Positive Discontent

First of all, let me just make it perfectly clear that I know that NOBODY blogs anymore. I don't even know why I keep this blog. I think I need to reach out to someone without bothering them in person. This is just one of those days. I feel a vague discontentment and I am asking myself if discontentedness can be a positive thing. I ask this because I honestly believe that a positive attitude, the law of attraction, is a very real thing. If that is so, then I am a complete failure today because it is so easy to let fearful thought demons get ahold of my mind. God Bless, am I alone in this? Or does anybody else ever have to fight negative thoughts with everything they've got? Then I think about how there are those who practice negative thoughts on purpose to balance their ego, to ward off the gods that would have you fail (because they then think you are already a failure, take pity on you, and they don't need to send lightning bolts). (I read about this in one of my favorite books "The Good Earth") ("the crops are so terrible this year") when the crops were just right. "Positive" and "discontent" just don't seem to go together. They can if they spur you to action because something has got to change if you are in any way discontented. Problem is that sometimes fear can spur you to action and then what happens- you overcommunicate, overthank, overpraise, overreachout, push, force, ugh. NO. I spent years working with patents. My. Day. Job. For twenty years. Innovation may have been taken over by oneupsmanship and greed but initially, in a pure sense, inventions were the positive outcome of discontent. The better way to mobilize or feed the masses, the more efficient way to procure, heal, process, kill weeds (or enemies). But discontentment becomes mean when we give up, or give in, or blame others when we are discontent? Have you ever gone to comedy clubs? Those crazy comics are really just canaries in the coal mine (I think I heard this very statement in Judd Apatow's doc on Shandling-talk about discontent). I recently attended a comedy club in Dallas and listened to comics whose new material was just terrible, or just wonderful, and others who played it safe by doing a seasoned set. It is always nice to know where the laughs are in advance and stick with that every time. And I was thinking that every audition, or every time you send out a script, is putting yourself in the position of being the canary again, and again, and again if you do it right- if you reach for an honest expression of a new characters or scene, if you don't phone in with your usual schtick. And if you are lucky enough to have an agent who allows you to NOT BOOK sometimes, even better. You grow. (I remember I had an agent who wouldn't send in tapes unless she was sure the someone would book it- as if presenting the same old people over and over didn't make her seem fearful, not willing to risk sending in a new face). (Who knew she had such a fear of failure?) But not booking or not getting published or not winning is painful and people GIVE UP. Who wins when someone gives up? Nobody. And even when someone truly brightens your day by sending a message out of the blue that praises your work, can't wait to work with you, whatever, we still hear that parent's non-supportive voice in our head, or hear that nasty reviewer remark, or remember the peer who did everything possible to sabotage our work. The discontent is something that just needs to clear out and move on. It's something from way back when, something from when we were immature, and it really has no place in the now. None at all. Because we're grown, we know the root of discontent, we know that there are ups and downs to every profession, and we also know that sometimes we do win. This tirade was much ado about NOTHING. I feel better now.

Having the sense to write the thing.

Recently finished reading one of Elizabeth Gilbert's book, now I've actually forgotten the title....but anyway it's the one she wrote about the whole "great minds think alike" theory. She'd had this great idea for a book, and somehow, when she didn't act on the idea herself, the idea leaped into someone else's brain and that person wrote a best seller with her idea. She was cool with it. She realized that the universe wants to get its shit done, you know? Not wait around for the procrastinator to get around to executing the idea. In light of that I had to wonder why my seven stories haven't leaped to other minds? I still have charge of these stories, for some absolutely insane reason since I can't manage to execute any darn thing I set my mind to. It could be that my ideas are really stupid. Maybe I'm the poor schmuck with too much life happening while I outline the stories, hardly managing to get past my index cards. Maybe I surround myself with distractions. But, and you won't believe this....and only ONE PERSON ON THIS EARTH can verify this to be the truth....and isn't it a shame to have to verify statesments....but about ten years ago I had an idea for a book I started writing. About the things that have distracted me since I was 24 years old, things which have gotten in the way of all my goals....yep, that book is still sitting in my computer, never to see the light of day, because that book is called "Food, Money and Men." Seriously. In the midst of writing this genius piece, Carl ran into the house one day..... with a book. "oh my God, Ang. You gotta stop writing. LOOK!" And he showed me the book. THE BOOK. And that is how I met Elizabeth Gilbert, whose idea was SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO good that it also jumped into my brain and probably a million others, but she had sense to believe in herself and write the thing. Full circle. Read her new book. Felt like the universe was speaking to me. Just do it.