Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Success

The elation of success, especially creative success, is such a fleeting feeling. It’s a hunger, much like that for food. You may go a long time feeling hungry, with an heated pit in your stomach. Then one day, you find it; you gobble it up; you are warm and sated in the moment and for some time after. But no matter how much you devour, how full you feel, you always end up hungry again. Unless you are grounded and are at peace with yourself, with a steady stream of mind and body nourishment, you will always end up feeling empty inside. And the search for food can take you farther and farther away from home, through rough and rocky terrain. The key is to making success last, is keeping home in your heart and making sacrifices for the things that really matter (things that pump blood) in a way that won't breed resentment, which can eat away at your stomach as much as hunger. It’s a hard balance to strike.

1 comment:

Robert Cass said...

I only choose to work with successful people, so you'd better not end up being a failure.

What I hate, when it comes to improv shows, is that feeling of "Oh God, I've lost track of all my instincts and I've forgotten everything I've learned since I started doing this, and I'm not even listening to what's being said anymore because I want to get off this stage so badly." Thankfully that doesn't happen too often these days since I finally learned how to have fun doing improv last year, but it happened Sunday night and it was painful, partly because I knew I'd given up by the final minutes of the show, which made me ashamed of myself.