Definition of Success

My Actor's Manifesto by: WArRiOR

I have redefined success. I guess the industry has redefined success. For them winning the approval of a secret group of board members, who somehow have chosen themselves to judge what is really good work and what is excellent work, the trophy is the end for them. Well, maybe winning more trophies, or gaining more contacts in their email and cell phones that will be an arsenal of stepping stones to achieve, their means to their end. Man, me too though!! I wanted that same thing... the lights, the camera, a piece of me now still imagines answering questions to reporters, "So, Johnnie how does it feel to be here at the Tony's?"

Some how my heart is breaking. My love for the things I use to love is fading. Somehow my feet are touching the ground of a new atmosphere. The definition of success is morphing for me.
Success in the dictionary is defined: noun
1. the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors.
2. the attainment of wealth, position, honors, or the like.
3. a successful performance or achievement: The play was an instant success.
4. a person or thing that is successful: She was a great success on the talk show.
5. Obsolete. outcome.

In this product-oriented way the word success and being successful is all about reaching for something out there, and yes indeed some of the work involves this, indeed. But it is the work that involves this... the product is always in process because it is constantly, if fortunate, will be viewed by many people from various backgrounds who will continue to shape it in their own minds as to what it means to them... isn't that something, our final project is always being processed for someone witnessing it. It is never about the product, just the process. It is in the process where we find out who we are and what we are truly capable of. It is in the suffering process of the birthing the child does the mother find the reason to laugh and cling to the child afterward. It is truly in the process of not knowing does the next moment of certainty really clears the mind. The process is where the gold is mined. The process is where, if we can learn to live there, we find the multi-facets of our instrument, the transient beauty of our virtue, the darkness of our vices; it is here where we are most human, most responsive, most connected to the other lives around us because we are DEPENDENT on the unknown. For some reason it is the unknown that draws us humans to the deeper parts of ourselves... for some reason it repels us too. We are afraid of this not-knowing, because it, for me, is the ultimate process of finding the greatest moment of certainty, the reality of God.

As an actor I love my choices. I love my instrument. I will find satisfaction in the now space, not the tomorrow space. I hunger and I thirst for now. I am starving for living in this moment and living it as perfectly as a moment can be lived and moving to the next.