WWdN: In Exile: some air to breathe and something to believe
I'm really sad that I've failed as an actor. I'm really sad that, even though I tried so hard my whole life to develop this skill, and even though I know I'm extremely good at it, I have failed to have any lasting success with it.
The above quote struck a chord with me worthy of a Rachmaninoff piano concerto when I read it. And not for the transparent reason, as one might think, that I may kinda-sorta on a small scale identify with it.
What made it resonate and got me thinking was the last part there - "...I have failed to have any lasting success with it." And to parse it further, it was the word "success" that insistently waved at me for attention.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this - so I'm just going to riff...
How do we actually measure success? In the average world of the 8-5, our level of success is typically guaged by the number of figures on our paychecks each month with an occassional "good job" slap-on-the-back from the boss.
Of course that's not the only way of determing whether we have reached a level of success in our lives, but as it relates to the artist/creative I'm wondering if success can be measured as concretely.
It didn't seem right to me that Mr. Wheaton could call himself a failed actor. But, I could understand why he may feel that way. Gaining entry into Club Success in Hollywood requires something other than just the a cover charge of talent. How good your publicist is seems to be the bill in the palm that lifts the velvet rope these days.
No, I'm thinking that true success for an artist/creative has a little more cachet than the plasticized notion of success Hollywood or the engines of celebritainment would have us believe.
I brought this up Saturday with mi bruncheros. During the course of the discussion I proposed that art is existential. It's in the moment - no past, no future, just the experience of now. One's success as an artist occurs, then, at the moment there isn't another daub of paint that needs to be added to the canvas. Or, for an actor, it's that white moment when you know the performance gelled and it was complete.
It oughtn't to matter whether or not the painting gets hung in a gallery or we perform in front of full houses night after night, or we land the killer app of roles on a sit-com that will run the requisite 7 - 9 years and land us a string of Emmys.
But it does - our egos just won't allow for anything less. And therein lies the rub. When Mr. Wheaton proclaims himself as a failed actor, I would say that's his ego nudging his better sense out of the way, pointing to the shelf devoid of statuettes, and laughing derisively. Scan through his archives and you will read about tons of success and, from my point of view - it's pretty darned impressive.
I look back at my own "lack-of-career" as an actor and I know where I succeeded - and I hold onto those moments and relish them. When my ego surfaces and tries to play the failure game, I take my little bag of successes and tell my ego to shove it - most times. Not all the time. But most times,
Well, end of riff... Not sure any of this makes sense. But what the hell. There it is.
