I’ve almost always been in a relationship. Quite a habit for me to maintain, but roughly since being 16, I’ve only had 3 extended single periods, and even then, these periods usually contain mini engagements that mimic one.
The ending of each relationship and situationship brought me what my logical-ish brain craves: a shit tonne of data that I could then use (or try to use) to develop a profile of roughly who I’m looking for to make future filtering more accurate. For example, I was once adamant about a specific type of girl being optimal for me based on one of these engagements, and I wrote a profile of exactly what my future partner would be like. When I later met a girl who matched word for word the characteristics I’d written down, I was firstly shocked that I’d manifested someone into existence, and secondly I was absolutely infatuated, until I realised that we were so dramatically incompatible that I had to question if I even knew who I was and what the hell I actually wanted. A slow walk back to the drawing board ensued.
I since realised, annoyingly, that I can’t compare someone against a list of characteristics I one-day-decided to see if I should pursue them. Instead, I ought to do the following: observe them more openly (not my best skill), to see how I feel about them, if I find them interesting and attractive, and then notice how aligned we are in values in real life, not the bullshit “what are your values?” thought exercises. And if, only IF, all lights are green, can I start to consider any pursuit.
I’m pretty sure the above is the right way for me moving forward, BUT I’ve been thinking about how people I know view relationships to see if there’s any lessons to be learned:
One friend of mine was certain she’d never been in love despite multiple year-long relationships. Those seem to be entered primarily based on physical attraction and dating people because they match certain characteristics, which may be the flaw I had. Notably, her only exception to the “not being in love” thing came with a partner who was dramatically different to the previous ones and was not aligned with the usual list of attributes. Another point against filtering by characteristics.
A different friend blows with the wind and, gratefully on his part, the wind generally takes him towards fleeting but delightfully intense situationships. As I understand it, these connections are based far more on excitement than anything else. These ones seem delightful, but I’ve had a few and personally consider them to require too much of my energy. I guess that’s what keeps them short term, as I can only offer my attention intensely for a little while until I want to get back to focusing on me, but it works for him, ish.
One more sticks to a tried and tested method of “friends first, relationship second” which, in all honesty, may be optimal. If you’ve ever watched happily married people being asked why the relationship worked, they’ll generally say that it’s because they’re friends. I would say I’ve had this, but I think it’d be more accurate to say I’ve had it backwards at least twice: relationship first and friends second.
I do love the idea of it, not least because it literally means I can spend my time doing exactly what I want and being me, and making a friend during that process. Then, if the interactions with that friend spiral into a relationship, it wasn’t through feigning interest in someone hot or through filtering all of Bangkok by bullshit lists of attributes, no, it was through me being me totally and completely, and us having a mutual interest in each other as people.
It’s fun to understand how other people view relationships. Gives me some ideas of how I ought to be doing it. And as far as I can see, the best bet is to be open and to be me – no over-filtering from the offset, no lists, and no relationships without valuing the other person as a friend. A pretty boring answer, but as it usually is with these things, it’s probably for the best.
Anyway, as usual, I’m still figuring myself out and discovering what I want and what I like, the perpetual plight of being human, and so, with zero pressure on myself, I’m gonna keep doing me, and if one day I bump into the right girl… I’ll compare her with an arbitrary list! Kidding(?) 🙂
Quotes I’m vibing with rn:
The journey is the destination – Matthew McConaughey (paraphrasing Emerson)
I’ve been dating for 20 years, that’s a lot of pretending to be fascinated – Jerry Seinfeld
Like any journey, if you stay the course long enough the road might just show you what you need. All you gotta do is keep your eyes on the road and your foot on the fucking gas – Kenny Powers
Favourite song for now:
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I first heard this term in a psychology class when I was 17. It refers to the area which is just beyond your comfort zone but not so far beyond it that it’s unbearable.
I’ve been talking about it a lot recently while trying to explain the concept to people in an attempt to also explain to them why I’ve been doing so many random hobbies and side quests recently. Justifying it to myself I guess, using an obscure term from A-level psychology to make it sound deeper than it actually may be.
Anyway, when I explain it, it’s almost always over a drink of something – typically coffee or a smoothie, not beer – as, of late, I’ve been a good boy.
I find it works well in picture form, so the condensation from my drink serves as good paint for my table canvas. I draw a circle – the comfort zone – and another just circling that one – the zone of proximal development. See below:
I point and say that in this comfort zone circle there’s no growth, no progression, this is just as far as you’ve pushed yourself up to this point in life. The next circle, I say, is where the growth happens. This is the level just slightly beyond comfortable: going to a social event you’ve never been to before, trying a new activity, talking to someone you haven’t met. Whatever it is for you that is doable but slightly uncomfortable: that’s your zone of proximal development (ZPD).
These actions won’t be beyond your capability, but they’ll make you feel a little anxious. The game is to keep expanding your comfort zone by becoming comfortable with more things in the ZPD. With repeated exposure to something and with sufficient encouragement (either literal or social validation, pick your poison), you gradually become more comfortable with it and eventually it’s no longer uncomfortable and your comfort zone has expanded. Congrats.
At this point, you’ll have a new zone of proximal development which you can grow into – or not, your life is your own – but I read a line once that said, “Life is too short to be small.” Since then I often hear the relentless voices in my brain parroting the words back at me to force me to do the uncomfortable things.
Tragically, I’m good at shutting the voices up. However, I’ve been working on relinquishing control, accepting their sound logic, and another quote – “Will this decision make you shrink or help you grow?” – has made it rather difficult, because the answer is almost always that this bloody activity or interaction could offer some path to growth. And at 5ft8″ on my best days, I could do with a little growth.
So motherfuckers, what have I and my relentless brain been up to in this quest to expand my comfort zone? Well… in this city of 14 million people and infinite things to do, a lot. I’ve tried a lot. Or at least it feels like a lot considering my previous years were exclusively business + exercise – but that period is a story for another day.
For starters, I did acting classes for a few months. I’m told I did it as a kid for a while, but most memories pre-2017 have withered, so I’ll trust the recollections of my parents on that one. This was something that I knew would be uncomfortable because, as I was taught, when you’re playing a role you have to actually feel the emotion, not simulate it – but feel it.
I was never that emotive until the past 2ish years and even then, being emotional in front of a room full of strangers is intense. Especially when they are all actively watching and silently judging your work – in a nice way, but still.
The first few classes were about learning to be comfortable with this feeling of expressing emotion in front of people you don’t really know. This was more useful than just for acting. In fact, the first few classes have done more for me than I could describe, and the later classes showed me the fun in exploring emotion to elicit feelings from an audience. Comfort zone expanded and confidence increased. Thanks Robin.
Next I went for something that I do alone every day but rarely in front of others… No, not that. Singing, in fact. Anyone who has either stayed at my place or dated me can likely attest to this – but I sing a lot.
With my neighbours as the audience, I am a one-man concert and an eclectic mix of genres can be heard in the apartment corridors, echoing from my home. I often wondered why I’d never particularly befriended my neighbours – perhaps this sheds some light on it.
Anyway, I’ve always been alright at singing but never pushed myself with it, so I considered that at the edge of my comfort zone, just in the ZPD, were singing lessons. This is one of the activities that, for some people, may be totally in their comfort zone, but while I’m still learning how to grow, I find that initial session, that moment of being a total beginner, grossly uncomfortable.
The awful songs of “what if I do it wrong?” or “what if it doesn’t work out?” or whatever the fuck, play in my mind, quite loudly. Silencing them, I headed to my class and began to awkwardly sing in front of the teacher.
It is awkward, you’re in a room with some stranger and you’re doing something that you enjoy doing casually, and you’re about to receive professional feedback on it. Scary. But pretty soon, you realise the teacher is a nice guy in full KPOP drip and only wants to help.
He notices the areas for improvement and over the next few months, you develop your voice and learn to do things you could never do before. The fear subsides and the growth commences.
That’s the thing with expanding your comfort zone – it is scary, it is objectively uncomfortable to go into your ZPD. There’s no blankets and hot chocolate there, but gradually you overcome the fear and start getting accustomed to it, growing into it, and it becomes your new comfort zone – and now the blankets are there too.
The reason some people are comfortable with things and others aren’t is pretty much just repeated exposure, so if you want to grow into your ZPD, whatever it is that you’re wanting to accomplish, just keep at it.
As boring as that sounds, it does work. You start getting used to acting in front of an audience or singing to a crowd or meeting strangers frequently or doing jiu-jitsu and then these once scary things form part of your comfort zone – and you’ve grown.
Another one for me was meeting strangers. In my years of partially chosen, partially forced isolation, I had mostly stopped meeting new people. I adore my own company and I am predominantly an introvert, but can play the role of an extrovert effectively when the situation demands it – and in the meeting of new people, extroversion is the only way to go.
Thankfully, Bangkok is full of events specifically designed for this and, with a lot of convincing, I dragged myself to event after event over the past 8 or so months.
For a while, before each event, I’d have a period where I’d stare at my clothes laid out on the bed and argue with my mind over whether I should go or not, struggling to justify why I ought to go and have random conversation with strangers.
It was internally stressful so it was clearly outside of my comfort zone – but doable – which meant it was in the ZPD.
I’m grateful that I went to the events because in doing so I’ve met some very lovely people and demonstrated to my over-active mind that it’s achievable and not that scary. So once again – ZPD conquered and the comfort zone has expanded.
Listen, these things may not be out of your comfort zone, dear reader, and to you they may seem small – but growth isn’t linear, and I’ve neglected pushing myself with anything but work for a long time, so for me these were big fucking steps and have set me on a far richer path.
So while I start my next uncomfortable opportunity for growth – Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu – I want you to consider: what’s in your zone of proximal development, what are you putting off out of fear, and to fucking go for it.
Til next time.
Quotes I’m vibing with rn:
So you’ve taken a few blows? Good! That’s the price of being in the arena – Theodore Roosevelt
Simple pleasures are the last refuge of the complex – Oscar Wilde
It is impossible to get better and look good at the same time. Give yourself permission to be a beginner – Julia Cameron
Anyone that knows me is aware that despite me being a tad self-obsessed, I am not overly vain, at least about myself…
Yes I take the usual precautions and moderate my eating (excessively) and workout (inefficiently and too often) but barring these, I have taken very little care in what I have worn, skincare, hair in general, how I actually look, how I feel about how I look, and how my presentation impacts my interactions.
As a person who frequently describes himself as having “too much time”, a silly and misguided phrase yet accurate in its own right, I took it upon myself to experiment with vanity for the past few months. Here’s what happened.
Neck wars
I burnt myself pretty badly on my neck as a teenager through extreme aversion to sun cream, silly boy, and a strong desire to lay on a beach reading for hours a day. This resulted in a scar that I hardly noticed until earlier this year when I started to consider my actual appearance.
Now, scars are not a bad thing at all and Hunter S Thompson’s line about “life not being a journey to the grave in a well-preserved body” is something I mostly agree with, but as a budding biohacker and someone who can obsess about anything, given the chance, I wanted to see if I could get rid of it.
It turns out, you can. Kind of.
Bangkok, my glorious home, is rammed full of skin care clinics and beauty clinics and… hmm… Perhaps that’s the reason I decided on this project?
Anyway, I researched a few and found one that fit my usual parameters of any place I visit – pretty looking, convenient, and vaguely overpriced.
I went, did a consultation with a doctor, and after the uncomfortable expense of a cool grand for something I was only middlingly interested in, I received a fuck ton of lasers to my scar.
Did it work?
Ish. After around a month, per the doctor’s words, it did become way less visible though checking through old pics showed that it was scarcely visible before. Funny how we can lock in on one part of our anatomy so diligently.
Well, that was round one of the vanity project and I consider it a success-ish. It successfully showed me that lasering scars probably isn’t worth it unless they’re really impacting you… Lesson learned?
Supplements
Alright yes I love supplements. No I don’t think this relates to my later teenage years enjoyment of similar shaped pills but who knows.
I have been taking a mix of supplements for years and honestly I can say… Most have a pretty minimal effect. I’ve fucked around with heroic doses of them to see if there are any changes and most seem to be so minute in their efficacy that the cost probably isn’t worth it.
But there are a few which do work for sure and I wanted to see if maybe I could do some hardcore experimentation to fix certain things in me. (Yes, I know, “self love, nothing needs fixing” blah blah blah but experimenting is fun and everyone should do more of it.)
Now supplements are all very goal dependent and I highly recommend getting blood tests done to see if you have deficiencies first, then doing diet changes rather than supplements to account for it HOWEVER if you want a simple solution to a low level deficiency, then a supplement is a pretty good way to solve it.
So, onto the recent experiments!
Post blood test, it seems I have high cholesterol and statins are a big risk so Red Yeast Rice was on the cards and appears to have worked pretty well reducing my cholesterol to the point where the doctor now only loosely suggests statins rather than underlining it in red as on the original test…
I had terrible sleep and 5-HTP totally levelled me out and brought me back to a normal routine (though I cycle it on/off a lot)
NMN – seems like it may be good eventually when you’re old but probably no point taking it at this age
COQ10 to counteract the Red Yeast Rice’s side effects (no other notable benefit)
Then there’s your standards:
Vitamin C – works great if you’re ill, take a shit ton and it does help
Fish oil – just eat fish instead
Collagen powder – tastes gross but probably works
Now these aren’t too crazy but I also wanted to push the boat out a little.
I’ve had a quite muted emotional range for a long time. Sometimes I break out of this but usually I think my emotions are 60% where they should be, that’s a C grade and I have always been an upper B level student (though I did get an A* in English Language) so I wanted to see if I could chemically push this up.
By spamming ChatGPT, I eventually got a list of a few things that may be the root cause.
One suggestion was low dopamine production. Possibly true given my proclivities at formative ages of development.
Anyway, it turns out there’s a supplement called L-Tyrosine that you can take which kinda sorta (mixed evidence) makes your body produce more neurotransmitters including dopamine, but you have to take P5P (another chemical nobody has heard of) with it so that it actually works.
But does it actually work?
I tried this for over 2 months and I would say that it did… drumroll please… Fuck all.
The bottles of pills have 120 in them though so there’s that… But my mood did not improve. Granted, I did have a heavy breakup in that time too but I would prefer to attribute the blame to pills instead please and thank you.
Now given that the L-Tyrosine and P5P combo didn’t fix my mood I was left wondering what would so I started to consider that maybe it’s hormone related. Too little testosterone perhaps?
A little more research and then I began Korean Panax Ginseng which was meant to support my testosterone or balance it out or some other loose marketing term. Now, at the time it was hard to tell exactly if this one worked but I will say my chest gains in the gym were substantial in a short period of time though I was hammering chest exercises + eating way more protein so it’s a little hard to judge if it worked exactly but I think it sort of did?
My overall thought on supplements is that they make you feel like you’re getting something out them when in reality you’re probably just being more generally health conscious. If you’re a person who researches this stuff heavily, you probably also eat a very balanced diet with good macros especially high protein, you likely sleep well, and probably have very few areas of deficiency where random supplements will make you feel better.
They are worth a punt but get the blood tests first and target specifically.
Testosterone
Now we’re getting somewhere a little juicer and probably more contentious. This one is still part of the project but the vanity part comes later.
I, at 26, had never really considered that my testosterone was low until the supplement experimentation and the positive effects of the ginseng. I always assumed that given certain reasons which are unmentionable that mine was actually very high. After a little encouragement from a friend who takes testosterone, I elected to get it tested, just to double check.
It appeared my results were low. Like clinically low. What the fuck.
I already mentioned my muted emotional range above and what do you know? Testosterone has a big fucking effect on this and mine was clinically low. Whoops.
Who’d’ve thunk it.
So with results in hand, I then went to an endocrinologist (a speciality hormone doctor, it turns out) and repeated the words “what the fuck?”. More tests ensued and it appeared that I had a low FSH and LH production causing low test. Results were confirmed so I said “now what?” and treatment ensued.
To anyone parental or concerned reading this, yes it’s safe, yes I listened to the doctors, and yes I did multiple tests to confirm.
Not pleasant getting 4ml of testosterone shot into your arse but hey this is all an experiment and as Bill Hicks says “None of this is real anyway, it’s just a ride“.
So, 4ml of testosterone is a lot. Or quite a lot when you have someone with low amounts already. I’m around 2 weeks into it and I will say, slightly smirkingly, I am feeling pretty fucking great. More confident, a little stronger, bolder, idk man maybe it’s a placebo or this stuff may have actually been the Holy grail I’ve been seeking. Fun!
Perhaps I’ll report back at some point when some emotional event derails this feeling and I try to find some new cure-all but for now, this experiment has WORKED and I feel GOOD.
Fashion
I’ve never particularly had fashion sense or cared about fashion. From my late teens to early 20s, I bought more or less all my clothes from an online store which sells branded clothes at discounted rates. The clothes however are usually from brands you don’t particularly love or in colours that you won’t particularly like, that’s why they’re cheap I guess.
They did usually have some Adidas stuff though so my wardrobe became laden with 3 stripes on every item. I thought it looked cool. It sometimes did. But often, especially during my shaved head phase, it did look a little uhhhh rough? To say the least.
This enjoyment of streetwear persisted for quite a while and I still have periods of constantly wearing it for a few months every year but around April last year I wanted to switch this up. This one has been a LONG and ongoing experiment, it’s a lifetime thing I guess.
So, from around April to October ish, I decided I wanted to be more formal and adult looking. Looking like a real person. Not a droid but like a well put together man. Fuck knows why. I think I decided I was old or getting old and needed to. Stupid thoughts like that about being old persist in your mid 20s and they must be ignored.
This phase had me in cotton shirts, consistently formal trousers, thinning the mass of rings I was previously wearing, and wearing a watch all the time. It was nice to play that role for a while and visit restaurants acting like I’m all that. It felt a bit inauthentic though and I decided a long time ago that I ought to be more authentic so…
After October(ish) I reverted back to a sportswear dominated style and started buying up a lot of branded items but without much thought about how they looked. I judged these on how I felt and generally I felt more confident in them than in the heavily formal attire, it felt closer to home and anyone who’s from the same part of the world as me will probably know what I mean. Grey Nike jumpers litter my childhood memories.
One downside of only wearing sportswear is that you do limit the options of where you can go. Even in particularly lax Bangkok environments, you will struggle to feel in any way comfortable against the army of dripped out Thais.
Noticing this, I decided more recently to ditch the trackies and risk wearing jeans in the consistently 33 degree heat.
Now, that may seem bizarre but climate acclimatisation is so real and the jeans are fine. I couldn’t quite let go of all the sportswear though and have to pair the jeans with a Nike or Adidas or New Balance T shirt, gotta be true to yourself.
This one was a fun experiment and actually is still ongoing 🙂 It’s nice to totally change how you see yourself and how others see you by altering what you wear. I’m still the same me in a suit or in shorts but I do feeeeeel different in each and I do act different in each so it’s nice to play with, especially when you have the time.
The Cerave Cult
One thing that I never particularly put any stock in was skin care. I’m quite pretty right and assumed that because of this I was fine to not do anything. A little arrogant but a lot misguided.
Again, more ChatGPT spamming and a visit to a skin care clinic and I realised that skin care is way easier if you start from a good place with healthy skin, rather than trying to repair things later down the line – which is only questionably possible, unless you do surgeries.
Now rather than opting for surgeries, although perhaps I am the type who would, I was looking for sustainable long term care. The type of shit that most girls seem to know exactly how to do and that most guys have zero idea that they even need to.
Enter Cerave. I doubt I’d even really heard of the brand until this year but it seemed they were the one. Very high quality and no awful chemicals, apparently.
Anyway with a pocket full of Thai Baht I went to one of the luxury malls here and stood out quite significantly amongst the heavily made up Thai girls (I was in essentially a full tracksuit – my sportswear phase), and showed one of the people in the store a list of items I supposedly MUST use.
I walked away with a lot less Baht and a lot of things I had no idea existed let alone things I needed to use.
For starters, there was this DHC oil – some kind of Korean beauty brand that helps remove oil from your skin which is especially useful in this climate, a hydrating Cerave cleanser (at least I kind of knew what that was), Cerave facial moisturising lotion, Cerave resurfacing 1% retinol cream (more expensive per ml than good tequila), some 0.5% salicylic acid, then luxury sun cream which apparently is better but it’s bloody hard to tell the difference – La Roche-Posay Anthelios 50+ – about £30 for an unreasonably small amount.
I had often wondered why a lot of women talk about it being expensive to be a woman and this experiment showed me why – This beauty stuff is expensive. If you use these things and more every day, you start to rack up a pretty significant monthly bill.
Is it worth it? Actually yes… I think. I’ve been using these products in a quite regimented way with a daily routine and the variation days where I’ll fold in retinol one day and use salicylic acid another day.
Initially it was a hassle convincing my brain to do this as a routine but now it’s basically automatic and so slick that I don’t even notice I’m doing it. And my skin, mostly, looks fucking great. Good job, Max. Thanks.
Gym Missions
Alright I’ve been going to the gym a long time but my progress has always been pretty lacklustre. Full accountability, this is entirely on me.
I’ve never really stuck to an effective routine, never particularly researched what I was doing or why, and never tracked or set goals other than loosely get a six pack or something.
Well, we’re in experimental mode so I thought I’d change that. I put a proper routine together, again AI aided (Side note: not using this stuff is gonna put you behind, luddites never prosper), and set to work.
Now it seemed my main issue actually was that I never ate enough protein or calories at all. I was pretty muscular despite my small frame but had no mass because I never ate enough.
Somewhere along the line I became very calorie averse and lived on literally the minimum needed. Bad move in general and a very bad move for gym gains.
But now is as good a time as any to change, I thought, so I pushed my eating like crazy and gained about 10kg. Pretty good. And my lifts improved, strength went up massively, and I felt even more confident.
It’s funny how fixing some of these things; style, strength, appearance can really help your internal feelings.
I’ve since played around with different body weights with a 5-10 KG difference and realised getting a six pack is more about being in a pretty brutal calorie deficit + ab training, rather than just exclusively training abs.
It looks cool but after having one for a little while, I’ve realised I prefer not being perpetually hungry.
My current focus is on arms. My legs are weirdly quite jacked after hammering the leg curl machine for a while, and my back is too – probably from climbing and nonstop pull ups, so it’s time to balance the rest of me out. No interest in going bodybuilder mode but getting a more solid structure would do wonders for me.
This is another ongoing project, and it’s one that is continually making me look and feel better. I love it. Clean living!
Conclusion
I realise that a lot of this is a rant into the void and may have been better as a journal entry but fuck it, why have a blog unless you’re gonna post self-obsessed characterisations of yourself?
To whomever is reading this far, I encourage you to experiment like crazy.
You are likely young, play with it. Try different styles, different bodyweights, routines you wouldn’t normally do, and research this stuff – maybe you’ll find out something you never knew about yourself and get injected with hormones by random doctors in Asia (only joking👀).
Alright people, catch you on the flip.
Quotes I’m vibing with rn:
If it costs you your peace: it’s too expensive – Paulo Coelho
What if it all works out? – Mel Robbins
To do the big things, you have to let the small bad things happen – Tim Ferriss
I don’t think I’ve ever given myself much credit for being creative.
In fact, I think I suppressed that side of myself so much that it practically disappeared and only occasionally did I notice a little glimmer of it here and there.
I accidentally built a mental comfort zone with logic as the walls because I was uncomfortable with exploring my own creativity, perhaps for the fear that I wouldn’t be good at being creative – creativity is tough to measure. But this year I’ve made a conscious effort to change that and break down those walls. See the video below for proof…
We are what we think, right? So I dropped this whole internal dialogue of “I’m so rational and analytical.. blah blah blah” and switched it to “I’m pretty creative… sometimes” [gotta add the “sometimes” just to satisfy the other side of the brain]. Anyway, I made this switch earlier in the year – maybe around February and then decided to lean in and give creativity a shot…
A girl told me if I played guitar it’d be pretty hot so I immediately picked up a cheap as fuck guitar and spent a few months getting to grips with it. Very fun to play but not totally my vibe, though I do love the feeling when you actually create a halfway decent lil riff. Will be picking this back up again soon 🙂
Much to the dismay of my high school art teacher [can’t remember her name but there is a special place in hell for unsupportive art teachers], I also started drawing things. Just little sketches of my environment and sometimes the odd animal or a little scene in my head. Most weren’t great but every now and then I’d hit on something that I loved! One of them I liked so much I got it tatted on my arm. How fucking cool. Never drawing anything to drawing my own tattoo. Nice. Go me! I even carry a notepad and pen in my bag at all times in case I wanna draw something.
And more recently, I spent the past few months trying to open up creatively with acting classes. Acting was something that, like many of you reading I guess, I’d been told I could probably do pretty well but like most people I declined to pursue it in any way and instead just kept that little idea in my mind that “yeah, I could do that“. Well, I realised recently that if you live with all these “yeah, i could do that” and then never actually do the things then you’re gonna spend your life unfulfilled and full of regret. You see, what happens if you go and try the thing and then realise “shit, this isn’t for me” – you might feel bad at first for wasting time thinking you were something you’re not, but then you’re liberated. You stop living this fantasy and then you can move on to the next thing, and keep looking for your ikigai [your purpose, the thing that gives you joy].
Well I decided that fuck it, I may as well see if this is for me or not. In 3hr+ long classes, I got to explore a LOT. The first few classes were borderline therapy where you expose yourself to a specific emotion and cultivate the stories in your mind that make you feel that way and it is particularly heavy. The next were on techniques and revolved around “playing the objective” which is where you consider what the character wants as opposed to playing what you think they feel and in doing this you’ll start to be able to really visualise your scenes and feel the emotion in reality.
This all culminated in a showcase last Sunday where I played a newbie lawyer desperately trying to prepare for work as he arrives at the dilapidated new apartment his just-married wife had chosen for them to live in… Video below.
The whole experience was something special. While coming back from the show, I was high on bliss thinking just how insanely cool it is to perform in front of people. I’m not saying I’m world class at this or that acting is my ikigai but…
I loved performing and I *think* I’ll keep doing it.
So, if you have an unexplored creative side like me, then as an experiment, embrace it! Venture outside your comfort zone. Sure, it’s uncomfortable and intimidating, but living a small life because you never took the leap would be a tragedy!
Now, wanna see me acting?
Quotes I’m vibing with rn:
Nothing seems as pretty as the past though – Arctic Monkeys
You set the standards for how you want to live – Me
Sumb Luck 