My Currency is the Dream
I’m writing on my new blog every day for thirty days straight. This is the twenty-first one.
I must pursue my goal through thick and thin and I must not allow the bourgeois society to turn me into a money-making machine.
Before I started this blog, I said to myself, "Andrew. You are not going to be that guy that posts inspirational quotes." Aaaaand here I am.I keep that quote pinned to the top of my Twitter profile. I have to remind myself that I didn’t get into acting to make money. I was thinking this morning if I’m not pursuing money, what am I pursuing? What’s my currency? If it’s not the dollar, what is it?I don’t have an exact answer, so I’m going to follow my trains of thought on this post. Feel free to hitch a ride.
Before we begin, I'd thought I'd talk about how I used to have extreme night terrors. I remember waking up multiple times throughout my childhood to someone in my family asking me in a very worried voice, "Andrew, what's wrong?! Are you okay?!" They were never traumatic for me, I never really remembered anything. In our house in San Antonio, the boys room had bunk beds. We slept in those bunk beds until a couple years ago. For all of the night terrors that I had, and my family made sure to remind me how often I had night terrors, I only remember one and it was on the bottom bunk.In the dream, I had a big tree that had huge colorful balloons instead of leaves. I loved that tree. It was beautiful. One of my family members, and I won't say who it was, came up to the tree and started to pop my beautiful balloons. And they were mean about it. I was chasing them through the tree to stop them and they would stop every once and a while to laugh at me. They were also kind of slithering - which I can't really explain besides the fact that it was awful. But I remember yelling at the top of my lungs, "STOP!!!!" until my brother Bobby jumped down from the top bunk and woke me up to make sure I wasn't being murdered.Night terrors. They are for real.
Alright, back on track now. What's my currency?Is it the $Big Mac? Or in more general terms, is it comfort? That’s my predisposition. That’s what keeps me ordering that damn-delicious Big Mac. That’s what keeps me watching that next glorious episode on Netflix. That’s what has me buy that cold bottle of Shiner. In spite of being tempted by Big Macs, Netflix, and Shiner, I try very hard to run from comfort. It’s my monkey brain that makes it hard.I’m convinced comfort is the mind-killer. It’s not human progress - it’s how I die. I have this idea that to die, my heart doesn’t have to stop beating. I believe I die the moment I stop wanting to make progress. At that moment, I connect myself instantly with the future me in the cold dirt. I am time-travelling to my death.So I try very hard not to do that. I want to stay alive. I don’t want my comfort-monkey brain to take over. I take cold showers every day as a reminder that I’m not living this life for comfort.Is it the $Girl? All the honeys?!?! …Hi Mom!... I really don’t know how to continue this paragraph. All of my close friends know how rarely I go on a date. What do I do to remind myself? I don’t need to remind myself - it’s painfully obvious.Is it the $Oscar? Or more generally, is it being famous? From what I’ve learned since I’ve moved to Los Angeles, being famous is a huge negative. The loss of freedom alone would probably drive me to climb a very tall mountain in Tibet to become a monk.Is it the $Power? I never have been the Frank Underwood type. Although I will say that after watching House of Cards, it seems pretty exciting.Or am I lying to myself and am I pursuing money subconsciously? Do I have a gambling addicts brain that convinces itself that its not addicted? Is it the lure of hitting it big and making multiple millions of dollars? I mean I’ve lived sparsely ever since I got to college, and I definitely wouldn’t mind a million bucks. But I’m not working jobs just to make more and more money. I’m smart enough to know that if I wanted to make a lot of money, acting is the most risky investment possible. So it can’t be for the money.
It’s the $Dream. I really think it is. I’m going to run with this thought. Keep up.I want to prove to my insecure 10-year old self that I can do great things. I’m doing this for myself. I want to be great because I want to prove it to myself.I know I don’t have to prove anything. I know as a human (like us all), I’m already a breath-taking miracle. But there’s something inside of me that isn’t satisfied. Maybe it's the insecurity, but I don't think it is. I don’t care about being comfortable or having all of the normal things in life. I want to be in the top 1%. Of what? Of dreams. So I dream. I dream of the impossible. I want to horde dreams, and then I want to accomplish them all. I want to be dream-rich.I want to be in the top 1% of one of the riskiest careers on the planet. People could say, “dream on.” And I’d say, “Exactly.” And then I'd hope that I don't have a night terror. They are for real.
