ok, so its 3 in the morning and im supposed to be helping someone move house in about 4 hours time but my brain, unfortunately, wont entertain the sleeping thing so i figure a publicly accessible brain-fart is clearly the way to make it all better. or at least, bring the unsuspecting readers of this blog in on my internal dialogue. which i guess is what its for anyway, right?
anyhoo, its becoming increasingly obvious to me that deciding to become a performer has many, and interesting side-effects to one's life. most notably currently being becoming much more sensitive to the events and feelings of those around me. now i am, by my own admission, a bit of an emotional robot. i do objectivity and rationality very well which sometimes, admittedly, can make me a bit intolerant or unempathetic to people and their insecurities or difficulties.
recently though, ive had a few things happen (the aforementioned 'events') and a few things said to/about me (the aforementioned 'feelings of those around me') which have been different. i wont go into them because 1) they are many and various and 2) its the blanket effect of all of these things that im talking about and am trying to get to the bottom of. im encouraged to think this through, not because i dont welcome the change you understand, (if its gonna happen its gonna happen) but because these events have completely pulled the rug from under me in ways that they never would have before. the autumn and winter of 2008 was one of the most horrible parts of my life to date and it led straight into be starting this whole new life without a break. though 2009 was amazing, it was a bit of a rollercoaster journey to say the least, especially when held up against the bit before it. lots of great stuff happened but it was by no means an easy road and the things that have happened in the past year and a half almost feel like theyre happening faster than i can process them. i had a lovely break in south america which you can read about in my other blog but even the time i had there, while it gave me lots of time to process the show and feel much better and relaxed about it since, appears to have had other, more subversive effects.
in the other blog, i describe some time spent in a peruvian hospital getting treatment for an infected mosquito bite which, for various reasons i didnt get treatment for early enough in the day - this basically resulted in a proper fever and being pumped very quickly full of some pretty strong antibiotics which gave me nightmares the like of which ive never known. and ive had some nightmares.....the result of all this has basically been me going back a step in so many of the things i spent this past year getting over and learning about myself. i was left thinking it all over again and it all coming to the surface. it was like someone chemically opened the little box in my brain that i put all the difficult stuff in once its dealt with but generally dont open again. its very odd. and its only now, a few months later that yet more things are happening and im realising exactly whats going on in my head. couple that with a whole year of show-related intense self-psychologizing and analysis (sounds narcissistic doesnt it? i wish...) and theres a whole strange melting pot of wierdness coming out of the other end that its most unlike me to experience. residual guilt, self doubt and a distinct lack of assuredness about all the things im doing.
so, for i digress, setbacks aside - what the giddy fuck is going on? from what ive been told about drama school and the whole holding-a-mirror-up-to-ones-personality thing, it doesnt sound that much different. cheaper maybe, and a massive shortcut by comparison. im not one to have a guilt reflex usually and although no-one is crazy about how they look, ive not usually been one to have a low self-image or kick my own arse too much about stuff i cant do or cant change. but the effect of feeling the need to dissect my personality from the inside and try to look at what really is and isnt likeable about me, the person i am and the things ive done has had me hating myself on more occasions this year than i care to remember.
but i do remember. not consciously, but in my actions. something will happen that i wouldve dealt with easily before - i could compartmentalize the events and aspects of the events, work out why what happened happened, why i reacted to it in the way i did, and why i was wrong or right or any mixture of the two. not so now. theres this new background level of doubt about me as a person and my interaction with the world and how im seen in it both as Arif and as Henry. its fucking wierd. some would probably say that overall, it wouldve done me good to be taken down a peg or six in the first place. that may be true, but i reserve the right to question it when it happens....especially when it really feels like its altering me from the inside out. even reading this back im starting to feel like im being melodramatic, but this whole process and my interpretation of it as melodramatic is an example of what im talking about! did i mention overthinking wasnt really something i was given to before either? ;)
im still trying to figure out whether all this is a good thing or a bad thing cos at times, it hurts. and the (large) black-and-white bit of my brain says hurt = bad rather than hurt = possibly learn stuff. but how much does it need to hurt for you to feel like youve learned enough? theres some bonus philosophy for ya ;) i guess most people in my position at my age have at least *some* performing experience so they get gradually used to this whereas ive been dropped into a pretty intense thing right out of the bat without even a drama a-level to my name. ive never had an audience properly like or dislike me before now or even a director telling me i was shit or good. even the music gigs i played were mostly for friends (which was great, dont get me wrong - but unbeknownst to me it could only ever have been a rose-tinted view of what it was gonna turn into once i got out there into the real performing world.)
maybe i should give myself a break, this is part of the process and i shouldnt worry about it. its only feeling like this because of the type of person i am (was?) and the lack of experience i have. maybe its just that a few big things have happened in the last few months coincidentally and im overanalysing it because i have a blog to do it on? i guess that overall, i wasnt prepared for the level of carry-over that this was going to have to the rest of my life. i welcome it, really i do and i hope that its making me a better person to be around. constantly wondering if ill ever manage to do this as a career will mean ill keep putting in the effort, and thinking im too old to ever be even a half-decent acrobat (i AM too old to be a really good one i think...though plenty who know more than me will disagree) will make me train harder cos thats how my brain works. hopefully, a knock in confidence and self-image will make me more the sort of person that people can relate to and feel connected to. ive been told on more than one occasion that im most approachable when im vulnerable, which isnt that often. fringe benefit? i dunno.
the upshot is, lots is changing. but then, i wanted it to and its all very awesome now that it is. essentially im gonna do what i always do, dig in, get on with it and do my best. its not gonna beat me, this shit, but its definitely mkaing me think. its gonna have peaks and troughs, and i need to accept this. still cant cry properly though. its a wierd one that....
*shrug*
