Blog Off

I'd like to pretend I don't care about pop culture but it is part of the noise around us and once in a while a glimmer of intelligence hits us. An actor I'm not familiar with was quoted on imdb and he in turn was quoting Will Smith who may have been quoting someone else but is to have said, "You can tell how far you will get in life by the five people you spend the most time with." He remarked that he can see a lot of people cleaning house and changing up their friends. Likely the quote was New Years related.

I think there are many reasons to blog or to write, maybe it's just a substitute for the "four pages" of random stream-of-consciousness writing recommended by Julia Cameron in The Artist's Way - something others don't have to and perhaps shouldn't read but which purges the writer of baggage. It's supposed to be done first time in the morning. For me, morning is a changing concept because I work four night shifts per week.

Every now and then you may get a toxic e-mail, one that you have to examine to its root and find that whether the sender consciously understands it or intends it there is something disturbing behind it. If you are an actor older than 50 and wish to revisit a character that has a brand name, there will be critics and bloggers and common idiots who state the obvious "he's old," "she's old." The implication of this is "the world would somehow be better if that person sits in a corner and rests on laurels and "ages gracefully (read: unproductively)" and the world is somehow worse off because a popular title has been revisited. As stupid and and pissy as that belief may be, it is the least damaging example of this kind of thinking.

There are too many nay-sayers in life. Failure will take care of itself. If you know someone who is in his/her DNA a producer and they COULD help to facilitate the organization of a project you have in mind but they do not, whether you are rude enough to broach the issue or not THAT is the defining aspect of your relationship.
You do NOT by any stretch of the imagination need a friend or family member to tell you to be "realistic" when they mean give up. It is FAIR to insist that you be in a state of readiness for whatever you dream and aspire to do. In my case, believe me, I know every time I stand up let alone walk a flight of stairs that I have to improve my fitness.

But physical action and getting psyched up are interactive. Once in a while I'll identify a source of input as toxic, shut it out, and actually make progress. Then time passes and you relax the defence, like filing away the "Do Not Access" photo for an estranged person posted behind the security desk. Eventually, people relax and coast because adrenaline and anger usually can't sustain and there are other issues to concentrate on. But the same toxic input can worm its way back into your attention and waste even more of your time. Consider those the words of Satan or whatever other negative image you subscribe to. What is this in service of?

I get along well with my siblings. Others don't. If they lived in my town I would make the effort to phone and visit. I'd like to succeed where I must and then maybe return to my home town some day, even though I've missed a lot of life there while following my main passion in the big city (even while paying the rent by less grandiose means). I can imagine how even siblings would stop talking to each other if certain mental roles life scripts or mind games were being acted out. Once a person is free of the childhood home, they frankly don't have to listen to scoldings and advice. It's toxic. The toxic person may even look for surrogates they can damn with faint praise or mentally mess with all in the guise of support. But again that is so subtle and diabolical it likely will not be a conscious choice. That's giving the person benefit of the doubt. But whether they own and intend the harm behind it, a toxic influence is just that.

It should not be expected to improve anymore than an alcoholic should be expected to recover fully.
Maybe this applies to me more than most and it may be of no use to the average reader. I have what might be called a co-dependant nature and an addictive personality. So there is no grey area, even if I fool myself into thinking there is one. An innocent discussion of movies on a website can be one more irritation instead of the audience research that is intended. If you find yourself reading mostly things that irritate, and it isn't giving a spark of inspiration, maybe it's time to cut that loose.

If anything, those of us who want to make progress in writing, theater, comedy, films or another coveted vocation will have plenty of critics. Those are inevitable. But before the creation the last thing we need is to actually interact with them. I think evaluating the quality of thought behind reviews (or lack of it rather) will help me accept the inevitable blasts I will get in the future from my own work. But that's about all I get from that.

All I can say to other people is good luck.