Lost and Loving the Theatre

I've been busy. Yesterday was my day off, and I think I spent it well enough, though I forgot to do my laundry. Ugh. I hate when I do that. But other than yesterday I've been at the Guthrie all day every day, for the most part. We've spent hours in rehearsals, many of which I've spent reading, because I'm not always on stage. But we've also started preview performances, and those are going well. On my off hours, at night after a 10-12 hour day in the city, I've gone home and watched Lost: Season 1. It is amazing. What can I say about that show. I had heard it was very good by many different sources, but I didn't know how good. It's not just creepy and weird and exciting and dramatic. But it deals with real issues: faith, pain, crisis, good and evil, fear, health, troubled pasts, relationships. It's deep, and it's mysterious, enthralling, riveting. If it weren't for Cassie, I think I'd want it for a lover. haha.

Anyway, it's actually hard for me to feel like I'm growing as a person when I'm just constantly busy, so I don't always feel that I have something deep and meaningful to talk about. But at the same time, I feel like what I'm doing with myself has great value. I may just be an extra in a show at a nice theatre in Minneapolis, but I love doing it. I love the energy of the crowd as we give our performances. I love the anticipation in the air as the actors prepare themselves mentally and physically to go on stage. I love immersing myself in the story and placing myself in another time and place.

My writing has suffered from the lack of energy when I get home at night, but I've been able to get some things accomplished, just on Monday and today. The story is starting to wrap up, which means I'm actually building to the climax. It's actually quite difficult. I don't want to rush it, but I want it to move along and build up in intensity. It's a trial, and sometimes I don't feel like I'm up to the task of completing it. It's just daunting, even though I've come this far.

Anyway, that's all for now. I look forward to continuing on Lost as soon as I can. We'll see when that will be. I need to find Disc 6 of Season One, because it's missing from the set I'm borrowing. Urrr... That's, uh... that's my... angry face.

I do not die

Must I go on forever without end
On this weary road I wend?
Silver streams and starry skies
Break with rocks and bitter lies

Sow my soul inside your flesh
Burn me whole or drink me fresh
I do not die despite these sores
I do not fall despite these wars

But must I go forever on this road
Fighting for what I am owed?
Straggling through the emptiness?
Vagabond and purposeless?

There is no balm in Gilead
There is no strength save what I had
And that was mine but is no more
Yet I relive what was before

Awake, but dreaming, I am blind
Sacred, screaming, far behind
Bury deep my wounded soul
Rake my breath across the coal

I do not die, despite the pain
I do not melt, despite the rain
I do not fall, despite the weight
I do not cry, despite my fate

The pyre is high that burns for me,
That kills my insincerity
They wish I’d go and ne’er return
But I do not die despite the burn.

The Five Rings

I've been reading the Five Rings. It's an old classic Japanese work about the way of the Samurai. I got an annotated version, which has its upsand downs. The work itself reads pretty well already so the notes tend to have a lot of regurgitating of already established information. On the upside... I can't really think of a significant upside to the "annotated" part, but they're not too bad.

Anyway, the book is cool. There are a lot of basic principles that could be applied to any endeavor or profession in life. So I've been taking notes on excerpts I think are interesting or important. One thing I noted was a little bit about posture.

"In general, you must maintain the fighting stance in everyday life. Your everyday posture must immediately become the fighting stance."

The intensity of this line struck me once I truly considered its implication. The underlying principle is that in order to be a fighter, to walk in the "Way" of this martial strategy, a person has to be a fighter at all times, not just when you fight. Posture, then, becomes not just a good idea and not just something you practice an hour or two a day, but something you make a ceaseless endeavor, an integral part of your identity. My imagination blows me away when I think of how much you could accomplish if you applied that kind of thinking so intensely to everything to which you put your mind.

The book also has a very good emphasis on balance, self-control, and clarity of mind. I am not all that far along in it yet, but I'm enjoying it so far.