Dare the Universe

Blog Evolution

To make any blog more searchable, it helps to include a few words about what it's about.  It's also preferable not to have those keywords all appearing at once in the title banner.  Hence, why I've resorted to the tag cloud, visible in the module on the upper right corner of the homepage to Dispatches.  I did a quick skim of all the entries to date and tagged according to what I saw. By the numbers, this isn't as much of a divorce blog as I thought it was.  We'll see how it evolves from here.

The Secret, on Amphetamines

Thursday, I returned home from work.  Another busy week, yet more mediocrity. 

The reason I'm perpetually unsatisfied in most jobs I've held is that most of them have been office work without much room for creativity, and I'm a creative person.  The most creative office based job I ever had was at the virtual concierge where I worked before lucking out on the government position.  Even that gig was heavily regulated due to the nature of the service we were providing.  I stick with administration for the same reason that food servers with other passions stick to waiting tables: it's the only means of making money to support their basic needs they've ever done while bigger dreams are still pending.

I'll also flat out state that the Public Service, from a creative standpoint, is a zombie apocalypse.  It does many things well, but encouraging innovation, imagination, and outside-the-box thinking is not part of the deal.  Nor should it be: you need to conform to existing processes and suppress all independent thought or desires to change the system, because there's only so much you can change.  Again, nothing inherently wrong with that.  But  I can decide is where I want to stand in relation to it all.  I'll do my job, but I need to get out before I, too, get zombified.

So, I returned home from work and decide to pop in The Secret. 

Now, most of my science-y friends and more rationalistic buddies don't necessarily buy into the Law of Attraction, or the way it's presented in The Secret. Fair enough. What you have to realize is that this DVD was my introduction to the concept.  I have it practically memorized. So even though I have my own doubts from time to time,  The Secret is part of my own belief system. Thus, telling me not to watch it, or to discount it on empirical grounds, is like telling a Catholic not to attend mass, or a Muslim not to bow to the east. Many scientists are devoutly religious, keep that in mind.  And I have had some rather anomalous experiences the methodology that prove, in my subjective experience, that the Law of Attraction exists, and works as advertised.

And one such experience occurred that night. 

I decided to do some visualizing of my own.  Scheduled to pay a visit to my talent agency on Saturday to activate my profile and start getting auditions for film and TV work, I started to fantasize about such a gig. 

Since this opportunity landed in my lap, I've had various fantasies and daydreams of success in commercials, film and TV which I won't share here, frankly because I don't trust that some well-meaning but skeptical readers won't shoot them down on practical grounds.  Watching The Secret, I decided to indulge in these daydreams. 

Two minutes - two minutes! - after I began my reverie, the phone rang.  It was the agency.  On a hunch, they wanted to see if I could audition for a major restaurant chain the very next day!  Normally, they'd wait until I was completely set up, but they were in a bind and were willing to chance a long shot.

I was stunned.  Chalk it up to coincidence all you want, it was a wake-up call of the biggest sorts. 

And I ended up turning them down.  A manager at my office was retiring the next day, so my absence from the office would have been conspicuous.  Or so I told myself.  They said "no worries", and I hung up the phone.

Next day, I went back to work.  Long story short, I wasn't nearly as needed as I thought I was. 

Today, I went in, and finalized my setup.  And I found out I had a great chance to have landed that part had I gone to that audition.  Major.  More where that came from, sure, but I've learned a few lessons from this.

First, office work assimilates people: people become bureaucratized quite easily. This happens in the private sector, sure, but government's particularly nasty at that because everything's hyper regulated and monitored.  Just visit any family court.  Remember the episode of The Simpsons where Homer actually files for divorce from Marge?  Who could forget the immortal words of comfort of the court clerk (who looked suspiciously like Lunch Lady Doris)?  "These things happen. Eight dollars".  This lady actually exists, I'll tell you.

As physically safe and mentally simple as government work can be, it steals the spirit of the artist, one bit of ectoplasm at a time, until you're nothing but an overweight, cardigan-wearing zombie, more concerned with potluck parties and the weekly lottery pool than trying to do anything more creative and passionate.  Don't rock the boat. Don't ask too many questions. Don't take risks.  That becomes your life, if you can call it living.

Second, bureaucratization causes you to lose sight of your own big picture.  No adventure would be considered risky if you weren't willing to lose everything, but it takes balls of pure adamantium to actually do it. 

Had I gone for that audition and booked it, it would have been worth the one day off and the potential wrath of my boss to get the start of a new career and several thousand dollars which would help me pay debt and travel.  But on the phone, having to make a split second decision, the reflex to play it safe that I've developed over a year of government work was all too automatic. 

In order to be an actual risk taker and not some guy who blogs about it from his all-too-comfortable swivel chair on his lunch break, you've got to actually take risks.

Finally, there's always more where that came from.  I'm not only talking TV auditions, here.  I'm talking full-time jobs.   In retrospect, I got everything backwards ass.  I took the risk of leaving full-time work to pursue my passion when I was supporting my ex, and now play it safe as a single guy with no one depending on me. 

Switching that around means daring the Universe.  It means being willing to sacrifice a sure bet for the slippery chance at your own fairy tale.  It means knowing that just as you step over the chasm, a step will rise up just as you're about to fall and catch your foot.  And another, and another, until you reach the other side.

The last time I decided to really take a risk was in 2007. That was when, supported by my ex, I quit my job at the distribution centre where I had worked since high school with nothing else lined up to replace it.  And all along that chain of events leading me to this writing, never once did I end up starving, or on the street, or having to tuck tail and move back in with Mom and Dad.  On the contrary: money and work always showed up somehow, in various forms, just in time to keep me going.

That's not to say it didn't have a price in debt or stress, but overall, Serendipity has looked after me.  I just forget about her in weaker moments, as do we all.  Fortunately, Serendipity is a forgiving lady. And hot to boot.

I'm not quitting my office job, to be clear, nor am I going to slack off.  But I am extending the same rule I had when I started: never let it interfere with my greater ambitions.  There are always other jobs, but precious few big dreams, the latter of which have only the narrowest of opportunities to become reality.

I have no illusions that I will become a major Hollywood star or anything, nor am I giving up writing to do this, but I am definitely open to the possibility, and am willing to be passionnate about any work I get and see where the passion leads me.

And next time they call, I am saying "yes" to whatever gorram audition they have for me.

Eames the Forger says it best in Inception: "You musn't be afraid to dream a little bigger, darling". 

Surely,  I can dream bigger than my desk.