downs and ups

i've been feeling a bit down lately- it happens fairly cyclically for me. it's easy to think that happiness is just right around the corner, once i find that dream teaching job, or once i'm reunited with my love in LA. it's always easy to think that some future goal will make you happy. but i've always thought looking at life that way is sort of an excuse to be miserable- there's always some potential 'better' over the horizon- will it make you happy? the best way to live, i think, is to find a way to be happy every day. no matter what's going on. and i really try to do that. but sometimes, i can lose perspective.

is there anything so selfish as feeling depressed?

it's pretty fantastic timing that i leave on friday for a ten-day bike tour of vietnam. if i can't get my head on right and stop feeling sorry for myself during an opportunity like that, i'm a lost cause!

talking with my old friend johnnie newman about feeling down, and feeling un-creative recently, he hit me with the response below. i wanted to share it, because he's always been one to put things as he sees them, without regard for it being pretty or pleasing. his poetry is that he actually means the strange things he says. and it really did make me feel a lot better.

"I know what you mean, bigneil -- and what hits me right now as I write this is that I think it's good to be down sometimes and creatively dead. the fires can't be raging always. those moments where you feel you've got nothing to do or say, no forums to immediately express yourself in, no juice left, no mojo, no electricity.... those are the times where you are receiving MOST of the things you'll be expressing later. especially an artist as sensitive and insightful as you. so just ride this out. don't force anything. write a great character for yourself to play. or don't. come out here and we'll improv. you're going to be fine. you're storing experience right now. get hurt. feel uninspired. worry a little. it's okay. just don't have a heart attack. and when you audition for things or go on interviews just be yourself, let the joy and sorrow shine in you, let it all hum together in a calm display of raw humanity. we're all a bit fu@!ed right now. it's great. the world needs story tellers more than ever. show everyone what it means to be a man. you don't even have to try."