to square one in that I have no idea what I’m doing. I feel like I take one step forward only to go 10 steps backwards. The same thing happened with another scene of mine this week. I let my partner down again. My work was lazy, glib, and not truthful to the given circumstances. I played in a direction that was all wrong. I didn’t earn anything of what I was saying.

Why do I keep going down these paths? What keeps me from putting my truth in the given circumstances? Why am I doing this? There is so much frustration in all of this and so much doubt. I have developed so little faith in my acting abilities. People who have come after me are taking leaps and bounds in progress ahead of me. But that’s the thing, I cannot compare myself or my journey to anyone else.

This is a big struggle and sometimes it seems like it has won and all I want to do is quit and give up. But that is just simply not an option. Should this have been me from even a couple years ago and I would have. So I am very thankful for coming to acting when I did. This race is far from over and even still just yet beginning. So I’m struggling, so I’m failing to process and understand at times, so I’m failing to keep up with some of my peers, so I’m failing to be that actor and artist I can be in this time, place, and moment? So what of it all? One has to be invested in their dreams for the long run, the present struggle and doubt is not a reflection of the long haul, unless one quits.