the Actor

Damn Full Tilt for having technical difficulties!!

Fair warning: barely any poker content here... just big Life questions, and crap that goes through my head all the time...


to quote a Very Important Book (well, text is changed by personalizing):
"More than most people, I lead a double life. I am very much the actor. To the outer world I present my stage character. This is the one I like my fellows to see. I want to enjoy a certain reputation...."

That sums up a big chunk of my life, I'm sorry to say. For most of my life, I haven't really lived being honest with myself (and with the rest of the world). I have all too often tried to create an image of myself in others' eyes that is not the truth, but rather what I want others to think is the truth about who I am. I try to act more cool, more intelligent, more stable, more -- I dunno, more of however it is I think will make me look "better" in your eyes.

Sad, huh? I was about to write there have been chunks of my life where this wasn't the case, but just as I was about to write about two specific periods of my life where I felt I was living as much at the heart of Who I Am as I could, I immediately recalled why that would have been a big lie.

Why is this? I don't know. And I'll be honest, moving over to the left coast has, in a way, given me at least a partial clean slate. I've kept much to myself since moving out here; sure I've met some people, and when I was going to the casinos 3-4 times / week I was beginning to make some connections too... I'll tell ya what -- the times I have been most "at ease" with myself, I have been in a casino, sitting at a poker table, or taking a break and talking to somebody about a hand, or poker in general. I'm very comfortable in that environment. I met a lot of asswipes there, too, but there were others who loved to play and talk and read about poker like I do.

At work? I'm lost. I majored in theatre arts in college, I acted and directed in plays, I played bongos in a hippie band, I designed & ran lights for a major label rock band, and I just kinda fell into the computer world. And where I work these people have a language all their own... smart people, but with so much more technical knowledge and experience than I have that I feel like an outsider, almost an intruder into some other world.

At play? Play for me is low-key, and often solitary. Yet even when I'm by myself, I feel like I want to somehow make sure that everyone who sees me when I'm out to dinner by myself, or at the movies by myself, realizes that I'm OK with that. I DO honestly love being by myself, and doing things by myself. But why do I think anyone even pays attention to the fact that I'm there, let alone CARE if they think anything of me?!

And then there's the other part of my life, where I spend a lot of time with similarly-spiritually minded people. Even in the one specific group I spend a big chunk of that time with, I don't feel like "me." I feel somehow that they must know more than I do; I get nervous when it's my turn to speak in front of the group (and only that group), and my face turns a horrid shade of red (I haven't seen it, I just feel it, and let me tell you - it's gotta be hideous!), and the connection typically made between my brain and my mouth breaks down... I feel like an outsider.

Hell, I'll be honest - I feel like an outsider in Life. Been the case for most of my life. And I know that that can be changed. Question is: am I willing to change?

I'm not writing this for pity, or for anyone to say "don't be silly" (yes, it does feel silly - please don't remind me). I know I'm not the only one in the world who goes through this (or has gone through this). I'm not afraid or ashamed of who I am or what I go through. In all honesty, I don't know why I'm writing this. Just to get it out? Maybe... I'll tell ya this, though -- this blog, as a whole, has been the Real Me. Not the Actor Me. I hope to keep it that way, and strive to meld this same "realness" into the "real world."