PROFIT from it (What It’s Like to Be Human And…) by Sam Cusson

Diversify. What makes you happy, genuinely? Self-tapes? Such an inconvenience to be given the opportunity to do what we love. Slowly becoming more about numbers than quality. More about knocking on as many doors as possible instead of really enjoying that one knock on that particularly well-crafted door. But I can’t! Because what if they don’t answer, and I spent all that time on that one beautifully crafted knock? Better to just clamber to get at least one finger on each door in this whole neighborhood in less than a week. Bluntly, without metaphor, I had conditioned myself to believe it was all about just showing up and my unchangeable look. Less about the character's graciously artistic and expansively novel skin and more about the skin, flesh, and bone under it, that I was born with. I firmly believed the process was not in my control. Which, not to lie to the individual actor, is true. However, trying to escape being this hasty door-to-door salesman, I discovered I needed to find the gray. If black is “not in my control” and white is “completely in my control,” how can I submerge myself into the gray where there is a healthy investment and I take the time to sink hours into enjoying getting to know this new me, but also not beating myself up over missing this guy if casting is going in a different direction? And sure, changing the wording to “going in a different direction” instead of “being rejected” helps, but that is a band-aid on your knee after you collide with a tree riding your bike, while diversification is a knee pad. And with these knee pads, you now have the capability to pedal toward that tree even faster!

Hustle culture says if you do not have all your eggs in the “Acting” basket then you are falling behind because there are bound to be others that have all of their eggs in that basket. Think of someone who only socially interacts with people who can benefit their acting career (Their version of networking), not content when they're not auditioning, waiting, and spending every hour of every day preparing for, the sweet release that is booking. There is an incredible pressure on this person to book, and once the job is achieved, this person’s booking needs to be worth the month, couple months, year, etc. that led up to it. That is a lot of pressure, not only on the person to make sure they make the best of it, but also on the job itself. The industry that was about passion, joy, creation becomes something much more intense. Pinning all of your happiness on the outcome of a job in an industry that relies on its inherent subjectivity is like teaching a class to paint, because you love teaching, and then betting your entire year’s worth of happiness on one student being the next Picasso. Now, one of those students may actually be the next Picasso, but god forbid none of them are, not only will you be crushed, but you will be applying immense pressure on all of your students to create this perfect Picasso-like painting, in this one chance that you’ve been blessed to teach.

When you put all of your eggs in one basket there is an incredible pressure, y’know… because of all the eggs (Just entertain this analogy too for one sec). However, taking some eggs out and moving them into other baskets does not lessen the chance that the eggs in the original basket will hatch. Honestly, now that there are less eggs to put in that one basket, you can take more genuine care of those that are in it and position them perfectly in the incubator and maybe get them some nice comfy thatch. It is still out of your control if they do hatch or not, but now if they do not, and even though you have enjoyed all that time getting to know that one egg… Oh! Look at that! My egg that I put in the “Social Work” basket hatched. The remorse I would have had for pampering this one unhatched egg in the “Acting” basket is now alleviated by the joy I feel for helping organize this therapist’s list of Psychotropic Medication (We all enjoy that, right?). Now, when I am blessed with another egg to pamper in the “Acting” basket, I will not hold back from enjoying/investing in the process, because I know I won’t grieve it as much if it doesn’t hatch. I can enjoy, and completely immerse myself in, a self-tape, because life has become more about enjoying the process, than betting everything on this one goddam egg hatching that I spent a week on, because now… I’ve got eggs in baskets everywhere! And maybe the “Science” one will hatch on Tuesday, and the “Making My Own Work” one will hatch over the weekend, and the “Family” one could hatch tomorrow, and the “Social Work” one just hatched again because one of the therapist’s young clients found an ADHD medication that she is not allergic too and is now succeeding in school, and while I was typing about all those other baskets that one egg I pampered a couple weeks ago in the “Acting” basket just hatched because it loved the choice I made of adding the nice comfy thatch under it. And now I can go enjoy the time I am blessed to have with my class of painters, and with no pressure to have the next Picasso, we have the freedom to collaborate and fail and possibly make the next original, revolutionary art piece. And if we don’t, my egg in “Website Newsletter” just hatched.