A Crisis of Faith
Hard as I try to avoid using this space as a means of airing my personal pathos, sometimes it's unavoidable. In the absence of being able to turn to Someone with Answers, I'm putting this out into the universe in the hopes that Fate breaks character and uses it for something other than kicking me in the balls.
I'm losing my Faith.
By that I don't mean "faith in God" I lost most of that ages ago. I don't mean faith in others, I place a great deal of faith in the wonderful people around me. I mean faith in myself. Faith in my mission and what I'm doing this town in the first place. I mean I'm losing faith in my abilities and in whether or not I even know who I am anymore.
Now that you're thoroughly depressed, let me explain where this is coming from. Today someone told me, "I hear you used to be an actor." Used to be. Naturally my immediate response was, "I am an actor." He got all shocked and I immediately started to question myself and equivocate, "Well...I have acted." It went on in that vein for a bit, but it raised the question. What the hell am I doing? There didn't used to be a doubt, but four years in the same job, several raises, the fact that we're starting to look into buying a condo, and so on; I don't know if I can claim to be an 'actor' anymore. I have acted. I love acting. But as I get older the odds that I will do so professionally, and provide for my family doing so, become remote.
I don't know if I'm that person anymore. All I know is that as I work at my day job I know that I am categorically not the person my job wants me to be. Much as I wish I could be that person. I ache to have been born the guy who gets excited about money and numbers, selling and closing the big deal, profit margins and growing a business. Much as I have learned and grown as a business person, I will never be that person. I will always be someone cut from a different cloth from the rest. A square peg in a round hole. Someone who Doesn't Fit. I keep doing it out of momentum and necessity.
I know that what keeps me in this pattern is fear. Fear that if I Make A Change it will mean failure, destitution, and the loss of everything that's important to me. Lately though another thought has occurred to me. What is scarier? The idea that I might change things and fail, or the idea that I might just keep going as I have been and never try at all?
I don't have The Answer, or I wouldn't be writing this. Do you? If so I'd love to hear it.
Next blog post returns us to our regularly scheduled rants about Apple, comic book reviews, and comic strips.
