Sometimes, when
I’m feeling particularly low, or on the very brink of insanity, I get ideas in my head that immediately sound utterly ridiculous, but I persevere with them nevertheless. Like when I occasionally toy with the
idea of doing some acting again. After all, I reason to myself, I used to quite
enjoy doing a bit of the old board-treading at school, and occasionally I feel
as if I need to find things that I enjoy doing when I’m feeling gloomy.
But then I try
and practice, or at least think about the idea, by perhaps saying some words
out loud when I’m in the car, they instantly just sound utterly ridiculous when
it’s me that’s saying them, and I quickly put the idea back into its box until
the next time I’m having a crisis or something.
Come to think
of it, in my mind I know full well that those school performances were pretty
embarrassing, too. Whilst my Jacob Marley (I
know, typecasting at its very best) was generally well received, I know now
that I could have done far more with those chains, those locks, those weights,
and the mere thought of all that howling just makes me cringe in utter shame. (Heck… Even the programme cover design I did makes me want to weep nowadays…)
As for Franz
the comedy Nazi butler in “The Sound of Music” let’s just recognize the fact that
he once existed and then never speak of him again. I do like to think that the
late Sam Kelly and I shared a similar disdain for public “Heils” however…
Also,
rationally (if I can consider anything
that I think nowadays to actually be rational…), I know that the last time
I was persuaded to drag myself onto a stage to make up the numbers in a cough
and a spit appearance in something so dreadful I dare not speak its name, I can
nowadays only remember the massive pain-in-the-arsedness of having to turn up
each day, remembering to shave, and the utter fear of not remembering the
words.
And there were
only about six of those dotted through the banal nonsense…
Standing there,
with my knees quaking in the wings, knowing that word number one had vanished
and taken all of its little word friends along with it, was just horrible, even
when I knew that they were penciled in on the clipboard that my “character” (and I use the word loosely) carried.
Oh well, at
least I didn’t have to hang about for the curtain call… Given what I was doing,
that would have been an insult to everyone else involved, I always thought.
Plus, of course, I could be home and in bed before the end of the interval,
which is always a bonus when you live in the back of beyond.
So, my mind may
occasionally drift off and consider thesping again, but the practical part of
my brain knows that I can head upstairs to write a pithy phrase of my own only
to forget it before the computer has had time to boot up, and that’s when I’m
thinking of my own words. Remembering pages and pages of someone else’s would
be nigh on impossible, especially this aging addled old cranium of mine.
And even in the
unlikely event of me managing to remember them, there is, of course, the
additional rubicon of then having to stand in front of people and say them out
loud, preferably with some sort of performance sprinkled into the air around
them.
Not a chance in
hell of that happening, I suspect.
This public
performance anxiety is, I fear, also why my scriptwriting pastime finally
ground to a halt. It wasn't just the lack of self-confidence in what I was
writing (although that played a huge part
in it), but also the thought having to say my words out loud and in front
of other people, especially people who might think that it was all utter
rubbish.
I do consider
joining a writing group again from time-to-time, if I could find one, but that
whole crippling, crushing lack of self-confidence thing tortures me into
submission and instead I do nothing, preferring instead to rattle out blogs
like this in relative obscurity and anonymity.
You know, I
once read somewhere that, in certain quarters, shyness is equated with
selfishness. Well, all I can say in response to that is you just try living
with it, matey…
Way, way back
in the day, I used to quite enjoy performance poetry and occasionally toy with
going along to some of that again.
Don’t get me
wrong, I doubt that I could ever stand up and spout some of my own doggerel out
loud in a public place, but I think that it might just occasionally be pleasant
just to be amongst it again and hear some well-chosen words drifting across an
enraptured room, although I would cringe in transferred embarrassment at the
inevitable smartarse heckle and so probably wouldn’t enjoy it at all.
You see, a lot
of the time, I’m not even suffering on my own behalf, but absorbing the blame
and the shame for the entire room, presumably so that they don’t have to.
Lack of
self-confidence… It really is a bit of a bugger, especially as “people” seem to
think that I don’t suffer from it at all, especially as when, in the days when
I did used to socialize, I was often the loudest idiot in the room.
I was trying to
compensate for something I suppose… either that or the demon drink had a hold
on me…
Even expressing
opinions could leave me flustered and I really can't get across to anyone quite
how much self-loathing can follow even the simplest of social interactions, and
how much I would hate myself as I headed home after yet another evening of
public embarrassment and humiliation.
I believe other
people refer to such things as “parties…”
But then again,
my artwork fizzled out in much the same way. Showing my “work” to people who
might proclaim it to be utter garbage was more than I could bear, and that was
before I ended up working for a guy whose entire modus operandi seemed to be to
ridicule and belittle everyone who worked under him, for the betterment of the
product, of course...
(I'm amazed sometimes that I manage to function at
all any more, especially in the workplace...)
That was years
ago now, but it’s left its mark on my stuttering soul.
In recent
years, I’ve often felt like I have had a lack of encouragement, or someone to
believe in whatever abilities I may or may not have had. I always wanted some
kind of a mentor, but even then you have to persuade someone that you actually
have some kind of ability for them to mentor you about, and that really isn’t
possible when you don’t believe a word of it yourself.
It’s far too
late now, anyway, but it still nibbles away at me from time-to-time, and I
regret being such a bloody coward for letting those feelings of self-doubt and
disbelief overwhelm all of those possibilities I once believed I once might
have had.
So it looks as
if I might have to try and find something new to enjoy doing, although, after
all those years of searching, I really am beginning to wonder quite what it
might actually turn out to be…
