The Millennials

So here's the deal.  You grow up in a house that has more bedrooms than people, fully equipped with furniture, appliances, and electronics, fully connected to the internet and TV, at least two cars kept fueled by some other, clothes, linen, and maid service provided by some other, plenty of food and snacks provided by some other, a cell phone with internet connection, provided by some other, sporting equipment, provided by others; and with no concept of how it got to be this way.

Then, when faced with the prospect of leaving this arrangement and going it alone, terror sets in and guess to where the "little" one flees.  Why directly back to home, where the obliging parents let them back in because they feel guilty somehow that their kids can't do it on their own.

Hey! I think I just described many of the millennials.

The Big Step(s).

The continuum of realizing a dream continues so long as the dream remains in place.  All the while I make/take little steps towards my aims, I feel that I don't recognize the major steps that could be taken to get there and, therefore in retrospect, a lot of time is lost in the process.  I am walking along instead of running.  Yet until I recognize them, until they slap me on the back of my head, I will continue to apply efforts, however inconsequential, to be ready to go when the time comes.

Wobbling, unsteady
Taking little baby steps
Walking then running

As a full adult
Taking little baby steps
Will never reach Aim

But even these steps
In the proper direction
Will allow progress

Take the baby steps
With an eye on the big prize
Ready for running

Sooner or later
One must be in the running
Or never get there

Personal assets
Physical and financial
Adding connections

Only if you know
Deep inside your heart of hearts
What you want to have

This we call the dream
Always there, in the background
Guiding every step

"Such Stuff As Dreams Are Made On"

This is one of those occasions when I am going to sit here and key the words that come out of my mind.  I feel that I am at a juncture of life at this very moment so I am going to let it stream out onto this screen and then read the results and try to make some sense out of it.

Nothing seems important to me now.  I look objectively on my acting and wonder what/how/why I have been able to take the roles I've had and do anything of entertainment value with them.  I do the same with each of my endeavors and come to the same conclusion.

Not much of what I've done is of a professional quality.  And by professional I mean resulting from reaching the unconscious-competent level of performance.  It's been fun, interesting, entertaining for me, and in some cases I've come through in the clutch to save the day but am I in charge?  No, it doesn't seem that I am.  Yet  there it is, finished, won, overcome, the audience loved it.  Aha!  by definition this is the unconscious-competent level of performance.

This is one of the anomalies of my life as I continue to observe it.  I get myself into situations and then get out of them, usually successfully.  I walked into a reception and wound up talking to the president of the company and did not even know it was he to whom I was speaking.  This sort of thing happens a lot.  It's as if the observing me is only a spectator at the event, some other driver is putting this brain-body in prominent places.

Even when I think I am in charge, I'm not.  This begs the question, who is this I who wants to think he's in charge?  Whoever that I is, he sits here now thinking that he's never in charge.  Yet he wants to be, wants to accomplish s.t. that he can feel he has initiated and seen to fruition.

There have been some things that have been accomplished by his choice/s.  But more interesting things have happened around him or even in spite of him.  He seems to want to think he has put the strategy and tactics in place to fulfill a dream or two but, in fact, the dreams are usually achieved as a result of other inhabitants in this mind.

The I speaking now likes to take on puzzles but the majority of the more complicated puzzles are solved while he is in a torpor, snoozing between entries, or has left the unfinished puzzle and came back to it later only to put down the solution without the application of any thought or analysis of his. Others, herein, work out the details and produce the solutions.

To this end I have written out my wildest dreams for each of the planning categories and read them while attempting to engage the heart as well as the mind.  The real objective is to involve all three, the mind, the heart, and the body in the desire to achieve these goals.

I read the dreams and see some dissonance, some pictures and situations that I have difficulty imagining.  These will have to be reconciled somehow and accepted or the dream can't be realized.  If I don't believe with my whole heart, mind, and body that this is what I truly desire, then it won't be.

So, whatever is discordant has to be tuned, i.e., stated in an acceptable way for the three to ascribe to the successful achievement of the dream.

During the development of my role(s) in plays, I have to go through the tunnel of inner-considering as I attempt to learn the lines and blocking.  Being personally critical of my performance, disappointed with my speed of acquiring the role, and the imagined disapproval of others in the cast cause me a great deal of angst.

As I strive to realize my dreams there are various, unspecified stages of development that have to occur.  The same thing is true for every endeavor that I pursue.  There is a series of mental states through which I am required to pass to get to the next level of performance.  So, the same endeavor requires that I go through the mental, emotional, and physical development to achieve that level of success and then that allows me to go on to the next level.

This is the difference between art and science.  Art is the unconscious performance that is only achieved after science, the work part of it, has been completed.

Science is defined as: the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment.  Art, however, is the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.  It is the combination of these two that fulfills the dream.

The conclusion to which I am trending is to embrace this phenomenon; relax and enjoy it.  State the dream and live the desire to fulfill the dream and let the multitude of other I's do their work to assimilate the knowledge and then take advantage of the circumstances necessary for its achievement.