An Actor's Journal

Sweet are the uses of adversity

Something very strange has happened over the past four months. Although I shudder at the mere mention of the word, the only way to describe how I’ve been feeling is by saying that I’m incredibly happy. That’s right; I have almost nothing to complain about in my life right now.

Not that everything is perfect: I’m still crushingly poor, my home situation is far from ideal, and I have an administrative backlog as large and as difficult to overcome as the national deficit. However, this all pales into insignificance when I consider the positives.

First, as clichéd as it may seem, I’m alive and in good health. Nothing really matters above that. It’s all very well making a million pounds, but if you’re too tired, ill, or stressed to enjoy it, what’s the point? Second, I had a fantastic second term at Drama School, and have recently begun what promises to be an even better third term. Third, I have been slowly carrying out my New Year’s sort-of-Resolution. Finally, I have been making better connections with old and new friends and colleagues; all culminating in creating a happier, more self-assured and less worrisome me. The results have been clear to those around me, too: I’ve been told on various occasions how much happier, better-looking and more grounded I seem. Who am I to complain?

It’s all connected, of course. I think the fact that I made a very conscious decision to take more responsibility for my life has seeped into my way of dealing with the expected and extraordinary issues I face. The returns have been generous. After completing two rehearsal projects at school, I have been given very positive feedback. This is not to say that there isn’t plenty to work on, and goodness knows I’m more aware than ever of how much further I need to go, but the challenge is to work on what I need to work on, and go as far as I can go. One hopes this will be a lifelong career, and recent figures suggest I have an average of fifty years to continue improving and learning. Why waste the time I have now by not focusing exclusively on myself and the areas in which I could push myself?

The most important ingredient to my contentment cake is that I have finally remembered just how much fun I’m having. Acting is a strange job: we deal with raw human emotion and face the issues which dog our species on a daily basis. Despite this, one needn’t feel eternally anguished or despairing. With tears must come laughter, and the only way to treat the job is with a commitment to joy, pleasure and fun. The line between comedy and tragedy is so thin it’s almost indistinguishable. Shakespeare, Chekhov and many others knew this, and I would wager that it’s probably hardwired into our DNA to find and extract the positive from the negative. Drama School is such an intense little bubble which takes up so much energy that one could be forgiven for becoming ever so slightly engrossed in one’s own life. Nonetheless, the bubble is transparent and of one’s own making. You get what you put in, and you must always focus on the bigger picture. No-one is forced to go (indeed, every student auditioned to be offered a place) and it is a training for a career, so if you really do hate it the door is not locked. If ever I slip into a negative stream of thought I remind myself of this and that I have the power to make my experience a happy one. I always honour my natural emotions – I would never force myself to feign “happiness” – but there is a difference between feeling something and wallowing unnecessarily in it. I know I have a tendency to wallow, so I’d like to know if I can wallow in a bit of excitement, joy and pleasure for a while.

All a bit boring and self-help, this time around, I’m afraid; but if you came looking for bitterness and resentment, you arrived too early. I have 60 years to bitch and moan. Come back then.

Sweet are the uses of adversity,
Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,
Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;
And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing.

As You Like It, II.1