The Uphill Climb...

If there's one thing I've taken to over the last couple of years, it's pondering. Pondering where I am at this point in my life, where I want to be, and where I expect myself to be. In theory, by this point, at the ripe age of twenty, I should feel this stirring need to get started on my thrilling career in the world of acting - get the headshots, get the agent, get the one-hour notice auditions, the whole kit and kaboodle. But for the life of me, I look at what lies ahead and, for the first time in my life, it frightens me. From the age of seven, possibly earlier, I intended to be an actor. Not just in the sense I'd do some acting here and there, either, or simply be able to make a comfortable living off it. No, I set myself the lofty goal of becoming a world-renowned actor; the kind of name that commands attention and respect. Of course, I was a child back then, why shouldn't I have had every belief that I would hit the utmost pinnacle of success? The thing that should have sunk in, as it did with so many others, is reality - of all the people out there trying to do the exact same thing, only a microscopic percent hit that plateau. Actors are a dime a dozen, and though there are some better than others, some more attractive than others and some just more genuinely appealling than others, we're basically all the same. Trying to catch a break, constantly honing our craft and hiding our age as we whittle away at that enormous boulder of mediocrity. For many, that boulder crushes them early; they dismiss their acting desire as childhood dreaming, and go on to pursue a real career and live a real life. Because surely, the lives of celebrities aren't real and attainable, now are they? If they were, we wouldn't pay so much attention to them. There are others, still, who rationalise that their goals need not be forgotten, just taken down a notch: have the best of both worlds, the real life and career while being little more than a dabbler or active contributer to theatre. ...Then, there are the idiots who can't seem to let go of that dream. Who dangerously ignore other avenues in life, steering clear of other possibilities almost out of fear that they will take that dream away. Those tragic souls who can't aim any higher than the top, inevitably to find that leaping for such heights without somewhere to land means a long way down before you hit the bottom. In case you couldn't tell what I'm getting at, I remain one of those idiots. It's a scary thing to consider we may only have this one life. This one chance to be something, to succeed and obtain everything we want, and to have to make the crucial decisions that will get us there. As a child, I didn't have many opportunities to act. If there was one thing I wasn't in youth, it was driven; I had a charisma about me, an attention-seeking animation in my persona and a natural knack at knowing how to make people laugh, and somehow, this always felt like it would be enough. One could say I was sheltered by my family's wealth, I never had to seek things, they would always just come to me. At the time, it was in the form of material possessions; had I seeked something more, an opportunity to act, a place where I could learn and flourish, gain invaluable experience and get started on that frightening, jagged road to success, I could have had it. Then, when the money was gone, those wasted resources were unavailable when I was at the age where I considered them. As of graduating high school, I hadn't had a single drama class in my life. A student at a low-budget high school that emphasised trades and ignored the arts, my education was rudimentary. Worse still, shifting from a school for the wealthy to one for the average Joe meant a significant drop-off in academic challenge - I got lazy. Fast forward to today, where I'm trying to cram in as much experience as I can, and yet I still haven't actually had to face reality. Two years amateur experience with a single theatre company, a couple projects with universities here and there, and a list of works so sparse you can count it on two hands. Eight projects. Five plays, one rehearsed reading, a maligned effort at directing and a brief appearance in a short film. Rarely am I challenged; though I get direction, I hardly shape the character drastically differently from what I had in the first audition. I've seen some highs, received adulation enough to have been clapped on and off stage, suffered some lows; appearing in a show where some nights the cast outnumbered the audience attendance, a cast of eleven at that. And still, I don't seem to know where I'm going at this moment right now, and how I'm going to get to where I want to be. I have nothing but blind, arrogant faith in my own abilities; on a basis of talent I feel like I hold a keen advantage over others (at least... as far as comedy is involved, I still haven't been able to portray a realistic character), but lord knows the sooner I get that belief smacked out of my head, the better I'll be in the long run. So ahead now, after months of pondering which direction to run in what seems like an endless field of possibilities, lies headshots. Definitive step one on getting started. From there, it'll become a messy process of trying to build a respectable portfolio and actually garner any consideration whatsoever from any agency. Ahead lies the heartbreak and disappointment that's all too commonplace, my only weapon a hardy confidence to weather the storm. It was hard to get to this point, and to actually begin... After all, if I never get started, I'll never fail, right? What am I trying to convey here? Nothing, really. Nothing that I'm sure all of you haven't felt before, to get to wherever it is you are now. All I wanted to do was take a moment to voice the plight of the naïve kids who enter this game expecting everything and achieving nothing. I'll take pride in an ability to learn and to adapt, necessary tools in this shapeshifting process, and wallow along with everyone else through the dank depths of mediocrity for a time, struggling desperately to avoid sinking. Will I see the light? Will any of us? That remains to be seen. No doubt the exciting part is getting there.