Let's Get this Party Started...

A recent encounter with a very active member of the entertainment industry has inspired me to take my work, and life for that matter, to a whole new level.  Have you ever had a chance meeting with someone whose quirks rub up so nicely alongside yours that something within you begins to glow?  Or is that just me?  It's not necessarily a sexual thing - although that's often how these things start with me - but it's a quietly powerful impulse to become more...something.  More productive.  More inspired.  Just more me, somehow.  Hard to say what it is, really.  There's just something about these individuals that activates the hamster wheel in my head and ideas begin to flow.  (I love it when this happens.)

It's amazing how Spirit works.  It's come to me with increasing clarity that Divine Order exists in all things, and this is no exception.  I felt listless the other night and decided to spurn my work in favor of a rare night on the couch watching films.  I scanned the options on Netflix, landed on a couple that didn't quite make the cut, and then found a film with an Amish storyline that appealed to me. A nice interlude with simplicity felt like just the ticket, so I settled in.  I enjoyed the film, and became intrigued with one of the male lead actors.  It wasn't an attraction so much as it was the recognition of something exceptional.  Anything that intrigues me sends me straight into research mode, and so off I went.  I'm so very glad I did.

The gentleman I mention is Bill Oberst Jr., and he approaches his work with an intensity of passion that rattles me to the point that I stand in awe.  And gratitude.  I looked the other way for a moment, and he just eased right into my experience, made himself comfortable, and activated a bevy of synapse sparks in me noggin.  I feel like making him dinner.  Or at least writing him a sonnet.  One thing is certain; he has become the inspiration of my new fiction book.  And very likely a non-fiction article or two.

What Mr. Oberst has made glaringly clear to me - without even attempting to - is that in order to actualize my fullest potential, I have to genuinely step up.  You know...to participate.  I think I just heard an audible "duh" coming from the back of the room.  Yep.  Sometimes I slide into these realizations from the side.  In other words, I tend to take the long way home.  I do hope you can find it within yourself to cut me some slack; however, because it has truly been a long, strange trip to here.

Just a brief, pleasant conversation with Bill the other night via Facebook performed CPR on that fire inside me that's been choking for air all this time.  From the example his life provides, I realized that, with all my passion and good intention, I've been merely toying with my craft; dipping a toe in on occasion, liking what it produced, but not quite committing to getting completely naked and soaked to the bone.

Comfort zones - disguised as cowardice, low self-esteem, fear, lethargy, or any other excuse for not really stepping up in life and grabbing it with both hands - are a real bitch to break free from.

I think I just got shoved into the deep end of the pool, naked, and I don't mind a bit.