Discipline

The resolve to do the things necessary to ensure success: my definition of discipline. Discipline can be difficult when cynicism keeps nipping at your heels. The feelings of futility that can engulf you while you're trying to push forward.

Discipline can seem like pretty petty, when success seems elusive. However, I don't think success can be achieved without it -- the preparation and perspiration that leave you ready for the challenge. This blog, in a small way, is about discipline. The discipline of writing every day.

In Russia, "Tolya Made Me Do It" was a natural exercise. I had events happening everyday that I could reflect on in my online diary. Plays, classes, cultural experiences, scandals and frustrations filled my life in Moscow. As I type this, it dawns on me that the same events fill my current life in Chicagoland.

My current perspective differs from my Moscovite views because I feel less engaged at the moment. Between jobs, trying to get a hold of the next opportunity and fighting off the nipping feeling of floundering -- it's a very different existence from that of the privileged life of an American student in Moscow. So I have to summon a discipline, today, that I didn't need yesterday.

That discipline includes:

1. Job Applications
2. This Blog
3. The Gym
4. Reading Scripts and Staying Engaged
5. Friends, Relations and Colleagues
6. Nature

Job Applications, it goes without saying, are a priority right now. Good ones -- not applications for just any old job, but the ones that I would be a good match for (in the broadest sense possible -- I've applied/continue to apply for everything from event companies to city governments to massive charities).

I have spent a lot of time on my education. Money, too; but, time away from friends and family, with me in odd places learning odd things, was a larger cost. It would be a betrayal of that commitment if I didn't pursue a job consistent with that training, or a job consistent with my view of the world and how theatre can engage and broaden our social discourse.

This Blog is an exercise. Shallow, but necessary in getting me to spill out some sort of narrative work -- and even pricking up my motivation to work on some scripts and projects I have. Often I set them aside: I'm a harsh critic, and even more harsh on my own work. So that self-defeatism doesn't make me want to run and open a Word Doc and continue to pound away at it.

But I should pound away at my writing. Again: it would be a betrayal of my education and commitments if I didn't.

The Gym. Ugh. I mean, I like the gym when I get into a routine ... and all of this is basically about the discipline of maintaining a routine ... but finding that workout routine and rhythm is frustrating. And all of my pants are getting tight in the waist and my thighs look gross, which is also frustrating.

So: I need to gym this body down a few decades of pounds.

Reading Scripts and Staying Engaged in theatre is harder than I like to admit. Jealousy and cynicism make it very easy for me to pass up books for a video game or TV show or God knows what else. But I need to read, see and talk to those involved in my profession. 

I should not allow myself to be too heavily influenced by jealousy and cynicism in anything.

Friends, Relations and Colleagues are pretty much how I stay sane, these days. Being a hermit has limited rewards; although, being a social butterfly can be exhausting and keep me from being grounded. So I need to keep a balance of these things, keep myself and my brain and my emotions healthy ... avoiding some of the darkness that the job hunt will bring.

Nature surrounds me right now -- my parents' home, the forest and parks near me -- and I need to seek refuge in it. It's graceful and beautiful and fleeting. Beyond seasons changing, I don't know where I will next end up (possibly some far away state), so I might not get to see these woods and parks and ponds and rivers and back yards with the same frequency. 

So, the above list, little by little, will be my discipline and rule for the foreseeable future. I need to keep one foot in front of the other, and small, stupid-seeming actions will help me do that.