Be the change

I didn’t make any resolutions this year. As the first few days of 2009 progressed, I was cool with that. I mean, I always break the damned things anyway. Also, one of the girls in the next office gave up chocolate as one of her New Year’s Resolutions (I didn’t think resolutions were supposed to be like Lent, but what the hell. Also, she’s Chinese. She doesn’t do Lent. So maybe her resolutions can be like Lent.), and every time I ate a mini-Twix from the bowl they have in their office, I was thankful I hadn’t done anything like that. Chocolate, good. Resolutions, bad.

And then I spent Wednesday night and all day yesterday at the Under The Radar festival at the Public Theater. Jordana and I were doing what we called the “soft launch” of our notforprofit, which is going to be a producing company that offers developmental and artistic support for artists. Basically, we’re going to find some artists we feel really passionate about (we’ve already got two) and give them whatever support they need to make it, whether that’s fundraising or strategic planning or dramaturgy or whatever. We spent that time at the Public plugging ourselves to some very important people in the theater community and spreading the word that we were looking for artists to work with. We got a really positive response, and while we’re going to be there this weekend as well drumming up some more business, I feel like we got something great started. Everything we’ve been talking about for the past couple of months became real to me in the last 48 hours.

Yeah, so what does all of this have to do with resolutions? This morning when I woke up, my mind was buzzing with creative ideas and parts of my brain were working that I thought had atrophied. You know, the creative/theatrical part. The part I trained for years, and then kind of abandoned because I got a day job to pay the rent. I was in a great mood, I was happy with myself, I got to work and was all set to keep that creative buzz going, and then work intruded. Work and insurance and all that fun shit.

This afternoon I started thinking that I don’t need to make resolutions. I just need to set a goal. That goal is that we are going to make this company work and it will eventually rescue me from my day job. Maybe not this year, maybe not even next, but eventually this company of ours is going to be my ladder out. I just have to keep that goal in sight. I have to focus on working out that creative side so it doesn’t atrophy again. I think I can keep to it. I need to keep to it. As Barack says, I need to be the change I want to see. The change is coming.