Option 4

I've been doing a lot of thinking the past month. Luckily, I haven't had time to think much the past few days as I booked a gig production managing a short film with these two French directors. More on that later.

I'm running on an empty tank as each day is met with new production challenges. On top of this prepro madness, I'm gearing up to travel to Madrid, Spain for two weeks next Thursday. My roommate J. Wesley Brown has been accepted into a festival there for his photography and tickets were extremely cheap, so I took the chance to have an adventure.

As my days have been filling more and more with freelance work, thoughts of the future continue to infiltrate my daily regime. With each passing day, I've been considering more and more a fourth option in the list I presented last week. Do you have something that makes your heart race? An idea that gets your blood moving and brain synapses firing a mile a minute? I have a growing passion to see the world and how others live/struggle/survive. I want to immerse myself in a culture for months at a time and experience what they experience.

I've always said that my second career would be one in documentary filmmaking. As the summer months begin, my lease is coming up on my apartment and no full-time job in place - I'm (secretly) excited at my lack of structure; at the countless directions in which my life could progress. The reality of my life is that I could move anywhere, take classes, start getting into this career now. I could spend my time learning and growing and extending my passions towards something meaningful and fulfilling. Living in LA and seeing how involved people become in their ladders, their personal growth - this microcosm that we've all come to hold so dear - I want to see more. I want to know what the rest of the world is like an share this with people.

Still, something still pulls me to pursue acting and a career in the mainstream. My brain is battling these opposing forces. Isn't life too short to be waste pursuing a career that seems like the right (or more impressive) choice? Isn't the economy weak enough and jobs scarce enough, that staying in school and avoiding interest on my loans makes more sense? Or, do I stick to my guns and let this autumn career keep its rightful place in my life?

I believe this trip to Spain is going to offer insight to my dilemma. I think being in a different culture might open my eyes to new options and directions for my life. Maybe I'll come back in two weeks and be most thankful for what I already have. I'm not unhappy with my life by any means; I'm just realizing that life is going to take me places I never planned or imagined. I can feel something new coming in my life. The ground is shaking a little and I feel the tremor, but now I'm waiting for the quake to strike. What that will be and what it will mean has yet to be determined. I guess until I know, I'll keep anticipating and guessing and thinking. That's good enough for now.