157. What Is School For?

"An artist is someone who brings new thinking and generosity to his work, who does human work that changes another for the better. An artist invents a new kind of insurance policy, diagnoses a disease that someone else might have missed, or envisions a future that’s not here yet. 

And a linchpin is the worker we can’t live without, the one we’d miss if she was gone. The linchpin brings enough gravity, energy, and forward motion to work that she makes things happen. 

Sadly, most artists and most linchpins learn their skills and attitudes despite school, not because of it. 

The future of our economy lies with the impatient. The linchpins and the artists and the scientists who will refuse to wait to be hired and will take things into their own hands, building their own value, producing outputs others will gladly pay for. Either they’ll do that on their own or someone will hire them and give them a platform to do it."

-Seth Godin, Stop Stealing Dreams

Seth Godin is one of my favorite modern thinkers. This man questions everything!!! Not in an adversarial, confrontational way...but in a "why can't we do things better?" kind of way.

I'm reading his new e-book right now. It's called Stop Stealing Dreams. It's available to download for FREE. I highly suggest that you do.

This man gives away some amazing material on his blog every day. (Yes, I subscribe.) But this e-book is a truly exceptional exploration on what needs improving in our educational system.

I know I've been blogging all about the gloriousness of going to one of these awesome grad schools for acting...and one of the reasons I think they are such great schools, is because I've experienced a lot of mediocrity in the U.S. educational system. (Which is the subject of Mr. Godin's current e-book.)

Now, that's not to say that NYU and Yale and Juilliard are PERFECT examples of educational utopia. They are not. I am sure that there's plenty of improvements that could be made (especially after reading Seth Godin's inspiring manifesto on education).

At any rate, I think it's important to question the quality of any institution that affects the quality of our lives as directly as school.

Why we do things the way that we do as a society? Is there a better way? Those are important questions for us to consider...especially within the institutions we most believe in.

Will this e-book interest you? It will if you've ever taken a required course in school and thought..."Why the HELL am I required to learn this B%ll$#it?"

Or if you have taken an elective and thought..."Why the HELL isn't THIS a REQUIRED course for alllllll graduates?" (That's how I felt when taking "Personal Financial Management 101" and  (to a lesser degree) "Stress Management 101". BOTH OF THOSE CLASSES SHOULD BE REQUIRED IN ORDER TO GRADUATE. Seriously, with the financial state of our country...and the INSANE amount of anti-stress medication that's prescribed in massive amounts...I mean, seriously...Do I remember a single thing about "Econ 101?" ...NO... However, "Personal Financial Management" literally changed my life. My parents never taught me how to invest or how to maintain a good credit score. BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T KNOW HOW TO THEMSELVES. That class should be required for alllll of the 99% to learn about how the 1% got to BE the 1%!... Just sayin'.)

Anyhoo, I'm only about 1/3 of the way through Seth's e-book right now. (Subway reading on my iPhone.) But it's seriously blowing my mind. I'm including some quotes below...hopefully to spark your interest...and give you an idea of what the book is REALLY about...not just my perception of it.

OMG! Ideas are so awesome. Experiencing new ones that ring super true is soooooo satisfying.

LOL!

Maybe I don't even NEED grad school? Huh? Maybe grad school would actually be COUNTER-PRODUCTIVE to my growth as an artist?

What about THEM ideas?

Blowing. My. Mind.

Question everything,
Virginia

The following quotes are all taken from Seth Godin's Stop Stealing Dreams... Please feel free to share these ideas with anyone you think may benefit by hearing/reading/debating them.

That's how change happens...one conversation at a time.

Chapter 9:  ...the man who industrialized the public schools he created left us with this admonition,…be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.
Unfortunately, that part of his curriculum is almost never taught in school.

Chapter 19: By their nature, dreams are evanescent. They flicker long before they shine brightly. And when creating dreams is more difficult. They’re often related to where we grow up, who our parents are, and whether or not the right person enters our life.
Settling for the not-particularly uplifting dream of a boring, steady job isn’t helpful. Dreaming of being picked—picked to be on TV or picked to play on a team or picked to be lucky—isn’t helpful either. We waste our time and the time of our students when we set them up with pipe dreams that don’t empower them to adapt (or better yet, lead) when the world doesn’t work out as they hope.
The dreams we need are self-reliant dreams. We need dreams based not on what is but on what might be. We need students who can learn how to learn, who can discover how to push themselves.

Chapter 25: Transparency in the traditional school might destroy it. If we told the truth about the irrelevance of various courses, about the relative quality of some teachers, about the power of choice and free speech—could the school as we know it survive?

Chapter 29: There really are only two tools available to the educator. The easy one is fear. Fear is easy to awake, easy to maintain, but ultimately toxic.The other tool is passion. A kid in love with dinosaurs or baseball or earth science is going to learn it on her own. She’s going to push hard for ever more information, and better still, master the thinking behind it.Passion can overcome fear—the fear of losing, of failing, of being ridiculed.The problem is that individual passion is hard to scale—hard to fit into the industrial model. It’s not reliably ignited. It’s certainly harder to create for large masses of people. Sure, it’s easy to get a convention center filled with delegates to chant for a candidate, and easier still to engage the masses at Wembley Stadium, but the passion that fuels dreams and creates change must come from the individual, not from a demigod.

Chapter 33: Can risk-taking be taught? Of course it can. It gets taught by mentors, by parents, by great music teachers, and by life.Why isn’t it being taught every day at that place we send our kids to?Bravery in school is punished, not rewarded. The entire institution is organized around avoiding individual brave acts, and again and again we hear from those who have made a difference, telling us that they became brave despite school, not because of it.

Chapter 35: Greatness is frightening. With it comes responsibility.If you can deny your talents, if you can conceal them from others or, even better, persuade yourself that they weren’t even given to you, you’re off the hook.And being off the hook is a key element of the industrialized school’s promise. It lets parents off the hook, certainly, since the institution takes over the teaching. It lets teachers off the hook, since the curriculum is preordained and the results are tested. And it lets students off the hook, because the road is clearly marked and the map is handed to everyone.If you stay on the path, do your college applications through the guidance office and your job hunting at the placement office, the future is not your fault.That’s the refrain we hear often from frustrated job seekers, frustrated workers with stuck careers, and frustrated students in too much debt. “I did what they told me to do and now I’m stuck and it’s not my fault.” What they’ve exchanged for that deniability is their dreams, their chance for greatness. To go off the path is to claim responsibility for what happens next.

Chapter 36: We demand that students have a trade to fall back on, an assembly-line job available just in case the silly dreams don’t come true. And then, fearing heartbreak, we push them to bury the dream and focus on just the job.

Chapter 44: The Internet is making the role of content gatekeeper unimportant. Redundant. Even wasteful. If there’s information that can be written down, widespread digital access now means that just about anyone can look it up. We don’t need a human being standing next to us to lecture us on how to find the square root of a number or sharpen an axe.(Worth stopping for a second and reconsidering the revolutionary nature of that last sentence.)What we do need is someone to persuade us that we want to learn those things, and someone to push us or encourage us or create a space where we want to learn to do them better.If all the teacher is going to do is read her pre-written notes from a PowerPoint slide to a lecture hall of thirty or three hundred, perhaps she should stay home. Not only is this a horrible disrespect to the student, it’s a complete waste of the heart and soul of the talented teacher.Teaching is no longer about delivering facts that are unavailable in any other format.

If you're into the above...DOWNLOAD THE FREE E-BOOK BY CLICKING HERE.

If you're not into it...delete.

150. You Are Not Alone

I've been getting some incredibly inspiring emails from readers and friends over the past couple of weeks. I want to share one with you today (with permission of the author, naturally). I will name her Ms. Anonymous for privacy purposes.

A little background... Ms. Anonymous is an incredibly talented friend of mine. She decided to apply to just one grad school this year (American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco) and has been following the AcceptanceProject blog over the past several months.

Ms. Anonymous and I both share the perspective that the process of applying for grad school is a valuable one, in and of itself, because it forces you to get really focused and specific about who you are and what you really want for your future. It's an incredibly personal and introspective application process. And therefore, even if you're not "accepted," you're walking away with some valuable self-knowledge about what you really want for your life. And because you've gained this new self-awareness you will naturally be drawn to make changes and explore avenues to improve your situation and get you moving in the direction of your dreams.

I believe that, almost universally, the desire to apply to grad school comes from a place of dissatisfaction in our current situation...We see a need for improvement in certain areas...career, training, mentorship, community, location ...whatever... SOMETHING is not working...and we know it...and we're hoping that perhaps grad school will help bridge that gap between where we are now and who we seek to become.

I wanted to share Ms. Anonymous' email with you...because stories like hers are the PRIMARY reason that I wanted to start this blog....To remind her that she is not alone. That I am not alone. You are not alone.

We are not competing with each other. We are in this together. Not just in the pursuit of grad school acceptance, but in the pursuit of creative growth. We are all searching for our right path and the place where we can find guidance to reach our greatest artistic potential.

I hope you will feel the camaraderie expressed in Ms. Anonymous' email and know that (though you may not know them personally) there are thousands of others out there sharing your journey this year and thinking the same thoughts you've been thinking and sharing the same fears you've been feeling and still pushing through and going for it anyway!

Here is Ms. Anonymous' email of February 18, 2012...

Hey there beautiful lady!!!

I just read your blog about Julliard. BIG bummer. They truly don't know what they are missing, despite the fact that they are choosing precisely what they want!!

I am SO grateful that you are sharing your experience with this whole process, including your first two years of auditions [NYU & Yale]. It's interesting... I was so hoping that with all of this energy you are putting into the universe that you would TOTALLY get in to ALL THREE schools! You are so focused, and diligent, and selflessly sharing it all with the world... to me that means you should get what you want and deserve =). Alas, that is clearly not how the universe works. Not exactly, anyway.

So, I did not get past the first cut at ACT. It was seriously one of the best auditions of my life. I sort of blew myself away with the depths I was able to reach, the effortlessness of creating both characters back to back, and just how much fun the whole process was. And NOTHING!!!!! I seriously stood there looking at the list making sure I hadn't missed my name, wondering if it had somehow fallen off the piece of paper. I wondered if they were going to call me later and be like "oops! We totally meant to call you back!! Turn around and get here quick!!" I mean, I didn't assume I was going to get in, but called back for the first round? REALLY??? One of my concerns about my viability for the program was my age. The average age of the ACT MFA student is 24. I am 33. The other is my ethnicity. ACT is very PC and most of the people chosen will be of some ethnicity other than white. I would have been totally happy assuming that I was just too old or white in their eyes, and that it had nothing to do with my work. Except that there was a white woman who certainly looked older than 24 called back!!! So I can't blame it on that either. I just simply didn't get selected.

So what does that mean? Am I not as talented as the people chosen? Am I not supposed to be an actor? No, no, no, and no. I'm just not supposed to get my MFA right now. And one of the reasons I know that is because you have shared your journey. It's hard to take an accurate appraisal of myself because I can't actually SEE my work. But I KNOW you. I KNOW your work. I KNOW your resume!!! You are brilliant, talented, stunningly beautiful, and a nice person to boot! And you do the work.  You do the work on yourself, and you do the work for your characters. You are a professional actor, and a conscious human being. And who the heck knows why you or I weren't chosen, other than we just weren't!! With 1500 aplicants (most of whom are probably pretty darn talented if they're even applying!), it's got to feel like they are throwing darts at a dartboard in their selection process. Which for me brings it down to the "Je ne sais quoi" of the universe. The unknown guidance system that moves us like chess pieces through this crazy game of life. I AM talented. I AM a professional actor. And I AM ambitious. I WILL work... I just don't know where or how or why. I just have to keep putting myself out there and see where I end up!! It may not look like I think I want it to look. But I have a gift to give, and I believe gifts are meant to be given.

Personally, I took this immediate rejection as a sign that I need to continue doing what I'm doing- film work, especially commercials (DEEP acting required there), musical theatre, and keep going with my song writing. I was given a voice... I should be using it =). I don't need a masters degree to do those things. I'm good enough all ready, and I'm ready to work. I AM working!!! I just want more work =). (I am also grateful that I don't have have to needlessly fill out the financial aid forms ;). ) 

Love,
Ms. Anonymous

Thank you, Ms. Anonymous, for sharing your story with us! You are RIGHT, you are incredibly talented and have some major gifts to give the world. You touch the lives of all those who know you and inspire them to greater creative heights! (I know..because I am one of them.)

I am grateful for your taking the time to write, expressing yourself with such openness...and letting me post your words on the blog. You are very courageous. Your insight is valuable and inspiring. Best wishes for you with your next creative steps.

I hope we can all take a lesson from Ms. Anonymous and move forward with confidence...knowing that we're on the right path.

Loves,
Virginia

128. Juilliard Drama Audition 2012: Part One

(I wrote most of this post from the waiting room at Juilliard on the day of my audition. Yes, I brought my computer to the audition. I wanted to have it available to me…in case I got the opportunity to write…which I did! Hoooray!)

Here I am...writing. Writing is much more calming than sitting and sweating and looking around at everyone else...who are also sitting and sweating.

Although, I must confess I sweat alll the time anyway...I have this medical condition (no joke) called Hyperhydrosis. So basically, my armpits are producing moisture all the time…and especially when I get excited...then I’m majorly sweaty. It has nothing to do with regulating my body temperature. I am just allllllways sweating. Hot, right? So anyway, today is no different. I am just wearing a shirt that doesn’t show the sweat marks so much.

I woke up this morning at 6am. I took my time getting ready. I don’t like to rush. In fact, I LOATHE rushing. I ate breakfast at home (scrambled eggs and black beans...the breakfast of champions) and then stopped by Brooklyn Bagel on 30th Ave for a small Hazelnut coffee with cream and sugar. What a treat!

I took the N from 30th Ave to 42nd Street…Transferred to the Uptown 1 to 66th Street. When I stepped into the Uptown 1 subway car, I started to scan the car to see if I might be able to spot fellow Juilliard auditioners in the group. There were two suspiciously “actory” looking persons in the car. A gorgeous young lady with her hair pinned back in a 1940’s style and big clear blue eyes as well as a lanky elvish looking young man in a puffy green jacket. And, sure enough, I saw both them in the warm-up room later! Score!!!

After arriving at the beautiful glass palace that is The Juilliard School and checking-in, I was escorted into the waiting room marked “M thru Z.” I am “Wilcox,” so that makes sense.

The room has huge vaulted ceilings and bright white walls. The sun was shining through the windows and you could see the balconies of the adjacent high-rise apartment buildings with plants in planter boxes and the occasional lawn chair.

I ran into a lovely gentleman (I will call him Simon), who I seem to run into every time I visit Juilliard (and Yale too, for that matter). He reminds me a bit of a young Morgan Freeman. He’s auditioning for grad schools this year also (obviously)…and it’s been fun to keep running into him. I gave him a hug and we wished each other broken legs this morning. Maybe we’ll get to be in class together some day…or do a show together some time in the future. At any rate, I wouldn’t be surprised if this wasn’t the last time we ran into each other.

The morning warm-up with Richard Feldman and Kate Wilson was sooooooo helpful and awesome. We all sat on the floor...all 155 of us... in this ginormous orchestra room and listened intently as Richard reminded us to have a broader perspective about this day…That today is just a step along our journeys as actors. I wish I could have recorded his speech. It was really inspiring. And as I looked around the room and into all of these faces…so amazingly talented and dedicated and YOUNG, so full of hope and promise and energy... I thought, “Wow! What a gift to be standing in the midst of the future of the American Theatre! How freakin’ awesome is that!!!!???” Richard made us all laugh, made us feel welcomed, appreciated and understood as he shared with us his personal insights and perspective. After he was finished speaking you could feel the room pulsing with joy and excitement.

Then it was Kate’s turn with us. She told us all to stand up as she walked to the center of the room. We did a vocal and light physical warm-up. Nothing fancy or fantastic...all the nice familiar things that we’ve all done in many a voice and speech class before. It was a wonderful feeling. We were all breathing together, with a sense of camaraderie.

The warm-up dispelled both the physical and psychological tension. When we had completed the warm-up we all applauded Kate and thanked her as we began to file out of the room... As our applause died down...funniest thing happened...we heard cheering and applauding coming from the hallway behind the double-doors. I thought to myself, “What the heck is going on in the hallway? Did Kevin Spacey just show-up for a visit or something?” As I passed through the doorway, I sawall of the current Juilliard students lining the hallways and I realized that they were all applauding and cheering for US as we made our way back to the waiting room. I could not help cracking-up! I was grinning ear to ear. What a surreal experience! It was incredibly kind of them to show that kind of support and generosity to all of us “Juilliard hopefuls.”

And it was just so silly...Anything to distract us from being nervous...So brilliant! I loved it.

Sat in the waiting room for a few minutes. Met an elegant young woman who was sitting near me. (I will call her Rebecca.) We chatted a bit and then I headed up to the 4th floor warm-up rooms.

Having space to warm-up is suuuuuuuuch a gift. I did some yoga stretches, spoke some of the lines from my Shakespeare monologue really, really, really fast, as a sort-of tongue-twister...took some time just to breathe. But I was waaaaay too excited to really spend too much more time on any of these things. I did NOT practice any of my monologues. I wanted them to be nice and fresh...like I’d never spoken them before...and if I forgot one of my lines...so be it...better that, than to sound like I was doing a recitation.

Spontaneous. Surprising. THAT’s the goal.

So I headed out of the warm-up room and back down to the “M thru Z” waiting room on the third floor. I was there for several minutes and then my name was called and I was escorted to the hallway outside of the studio where I would be auditioning.

“Who is in the room?” I asked the monitor, a first-year grad student.

Her answer made me raise my hands up to the sky and praise the Heavens! Dude!!! I don’t know how I could have possibly been so lucky, but I was assigned the BEST audition room possible. I cannot even BELIEVE my good fortune. Seriously. Thank you, Universe. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

In the room was...Richard Feldman (swoon), Darryl Quinton (swoon), and Rene Houtrides (double-swoon).

The hallway was dim, but as I walked into the room and it was like walking through the gates of heaven…The light was streaming through the windows filling the entire studio with this glowing light. It warmed my heart and made me soooooo happy.

I chose to do my scariest piece first…THE SHAKESPEARE!!! Ahhhhhhhh! If I could get through that one…then…I could get through anything.

I figured…if I’m going to go down…I’d like to go down in FLAMES…so, best to tackle the scariest piece first.

Then I did my contemporary piece.

Richard didn’t quite know that I was done with my contemporary piece…so he started talking to me before I was actually finished, but I just stayed with it, until I was finished…then happily gave him my attention.

He asked me to do the piece again…only this time he gave me a character adjustment.

As I was contemplating how I was going to incorporate his note, I realized that I could not for the life of me remember the first line of the monologue (I was not focusing well...and my brain was not connecting), but Rene REMEMBERED MY FIRST LINE and fed it to me! How AWESOME is that!? Ha!

Teamwork! Amazing.

She was really listening!...Or maybe she was familiar with the piece, either way…I was VERY IMPRESSED and grateful for her generous kindness in my time of need.

Soooo … I started the monologue again…incorporating the adjustment…then Richard stopped me about three lines in and clarified his instruction…He wanted me to MOVE around the space and pretend that I was cleaning up after a long day of work…and say the monologue too.

Ohhhhhhhh! I seeeee.

So that’s what I did. It was tough to concentrate on the secondary activity. I kept feeling like I was about to forget my lines, but I just kept moving and trying to picture the layout of this imaginary restaurant I was in and the words kept coming out and I was doing weird things with it that I didn’t expect and saying it differently than I’ve ever said it before. But it felt good…freeing in a way…to be able to let go of any preconceptions I had about the piece and just play in these new given circumstances he had given me. Actually, it reminded me a lot of my on-camera class at The Barrow Group. I KNEW I took that class for a reason!

And I realize now that all that monologue practice commitment device that I gave myself earlier this month (to do at least one of my monologues every day for a different person)...no matter where I was…or who I was with…that practicing my monologue in these different/strange/unconventional situations really helped to prepare me to be flexible enough to just “go with it” and just pantomime away…focusing on cleaning my imaginary restaurant and basically just throwing the words away. It was really fun!!!

I got about half-way through the monologue before Richard stopped me.

Then…he asked me if I’d like to sing. I said I’d LOVE to sing. So I sang “Make Someone Happy” again, just like I did at my NYU audition and I tried to breathe…sometimes succeeding and sometimes not.

Then Rene asked me to sing again…only this time with an adjustment…this time I was all alone, singing to myself, totally sloppy drunk, sitting in a chair that was facing sideways and drinking bourbon. I asked if it was okay, if it was gin instead. She said that’d be fine.

So I started to sing to myself and Rene was sort-of side coaching me through it and telling me to take a drink as I continued to sing… and it was sooooo fun...I was improvising. I slouched in my chair and sang to the ceiling and then went to find my glass of gin (imaginary of course) which was underneath my chair…then when I got to the line about “someone to love is the answer”…it was toooo emotionally overwhelming…I took a sip of my “gin” and tried to continue to sing, but it was more like croaking and out-of-breath speaking, as I realized that I was all alone and drinking and singing about having someone to love…which I DON’T have…and it was terribly, terribly sad all of the sudden and the tears started to form in my eyes and I completely lost my voice. And then Rene stopped me.

I gathered my composure quickly and stood up from the chair. Richard, Darryl and Rene all said “Thank you.” And placed the chair back on the side of the acting space and thanked them and made my exit.

It was an exhilarating audition experience!

They treat actors with the utmost respect here and honor us for the courage that it takes to even BE HERE auditioning at JUILLIARD. I’m getting a little choked up just writing this…That may sound silly…but there is sooooooooooo much disrespect toward actors in the “business” and it’s incredibly refreshing to be here, in a place where people really, honestly honor the contribution that actors give and how much courage it takes to be vulnerable in front of others and show your honest, true heart…even in the face of possible rejection.

Then I stood in the hallway for a moment...trying to get my heart to stop pounding out of my chest...and concentrating on not throwing up from excitement...and then the monitor caught my eye and said that I was free to relax in the waiting room until “the call-back list” gets posted.

I had about 3 hours to wait...while everyone else was auditioning in the many audition rooms...So I went back to the waiting room to collect my breath and record my thoughts for you.

Tomorrow I will tell you all about....THE LIST....

Stay tuned.

Loves,

V

99. Failure Club

OMG!!!! This is the coooooolest show! Click on the link below...

FAILURE CLUB
(Every Friday on Yahoo! Screen...Watch out NBC...You've got some competition.)

Dude...We should all be in Failure Club.

Start your own!!!!!

Why Failure Club is awesome...
1. Provides accountability
2. Provides moral support
3. You can help motivate others as you, yourself, are motivated
4. You can talk through your psychological issues and fears with others who can empathize and encourage you
5. Somebody is there to notice your progress...and call you out when your are procrastinating
6. The group can give suggestions for resources and next steps
7. The group can help you work through your own resistance
8. You are putting yourself in a SAFE environment of supportive and knowledgeable people where you will be able to take RISKS and FAIL BIG...and realize that you can get through it and you'll be a more courageous human being as a result!

"But, I'm afraid!"... Set yourself up to succeed by giving yourself some SUPPORT.

Q: How do I build-up confidence?
A: Push through the fear and do something that TERRIFIES you!

It doesn't even matter what happens as a RESULT of that fearful action...success...failure...whatever...You will feel like a ROCK STAR...from just having DONE that thing that you've been sooooo afraid of doing.

Awesome.

The issues addressed on this show are allllll the things that successful people MUST work through in order to  be okay with failure and ... BE SUCCESSFUL!

My question to YOU:
If you knew that allllll you had to do to make your dreams come true was overcome your fear of failing... could you do it?

Thinkaboutdit.

Loves,
V

96. Create Yourself

"I love the chemistry that can be created onstage between the actors and the audience. It's molecular even, the energies that can go back and forth. I started in theater. and when I first went into movies I felt that my energy was going to blow out the camera." - Glenn Close

Sooooo my Christmas gift to myself today was to treat myself to a film...a great film. I chose to see Albert Nobbs starring Glenn Close at The Film Society of Lincoln Center. (Though Glenn Close is not a graduate of NYU, Yale or Juilliard...I am happy to feature her on this blog...because...as we all know...one does NOT need to have an MFA from one of these schools to be a great actor.)

Albert Nobbs is an incredibly beautiful film filled with subtle and emotionally resonant performances. I would like to call your attention to one particular scene where Albert Nobbs (a woman who has been passing as a man for 30 years in order to work and survive in 19th century Ireland) is asked a simple question..."What's your real name?"... Watch the clip...Then let's discuss...

Awesome. Isn't Glenn Close brilliant!? Sooooo much going on in that reaction, yet so simple. LOVE it.

This scene got me thinking about the realities we all create for ourselves. She's been living as a man for 30 YEARS!!! That is a looooooong time to be playing a role...so much so that she's BECOME Albert. That's her IDENTITY now. She identifies herself only as Albert, but she is in fact a WOMAN. I love the complexity of that!

And aren't we all complex in that way? Okay, maybe not so much with the gender-bending thing...but in other ways...We identify ourselves with certain labels that we fully believe...because we've created a reality for ourselves where that has become our truth...(ex. I am an actor. I like earl grey tea. I live in Astoria.)

So...what if...in order to survive in 21st century America...I had to completely change my reality, my identity and make myself into somebody else in order to live the life I want to live? Could I give up earl grey tea? Could I give up my identity? Could I move to a different city? Change my name? What kind of trauma would cause me to need to make such changes?

I find all of that fascinating...Mostly because...I feel like I AM doing that...creating my new reality...Only, I'll keep my name and I am not giving up earl grey tea. But I have completely changed the circumstances of where I live and where I work and redefining my identity as an artist...all in the name of survival...creative survival.

The creative direction of my life was NOOOOT leading me in the direction that I wanted to go. So I'm creating a new reality, where I am able to be who I am...who I see myself as...who I am becoming.

I mean, if you felt like who you had become was not working out so well or not making you happy...who's to say you can't change? Become the person you want to become. The person you know you want to be, deep inside. Live as this person...act as this person would act...until you believe it in your core...and love yourself as much as possible...Albert could probably stand to throw in a little more self-loving, I think. But, man, she's super brave for transforming herself and recreating her life on her own terms.

She knows who she is... because she's created herself. She is Albert.

I think that's courageous. Courage is what I see when I watch the clip above. But like with any great performance...you may see something completely different reflected back at you.

Thoughts? Care to share? Disagree with me? Would love to hear other perspectives. Comments are always welcome below.

Loves,
V

P.S. Merry Christmas!

P.P.S. Submitted my NYU application and scheduled my audition for 9am on Sunday, January 22nd. Yay!!!

P.P.P.S. Only one more application left to complete...Yale. That's next on the agenda...Last, but not least. :-)

83. The Flinch

"Change is easy in principle and hard in practice" - Julien Smith, The Flinch 

In order to implement real change in your life you have to learn how to deal with "The Flinch."

flinch: /flinCH/ - verb (used without object)
1. to draw back or shrink, as from what is dangerous, difficult, or unpleasant.
2. to shrink under pain; wince.

This ingrained flinch mechanism is often keeping us from living our dreams. We are unconsciously resisting the very changes we profess that we want in our lives.

First: You've got to become aware of the flinch. (It shows up in different ways for everyone.)

Second: You can take steps to train yourself to feel the flinch and still take action to overcome your fear. (One moment at a time.)

Third: You can get so practiced at dealing with your flinch, that you hardly notice it anymore. (FEARLESS!)

If any of the above intrigues you and you want to learn MORE, I highly recommend to you the following FREE resource:

The Flinch by Julien Smith (Available for free download with the Kindle and the Kindle app. Published by Seth Godin's The Domino Project.)

I don't have a Kindle. I just downloaded the Kindle app to my iPhone and now I've got The Flinch on my phone. It's my subway reading right now... and I am in LOVE with it! Had to share.

Download it! Read! Did I mention it's FREE? Don't put it off. You know you'll forget to do it later and it'll never happen and you'll have passed up an amazing book that could actually change your life. So do it NOW!

<CLICK HERE>

Let me know what you think.

If this whole MFA-in-Acting thing doesn't work out... I think I'll just get an MFA-in-Overcoming-Fear.

LOL! Actually... for me... that's pretty much the same degree.

;-p

What are you afraid of?

Get over it,
Virginia

P.S. A big THANK YOU shout-out to Jonathan Fields for his posting about The Flinch. Wouldn't have known about it without Jonathan! Check out his blog and his book Uncertainty. He's a gem.

"The truth is that judgment and fear will never stop, but they don't actually do anything. There are no negative consequences for breaking the habit of flinching. Nothing will actually happen if you stop being afraid. You're free." - Julien Smith

 

61. They've Messed With The Wrong One Now

"The capacity to do great things is mightily dependent upon one's ability to do little, baby, trite, mortal, dull and sometimes silly things." - Mike Dooley, Tut's Universe

I'm reading Gail Collins' bestseller The Amazing Journey of American Women From 1960 To The Present: When Everything Changed (for funsies).

And you know who is truly an AMAZING, COURAGEOUS, SHARP-AS-A-TAC and TOTALLY INSPIRING woman?

Rosa Parks

I would love to be half as smart and courageous as she has been in serving her community. She has been a huge force for CHANGE in her own small way. Her simple act of sitting down and staying put on that bus in 1955 has impacted America in a huge way!

DO NOT MESS WITH THIS WOMAN. She is a gentle lady, but she will not be your doormat. She will stand-up for herself... by sitting down and politely refusing to accept disrespectful, unjust and discriminatory treatment.

Check out this quote from Gail's kick-ass history book...

"Parks, an old schoolmate remembered, was "self-sufficient, competent, and dignified" even as a child, a student who always wore a clean uniform, planned ahead, and never sneaked over to the boys' side of the school like some of the other girls did. Even in defiance, she was a perfect lady. When the Montgomery bus driver told her to give up her seat to a white man or be arrested, the petite, middle-aged seamstress calmly replied, "You may do that." Later, when her husband begged her not to allow herself to be turned into a test case, she coolly went ahead. ("He had a perfect terror of white people," recalled a friend. "The night we went to get Mrs. Parks from the jail, we went back to her apartment and he was drunk and he kept saying, 'Oh, Rosa, Rosa, don't do it, don't do it.... The white folks will kill you.'") When she appeared for her court date, she wore a long-sleeved black dress with white cuffs and a small velvet hat with pearls across the top. "They've messed with the wrong one now," cried out a black teenager, who turned out to be absolutely correct.... Rosa Parks's simple act of defiance in 1955 marked the beginning of the modern civil rights movement."

Rosa would no longer accept the status quo. She would no longer accept discrimination. She would no longer accept being treated with disrespect. She would not accept unequal treatment. She would not be undervalued. She knew she deserved better... and she knew her fellow black Americans deserved better too. So she sat and refused to get up. All. By. Herself.

Ballsy!

But she wasn't going to start a riot or scream and shout about it or stick a gun in somebody's face. She just sat down and would not move. She knew that was within her power to do and she did it. Simple.

I want to be like Rosa and find ways to "sit down for myself" and not accept disrespectful, unequal or discriminatory treatment from others. Thankfully I've never experienced discrimination to the extremes that Mrs. Parks and many others have had to endure, but I have certainly experienced some major disrespect and sometimes abusive treatment from others... verbal abuse, sexual harassment, gender discrimination, age discrimination, class discrimination, discrimination based on appearance or job-level or race... We've all had it at some point, in some way... and it feels TERRIBLE.

Disrespect that hits me close-to-home and breaks my heart to hear about... is disrespect toward actors. Ugh! It's so awful to hear stories like this one... CLICK HERE.

I wish that I was surprised by this incident when I first read about it, but unfortunately I wasn't shocked in the least. This kind of attitude and disrespectful treatment of actors is not uncommon and it really breaks my heart to acknowledge that reality.

Rudeness and disrespect are soooo unnecessary.

EVERYONE DESERVES RESPECT.

Let's be kind to each other and treat each other with care, as equals on this journey of humanity. It takes a bit of extra effort sometimes, but it's soooooo worth it.

If you give respect, you are much more likely to get it back too. Nice, right?

Compassion and empathy are signs of strength. Cruelty is weak. And karma is REAL.

Rest assured... I would be very unlikely to attend a casting call for a casting director that has a reputation for rude or disrespectful behavior toward actors... whether they "tweet it" or not. Life's too short to put up with that kind of behavior.

Unprofessionalism?... No thanks!

R-E-S-P-E-C-T... Yes, please!

Accept nothing less.

Kindness is worth the effort. I'll sit down for that.

Love,
V

"Being fair and reasonable will earn you respect and admiration, but being genuinely kind will make you a total love magnet." - Mike Dooley, Tut's Universe