I plan to put this behind a cut as soon as I can figure out how to make one with the online updater
Alright. This entry is important. I guess I have to hope that it'll be important because in writing it I will somehow find a clear answer to my question, though, because my usual "can I just get other people to tell me what they think?" approach probably isn't the best one for momentous life decisions. On the other hand, what could be better than the opinions of people with actual life experience? Also, er, I notice I've been friended by some people who I look up and potentially semi-revere for their wisdom (such as, say, Weds, Eric and larksilver), so if those people are reading this and have any thoughts, I'd be very, very grateful.
Have you ever had a transcendental moment? I shouldn't really use that term, because it wasn't particularly spiritual or religious; I didn't leave my body or see the face of God. But I had a moment of Knowing. I had a moment when I knew, with everything that I was, that I could live in unending bliss by devoting my life to certain ideas, that I was made to experience the kind of rapt intellectual awakening I was having with this chance to actually engage with these ideas. I knew that if I could even tangentially live there, not only would I be profoundly happy, but the clawing uncertainty that has marked my career indecision since, well, forever, would finally be solved. It's the kind of feeling I have always prayed I would have, the kind of certainty that makes me insanely jealous in those I meet who have always known.
It was that moment. I was listening to Brian Greene speak at my college's bookstore about his new book and the issues of time and physics and cosmology and the implications thereof.
Then I went, late, to my next class (having been unable to tear myself away early). I was on Cloud Nine. My life, finally, had fallen into place. Our speaker that day, who began shortly after I made it there, was named Ted Shaffner, a theatrical director who works with the professional company here.
He talked about Theatre.
And I had the moment again.
In the better part of two years since that day, I have been paralyzed. I'd always wanted to someday Know; be careful what you wish for, I guess. I know less now than I did before.
See, I am smart and talented. I'm also deeply ADHD and devastatingly incompetent at a lot of things that are really simple for other people, so please don't think I think I'm perfect, but enough people have beat me in the head with it enough times that I have to accept, at this point, that I am smart. Could be very. I am smart, and I am talented, and I am passionate. Things move me. Things get into my soul, people, ideas, experiences, everything. It's a wonderful way to live, loving everything. I'm not complaining about my capacity for passion. I'm complaining about the indiscriminate aim of that passion. I love, deeply love, at least 5 or ten different fields/potential careers/aspects of life. So when the question is "do you love it? Do you really love it?" whether it's Sociology, theoretical physics, math, singing, dancing, acting, history, literature, poetry writing or the Japanese Language (or a dozen other things I've never learned about but would probably love, I'm guessing), the answer is yes. And I seem to have the raw materials to have a fighting chance at any of those (not that I'm planning to try and make a living as a poet or become a professional dancer in a non-theatre context at the age of 22, I'm not crazy!)
The question, at this point in my life, has become "Do you love it enough?"
Do you love it enough to give everything else up?
No. I don't think so. Well, there was this one time--people who know me are going to laugh, and perhaps understand a little of why I do tend to seem a little religious on this subject.
There was one time, after my Day of Knowing, when I felt like there was something I would give everything else up for. In a heartbeat.
I would give up everything to act for Joss Whedon.
I know it's ridiculous. I know I have a better chance of getting rich off of writing poetry than setting out with a goal like that. But one day I realized that if I could live in the worlds he creates, help make them reality, literally embody part of that vision--it would satisfy me. It would more than satisfy me. It would be heaven.
It's not realistic. Hell, it might be the juvenile urges of a bookworm kid who never really wants to leave the world of stories. And I don't know if I can sustain the kind of life you have when you're trying to be an actor on the hope that someday I could be part of something really amazing. And my Dad's right, if I don't become a physicist, when I love it and I can do it (I think), it's a damn shame. I'm too feminist not to feel a little guilty about that, about glorifying the six-year-old's little-girl Broadway dreams over the other.
The problem is, my ability to keep doing everything has naturally gone away as I progressed in the education system (you can't have 5 majors). After I graduate this spring with degrees in Japanese and Dramatic Art(one hopes), it has become clear that I am going to have to actually choose one.
I need to choose one.
I don't have the fucking first clue in the universe how to do it.
Please, please, please, if you have any insight at all you can offer, do.
Have you ever had a transcendental moment? I shouldn't really use that term, because it wasn't particularly spiritual or religious; I didn't leave my body or see the face of God. But I had a moment of Knowing. I had a moment when I knew, with everything that I was, that I could live in unending bliss by devoting my life to certain ideas, that I was made to experience the kind of rapt intellectual awakening I was having with this chance to actually engage with these ideas. I knew that if I could even tangentially live there, not only would I be profoundly happy, but the clawing uncertainty that has marked my career indecision since, well, forever, would finally be solved. It's the kind of feeling I have always prayed I would have, the kind of certainty that makes me insanely jealous in those I meet who have always known.
It was that moment. I was listening to Brian Greene speak at my college's bookstore about his new book and the issues of time and physics and cosmology and the implications thereof.
Then I went, late, to my next class (having been unable to tear myself away early). I was on Cloud Nine. My life, finally, had fallen into place. Our speaker that day, who began shortly after I made it there, was named Ted Shaffner, a theatrical director who works with the professional company here.
He talked about Theatre.
And I had the moment again.
In the better part of two years since that day, I have been paralyzed. I'd always wanted to someday Know; be careful what you wish for, I guess. I know less now than I did before.
See, I am smart and talented. I'm also deeply ADHD and devastatingly incompetent at a lot of things that are really simple for other people, so please don't think I think I'm perfect, but enough people have beat me in the head with it enough times that I have to accept, at this point, that I am smart. Could be very. I am smart, and I am talented, and I am passionate. Things move me. Things get into my soul, people, ideas, experiences, everything. It's a wonderful way to live, loving everything. I'm not complaining about my capacity for passion. I'm complaining about the indiscriminate aim of that passion. I love, deeply love, at least 5 or ten different fields/potential careers/aspects of life. So when the question is "do you love it? Do you really love it?" whether it's Sociology, theoretical physics, math, singing, dancing, acting, history, literature, poetry writing or the Japanese Language (or a dozen other things I've never learned about but would probably love, I'm guessing), the answer is yes. And I seem to have the raw materials to have a fighting chance at any of those (not that I'm planning to try and make a living as a poet or become a professional dancer in a non-theatre context at the age of 22, I'm not crazy!)
The question, at this point in my life, has become "Do you love it enough?"
Do you love it enough to give everything else up?
No. I don't think so. Well, there was this one time--people who know me are going to laugh, and perhaps understand a little of why I do tend to seem a little religious on this subject.
There was one time, after my Day of Knowing, when I felt like there was something I would give everything else up for. In a heartbeat.
I would give up everything to act for Joss Whedon.
I know it's ridiculous. I know I have a better chance of getting rich off of writing poetry than setting out with a goal like that. But one day I realized that if I could live in the worlds he creates, help make them reality, literally embody part of that vision--it would satisfy me. It would more than satisfy me. It would be heaven.
It's not realistic. Hell, it might be the juvenile urges of a bookworm kid who never really wants to leave the world of stories. And I don't know if I can sustain the kind of life you have when you're trying to be an actor on the hope that someday I could be part of something really amazing. And my Dad's right, if I don't become a physicist, when I love it and I can do it (I think), it's a damn shame. I'm too feminist not to feel a little guilty about that, about glorifying the six-year-old's little-girl Broadway dreams over the other.
The problem is, my ability to keep doing everything has naturally gone away as I progressed in the education system (you can't have 5 majors). After I graduate this spring with degrees in Japanese and Dramatic Art(one hopes), it has become clear that I am going to have to actually choose one.
I need to choose one.
I don't have the fucking first clue in the universe how to do it.
Please, please, please, if you have any insight at all you can offer, do.