The Abstract

When I get off from work in the morning -yeah, I work the graveyard shift- I’m usually craving some type of sweets. One week it was candy bars, the next week chips. One week it was donuts, but lately it’s been cookies.

So I’m driving around town looking for a shop where I can buy some freshly made cookies. It’s too much of a hassle to make ‘em myself, plus I only want one or two. As I drive towards the freeway, I stumbled upon Panera bread. Before now, I’d never heard, or been into a Panera Bread and I would usually frequent Starbucks in the morning. But on this day, I wanted to try something new. So I went inside and was hit with the aroma of their seemingly endless variety of baked goods. It’s hard to make a choice between everything, but I know that I wanted cookies. After getting my cookies, I took a bite out of their toffee nut cookie immediately.

AMAZING!!

If I had to describe the taste, I’d say the cookie was a fragment of heaven manifested in my hands as a snack. Those that have been there know the taste. Before leaving, I couldn’t help but chat up the artisan baker who had made my day. I told her how great I think her creations were and how fresh they smelled and tasted. After giving her my sincere gratitude, she told me, “thanks, I cooked them overnight.”

After walking out the door, I was hit with a flash of thought.

 ”LAST NIGHT!! I THOUGHT THESE WERE FRESH!!!

In my head, freshly made cookies had to be straight off the cooling rack. They had to be straight out of the oven, and maybe sat down on the table to be chilled-no more than maybe 40-45mins old! Maybe it was just me, but if anything was made overnight, or the night before, it was always considered a leftover in my eyes.  Not to take anything from the quality of her cooking because the cookies were GREAT! I just had to think to myself.

“Of course she’d have to make the cookies overnight. She has loads of things that she has to cook for the customers in the morning. Duh!”

It was then that I realized how often in life, we have these vague notions of abstract concepts. Ideas like success, love, power, wealth, health, intelligence. We think we KNOW these things and that we know them very well. That we have an idea what success is, what love or fresh is, but we rarely do.

It’s said that everything is created twice. One time in the mind, the second time as the physical manifestation. In order to realize our dreams and see our love, ideas and etc. manifest, we’ve got to smooth out the edges of these pictures and images in our minds that are slighty rough around the edges.

What is love? What is fresh? What is success?

We each see these ideas differently, so it’s imperative that you get clear and define them so that you’ll be able to recognize them when you see/achieve them. How else will you know them when you see them?

How are your cookies? Are they everything you thought they would be?

The Pursuit of Security

“How do I go about following my dreams and making money? I’d be struggling like the rest of them! Entrepreneurs, actors, artists-they’re broke, they’re all broke and struggling!”

That’s the common argument I hear about the journey of following your passion. I’m struggling, it’s true, but it’s not always a struggle. My struggle is more because of the path that I chose-more about the way I wanted to achieve a certain result than just achieving that result- and other choices I made.  But I think you can’t afford not to in this day and time.

The other one I hear is that I’ve got kids and a family. Fair enough. But you’ve still got some time. Those other 8 hours make all the difference.

I like how Carlos Miceli put it : job security is not a goal to strive for. If anything, it’s an old mind- state. But it’s not only the search for job security, I see this search for security in other areas of life as well: relationships, health, education, etc.

I use to strive for it as well, only to be hit on the head too many times by random events that beat these realizations into my head.

Hell, we as Americans love security so much that we’ve practically given away most of our freedoms for it.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.-Ben Franklin

I just had a talk about it with my sister the other day. She was telling me how she wants a peaceful relationship. She wants a relationship where she won’t have to be arguing and if there is an argument, then it’ll be over soon, and if it isn’t over soon, then they’ll have to go their separate ways.  She then went on to tell me why. Because our upbringing was so harsh, tough and filled with drama, which is pretty much everyone’s story.

So I pray everyday more than anything

friends we’ll stay as we begin to lay
this foundation for a family – love ain’t simple
Why can’t it be anything worth having you work at annually.     Common-The Light

I like that last line. It applies to pretty much everything. The work never ends. You don’t reach a state of health that you never have to keep up, or a state where you’ll never have to learn anything again.

I think that by being human, or anything consisting energy for that matter, has this intrinsic desire to express itself, to just be used and manifest its potential.

Acceptance

The thing is, there is always going to be work to do. Embrace it, accept it. That should be an even bigger imperative for you to do what you love.

Look, Jay-z, arguably one of the biggest artists in the world can’t even rest! After coming back from his semi-retirement to release his Kingdom Come album, he was more introspective, feeling he wanted to rap on a different note about different subjects that fans weren’t used to hearing from Jay-z. As a result, well, fans were beginning to doubt the man’s skill.

Ya’ll niggas got me really confused out there
I make “Big Pimpin” or “Give It 2 Me”, one of those…
Ya’ll hail me as the greatest writer of the 21st Century
I make some thought-provoking shit
Ya’ll question whether he falling off…   “Ignorant Shit”-Jay-z

My San Soo instructor, even at 71- or is he 72- is still up and training everyday! He has the respect of his peers and countless others, hasn’t been attacked, he’s confident in his abilities and makes enough money, but he’s still training!

So why not keep growing? Why do we seek to stop growing, to stop learning, adapting?

Internal vs. External

Steve Pavlina also brought up some great points on security. He brings up this critical difference in the way people view security

The reason isn’t that some people need security more than others. I think everyone needs to feel secure. The difference, however, is that the entrepreneurial-minded define security internally while others define security externally….the entrepreneurial action-takers define security internally. Security comes from trusting in yourself — in your ability to think and to take action. As long as you have the ability to think and take action, you’re secure. Given this mindset you could be homeless and still feel secure. Why? Because you still have the ability to think and act — your homelessness is only a temporary setback. It’s not a threat to your security. So even while you may be in a financially unstable situation, external circumstances don’t threaten your security. Your security is guaranteed. It cannot be turned off by external events….

Given this mindset, you can always have security. It’s just more of an internal state of being. I think Stephen Covey called it being “principle-centered.”

Want to be emotionally secure? Love yourself. Be at peace with yourself by coming up with your own standards, morals and expectations and living by them

Want to be mentally secure? Grow, learn, all the time. Be aware, adapt, observe.

Extra Work and Gigs

Thank God for gigs!!

How else do we keep money in our pockets? We’re steadily working for free to earn credits, build experience or just for the fun of it, it’s nice to get paid sometime!

I just recently did an industrial shoot at Knott’s, for some company that sells ball-barrings for roller-coasters. It was pretty fun, all we had to do was ride Boomerang around 7 times or more so they could get the perfect shot. They served us breakfast-a pretty good one at that-lunch, and if we wanted a full free day at the park. I didn’t stay because I had already spent too much time there waiting for them to install the camera on the roller coaster and do whatever else they were doing.

Be Productive

When it comes to doing extra work, whether it be a feature film, student film, play or whatever, ALWAYS bring something to do so you don’t be bored out of your mind. A book, your i-pod, a play, crossword puzzle, sudoku, etc.

Oh! Bring your own food too! Or else-if you happen to be a vegetarian like me- you’ll be stuck with the Standard American Diet.

Networking

Did I mention it’s a great time to network?! You’re surrounded by people who have the same interests and may have some of the same goals as you.

Every one of the extras I meet has  had story. How they found out about the project we’re working on-different sources, websites and contacts all the time.

You share something, they share something, you both learn something new, and possibly make a new acquaintance on your journey.

In the future I’ll include a section with some links that give a lot of extra work, castings and all that good stuff.