Saturday, September 26, 2009
Such a Necessary Saturday
The non-profit arts "model" in this country works like this: put the passionate,talented, and dedicated to work, and by counting on their particular need to get the job done well at any cost to their lives, their health, their sanity, make it necessary for them to work until the job gets done. More often than not, it's not just one job they must complete, but many jobs at a time. Non-Profit arts in this country count on the passion...require the dedication...because there is certainly never the money necessary to hire enough people to create all that needs creating, not enough money to support all the various projects, theaters, companies,etc. So, in lieu of money, this particular model is fueled by artists' need to do their art ....this particular model could not exist unless countless creative people cared enough to make it work.
My high school English teacher - Miss Connell - said: "Choose for a living that thing that you would pay someone else to let you do!" - and all these many years, I have not only ascribed to that point of view and allowed it guide my life, but I have taught it to countless other young actors as well: in essence "Follow your passions, and you'll be able to endure most anything in that pursuit."
The non-profit model I am writing about thrives on this philosophy. Burn your candle at both ends so nothing is left but an honorable and satisfied pile of ashes....the smell of sulphur...a whiff of fulfilled smoke.
As I get older, however, I seem to want my Saturdays to myself....my Sundays to do nothing in...my life to be my own, not belonging to gods of any sort...not even the gods of Art! I am discovering other shrines worth worshiping at, and they generally are solitary shrines, requiring nothing more than my thought, my breath and my personal need to explore in the quiet.....today - in the midst of a most raucous September - today may be one of these necessary Saturdays ...and I am grateful...so grateful. As its hours melt away, its minutes drip slowly by, I treasure the freedom, and anticipate unique discoveries...it is a grey and rainy September day,and I will make of it a monastery.
My high school English teacher - Miss Connell - said: "Choose for a living that thing that you would pay someone else to let you do!" - and all these many years, I have not only ascribed to that point of view and allowed it guide my life, but I have taught it to countless other young actors as well: in essence "Follow your passions, and you'll be able to endure most anything in that pursuit."
The non-profit model I am writing about thrives on this philosophy. Burn your candle at both ends so nothing is left but an honorable and satisfied pile of ashes....the smell of sulphur...a whiff of fulfilled smoke.
As I get older, however, I seem to want my Saturdays to myself....my Sundays to do nothing in...my life to be my own, not belonging to gods of any sort...not even the gods of Art! I am discovering other shrines worth worshiping at, and they generally are solitary shrines, requiring nothing more than my thought, my breath and my personal need to explore in the quiet.....today - in the midst of a most raucous September - today may be one of these necessary Saturdays ...and I am grateful...so grateful. As its hours melt away, its minutes drip slowly by, I treasure the freedom, and anticipate unique discoveries...it is a grey and rainy September day,and I will make of it a monastery.
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