Checking for Opportunities in a Land Once Known

After receiving feedback ranging from no response to a decline when submitting some job applications, I decided on Monday to call my old manager in Burbank. They had me send them my info, so I did, and that combined with the spring weather has me dreaming of acting while living in Los Angeles again. I called my manager up again yesterday to ask what to expect or where to go from here, and they told me that they would have Terrance call me. Terrance is fortunately the main guy, the only name that I remember, and whose house I remember visiting numerous times as a child actor.

I am of course conflicted about such a concept. How could I not be? I spent so many years earning my doctorate in medicine that to consider doing anything besides practicing medicine feels like a betrayal of that education. But I have been trying to be more honest with myself about these things. For one thing, these may be my last years with youth and looks to assist me in my approach to Hollywood, whereas medicine will still be there in 20 years. For another, a lot of people have done well on all of their exams and are competing for the same spot that I will want, whereas I have done poorly on exams and would be reliant on charisma to carry me. That is not necessarily a bad thing since I do tend to be clinically proficient, but it is worth considering. To some extent I want to recognize that they may be better candidates for clinical medicine, and I for the entertainment industry, though hopefully I would have opportunities to apply medical and clinical acumen to such a place, not to mention ethics and morals.

Acting was the dream before the dream. Of course I want to go to the people who have nothing and provide healthcare, to war-torn Yemen or Syria or Ukraine and give aid, to meet the need where it is most earnestly required. But before I had these ideas, I wanted to act, to find within myself the voices and aspirations of a character, then become the vessel through which these concepts are portrayed. Or as my oldest brother would call it, become a professional liar. Perhaps it is my ego talking, but that sounds like bad acting to me. I have always been divided inside, and acting is a chance to safely increase the volume of one of those dissenting opinions, to give it a context in which to make itself known.

Maybe next week will hold something new for me in terms of opportunity. Or maybe not. I just need my current circumstances to change.