This is a dot:
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Let’s say that dot represents my artistic aspirations. My performance dreams and goals and ideas are all crammed into that tiny black circle.
I have a vision for what I want out of mind reading as an art form. It doesn’t involve spectacle and it doesn’t involve laser beams. It’s not bigger than life and it’s not death-defying. It’s different than anything that’s been done before. It’s beautiful and mysterious and resonant and transcendent. That dot is what I see when I’m sitting in my own little corner.
Now look at this dot:
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Looks the same, right?
It’s not. That dot represents what I have to do to be a full-time entertainer. It represents sacrifice and collaboration. The truth of being a successful entertainer is a muddled pile of meeting-in-the-middle and putting your dreams on hold. That’s a messy dot.
Right now, the dots look something like this:
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Pretty close. Side by side. Learning to co-exist.
Right now I get to do projects that fulfill my artistic goals and I get to do projects that pay the bills. Once in a great while those projects might even overlap. Most of the time, however, those projects are independent endeavors.
As my career progresses and more opportunities present themselves I find myself being faced with a dilemma.
If I was willing to sacrifice the “artistic dot” for awhile the “success dot” could climb to levels that were previously unheard of. Then, the “success dot” could take me places I’ve always wanted to go and might not get to go otherwise.
Those dots might look something like this:
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There are my artistic ideas way off to one side - out of sight, forgotten, on the back burner. They sit as far as possible from my level of success and who knows when I’ll be able to revisit them again?
I hate the thought of that. I despise sacrifice - having to “play the game” so I can get ahead. If other well-known artists throughout history could stay true to themselves, why can’t I? Why can’t I keep my integrity and turn my creative vision into a reality?
That’s the dream, after all. I didn’t get into this to be a corporate shill or a motivational speaker. I’m not looking for endorsements or reality show credits. I’m here for the art.
I’m here to turn this upside down and inside out and make something that wasn’t there when I started. I’m here to do something different than has ever been done before. I’m here to finish the hat.
And the only way to do that is to get the dots to start moving together, slowly but surely, until one day they’re indistinguishable. It’s taken a lot of shitty offers but I finally get it.
Now it's time to connect the dots.
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