Dreams Deferred
News
A few small updates:
I can check “visit Salem during October” off my bucket list. It was cool, definitely worth doing once, but not something I’m dying to do again.
I am continuing my broadsword classes.
I am working on a short, four-actor adaptation of King Lear.
There is still time to submit an article for the next issue of Brief Candle.
I am taking another Weekend Intensive three-day acting class this weekend. A weekend intensive in NYC is how I got introduced to S&Co’s actor training in the first place in the summer of 2019.
Dreams Deferred
Working a day job in admin so close to artistic work that I want to be doing is turning out to be harder than I anticipated. Everyday I hang out with folks who are directing in the Fall Festival of Shakespeare or who are are acting in shows and I feel like everyone here thinks of me as the guy who puts their comp tickets in for the show and rings them up for a sandwich and not as a Shakespearean.
On top of not being perceived as an artist, I have been too busy with my day job responsibilities to make much art. I’ve barely made any progress on the next issue of Brief Candle or the second draft of my new play, and I’m struggling to keep up with my newsletter every two weeks.
I’m struggling to figure out why this job is so much more tiring than other jobs I’ve had. I’m not actually working an unreasonable amount of hours, but I end each week feeling like John Henry. I think part of it is that this is my first job in which answering emails is such a large component of my work load and the 24/7 trickle of emails tugs at my thoughts and concentration even if I’m choosing to ignore it on my “day off.” That kind of constant low-level psychic nagging begins to feel like water torture.
My unhappiness and burnout is exacerbated by knowing just how much I am capable of doing if given the opportunity.
For most of my life, I’ve squeezed in whatever art I could make in my off time from whatever day job I had at the time, like sprinkling wildflower seeds into cracks in the fucking sidewalk.
And I’ve flagellated my back for not producing the next Moby-Dick in the few hours a week I wasn’t working to keep a roof over my head.
But in 2020, I had the chance to sit at home and collect increased unemployment and that year I wrote three full-length plays, a collection of short stories, the first draft of a novel, and a book on Shakespeare. I also took up film photography and developed a Shakespeare class for beginner actors.
And maybe none of what I produced that year is any good. Maybe I lack whatever ineffable spark delineates geniuses like William Shakespeare and James McBride from the rest of us. But by the numbers, 2020 was a highwater mark for my creative output. And after seeing how much I am capable of doing, it’s hard to settle back into a full-time job while scraping together a few exhausted hours a week of trying to do things I really care about.
(And of course there are plenty of people who are capable of producing better art than me all while navigating other obligations. Chloe Gong wrote her first novel while studying at an Ivy League school. So of course there are always other people I can unfavorably compare myself to.)
I’m not sure what the point of all this is, whether it’s just an opportunity for me to once again petulantly whine, or whether there’s a message of hope in there about the things we might all be capable of if given the right opportunity. Or maybe it’s a cautionary tale about gratitude. A couple months ago I was so excited to have a full-time job here at the company and now I’m complaining about it. Maybe Patron Services is a prison, or maybe my ambition makes it one. There truly is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.