tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11645472.post-80302055801099809772008-01-13T20:48:00.000-08:002008-01-13T20:48:00.000-08:00Evan - it really IS good to have you back. And your post is not just better than silence...it's important!<BR/><BR/>While I STILL have not even approached the level that you've been working at for most of your career - I did work at acting throughout college as if it were a job. I was on "speech team" at the time - and acting was literally paying for my college. Before that, it was the same thing in High School - speech team in high school and college made acting into pure, repetitious competition. <BR/><BR/>So at the end of college, I met my wife, got a job that payed real money, bought a house and found myself just plain tired of acting. So I quit. And never thought about picking it up again for fifteen straight years. The only time I felt uncomfortable with my choice was in the darkness, after a really good film - but even then the urge didn't resurface.<BR/><BR/>Until three years ago. After a few years of examining the working world and finding it lacking (even at a non-profit) I realized that our time here is too limited to sit by and allow that to exist in my life. So I literally walked out the door of my office, looked on the ground (I work at a university) and saw a flyer to audition for a student film. I auditioned, got the part, and started up again.<BR/><BR/>In a rehearsal for the first real non-student acting part I had, our director asked each of us to describe what we were bringing to the audition. Out of my mouth came the word, "joy." And I realized, with surprise, that it was true. I'd found something that I had been missing for decades - a joy in a craft.<BR/><BR/>Now - three years later, when I'm off to an audition and my stomach is filled with butterflies because I know it's an "important" one, I repeat to myself: remember - you do this because it brings you joy. And it does - but it takes remembering that sometimes.<BR/><BR/>So I'm not sure what all these words mean - but I can say this - you may be weary now - but it won't be that way forever. And I suspect you do this thing for the same reason I do - for the joy. But sometimes it is hard to remember that.Storyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00300425045853036444noreply@blogger.com