Paid To Act

Imagine waking up one morning

And the whole industry has evaporated

(For whatever reason)

It simply collapsed overnight

And you know

You know

You will never earn a single dollar from acting again

You’ll never get paid to act

What would you do?

Would you still bother?

Would you still film scenes with friends?

Would you still buy a camera and make your own movies?

Would use your phone to make short films?

Would you still go to class?

Would you stay up late into the night watching old films that make you breathe easier

Would you read scenes that make you feel like life is worth living?

Or

Would you close that door?

Say goodbye to that chapter of your life and go do other things?

Mmm

Curious

After the idea of what an acting career should be

Was smashed with a sledgehammer around a decade ago for me

I started to enjoy my life again

Trying my best to let my body lead

And follow my curiosity when it came to where, how and who I invested my time and energy in

That meant

Things that I use to enjoy as a kid

Playing in nature

Wrestling

Being around animals

Started to fill my calendar for the first time in my adult life

I’m actually heading out this weekend

Into the wild

I have my pack

My survival & safety gear

My clothing layers & food

And I’m going to be in the elements for 24 hours

Just me and mamma nature.

Being a dad of a currently fourteen month old

Has obviously meant not taking too many weekends off lately

So I get plenty of time to think about that next upcoming adventure

I’ve been thinking about this weekends’ trip for at least three months

And my god

I’ve loved every minute dreaming about it

Watching the best outdoorsmen on the internet

Researching what specific gear they use

Doing the skill-based courses they have

Listening to their podcasts

I’ve spent months prepping my gear

Tweaking my equipment lists

Making spreadsheets to count the weight of my full pack

Counting the grams

Sitting in the garage after Kenzie-Baby has gone to bed

Simply looking at different ways I can play Tetris with my packing

I wash & maintain my gear

I spend hours looking at websites dreaming about new equipment I can invest in

I have hundreds of pages in my journals

Copious amounts of notes on my phone

Analysing what, how and why I’m doing it in particular ways

I think about it

I dream about it

I feel calm, energised, alive

I feel home

Now

One day

I decided to go on a trip with another outdoorsman

He was way more experienced than I was

And we had a secret valley we were both keen on exploring

So we decided to hike in together

But a few hours into the adventure

Something started to feel a bit off

I felt a sense of rushing

Conversations around what were doing and why were doing it seemed to be a bit clipped

Like there was a way we should be doing it

Which I noticed feeling of dissonance in my body

Lovely little signals from my body trying to guide me

And I realised

We had different priorities

This guys priority was getting to a particular place

Where as my priority was simply exploring

A big downpour ocurred and we strung up a makeshift tarp and sat underneath it eating some snakes

(The lolly kind)

We spoke about the next 20 hours of our adventure

He said where he wanted to go, what he wanted to achieve, the place where he wanted reach

And me?

I mentioned my desire to wonder

Just go in the direction I felt pulled towards

We laughed

Realising how much we had different priorities on this trip

And with that

When the showers cleared

We hook hands, said our goodbyes and wished each other a safe journey

What’s my point?

I harp on a fair bit about skill development

Making progress toward meaningful goals

But what about if simply doing the thing is the goal itself?

I will never be a professional spear-fisherman like the graceful Kimi Werner

I will never get paid to hike up beautiful & mysterious mountains like the tenacious Steve Rinella

I will never be securing a rear-naked choke in the UFC like Khabib

And yet I continue to invest hundreds of hours each year into doing these activities

My time, energy, money, attention

Goes into these areas where there is literally no monetary reward

Why?

Because I love doing them

The act of doing them is enjoyable in itself

The effort is the reward

Curious

If someone took one these hobbies of mine

And said

YOU HAVE TO DO IT THIS WAY IN ORDER TO MAKE PROGRESS

Mmm

That might actually suck the joy out if for me

I might stop listening to my body

I might start listening to people who I don’t actually enjoy being around

I might start pushing, forcing, “shoulding” all over myself

I might sacrifice my values in order to try get better

I might spend my time doing de-energising things around de-energising people

And of course

Multiply that by a couple of months

(Or even years)

You do the math

I’ll probably become resentful

I’ll probably exhaustively compare myself to others

And I’ll most likely eventually want to throw in the towel

My new agent said to me the other day

“Mike

The most important thing to me

Is that the artists I work with love what they do

And if that means taking time off to do other enjoyable things

So they can come back when they feel ready to play with love

That’s great!”

So

Here’s a question worth pondering

What would acting look like…

If you knew you were never going to get paid to do it again?

Curious

Hope this helps

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