My Bleeding Heart in an Email
Beware: This is raw. It is bold and it is all of me on a page. Read on if you dare…
I found an old email responding to a friend asking me a series of questions. The most striking one was two parts: Where do you see your ideal self a year from now & What do you ultimately want your legacy to be?
My response to them was this:
Thank you for thinking of me.
Although, I’m not sure of the vision or final project — I can say with certainty black women entrepreneurs within our industry should be the topic of many, many conversations to come. With that said, I’m happy to be a part of that conversation in any way I can. I hope what I say next will be relevant and meaningful.
I would like one day to leave behind a legacy where I could be considered a creative entrepreneur.
When I’m asked what my ultimate goals are I typically answer that before I leave this world I want to make it easier for upcoming artists to learn their craft.
I want to open schools exclusive to underprivileged minorities using art as a form of emotional and behavioral therapy — with a strong focus on financial literacy.
Although this idea struggles with many of the same problems that our kids do i.e. forms of systemic racism (especially in reinforcing how brown children are disciplined first, as opposed to exposed to ways of working through problems) in part due to their various circumstances: poverty-stricken, broken and dysfunctional homes and the like — it’s an idea not far from fruition as the money and sentiment are both out there.
With a plethora of brown celebrities coming from humble beginnings funding projects in this same vein, then the other glaring issues holding back art coming from black women entrepreneurs could someday completely dissipate. The lack of funding that’s both stifling opportunity for growth and ceasing the dollar to flow within the community would all but be a worry of the past. Lord knows we’ve supplied the entertainment industry with enough millionaires from our race by now, right?
Without delving too deeply into the nearly insurmountable social and political odds stacked against us — it remains to be said that a goal without a plan is just a dream. It’d be a shame to aimlessly have these passions and like most other creatives, unable to fully pursue the art and do it justice.
After studying the craft of acting it only made sense to try and teach myself how to be on the opposite side of the casting table on order to really make an impact. Writers, directors, producers, and executives are the ones who can successfully turn an idea into results, economically speaking. After all, it is called show-business.
Most recently, I’ve been figuring out how to take my unique skill set, expand it, and monetize it. I thought of nearly a dozen ways to create streams of passive income so I can regularly and more throughly spend time on what I actually love doing, and how to share that with future generations.
Everything from creating DIY hair treatment oils and drop-shipping them online, to self-publishing a book of poetry under a male pseudonym so it’ll sell better, and starting a consulting company training bartenders for high scale private events — the list goes on and on for ways to apply anything I’ve experienced or semi-mastered in life and trying to monetize it.
I wonder, does this trajectory take me away from my ultimate goal and completing my life’s work? Am I desperately flailing around trying to be moderately successful as an entrepreneur faster, so I don’t lose too much time being creative?
This year, because of the pandemic I’ve reconnected with a family member who shares my vision for changing the industry. That freak world incident was necessary for us to spend a significant chunk of time together on the same coast — allowing me to connect with various key people; these relationships I hope to continue to foster in the future.
Before 2020, sure I had directed a bit, written some things here and there. But now the game is different. I’m still going out for parts as an actor, the difference being that I’m learning how to navigate that world completely virtually, from audition to performance.
The dream has always been to go from just balancing a career and my passion to one day melding the two together and be a working artist; I’d do almost anything (clothes on) to make that possibility my reality. Especially if that means taking my mind and heart away from fostering my talent and craft and putting it into a different avenue so I can make just enough money to pursue it.
Still, I’m vexed that we all aren’t getting any younger and most of the little devils on our shoulder are our inner thoughts (or at least mine) repeating to me what I told myself I’d be doing by the time I got to be this age — from what seems like eons ago. The long and short of it is, if there are any budding actors feeling this way, the hurdle of time slipping away doesn’t change the older you get. I’m sure our late great hero Mr. Boseman probably imagined living past the age of 45, the same way I can imagine it right now as I’m writing this, but in my case I feel like I have so much more to accomplish, and I’m probably too far behind especially when comparing myself to artists like him.
You often hear as an actor about today’s artists making films with their iPhone, or sleeper hits made for only a few thousand bucks bringing in multi millions worldwide. How easy we must have it with all this fairly affordable and available technology. What are we missing as the broke empaths are still struggling to sell our pain for profit?
The market used to be so tightly wound in the 90’s in order to make it on TV would be like passing the thickest thread through the eye of the smallest needle on the first try. Most of it was luck, skill had some say in it sure; but success was dependent upon the right elements coming together without much ability to control how you received your brief moments of luck and opportunity.
Remains to be true though, with this generation, since Netflix it’s so easy to get on a show, any show, one show of literally hundreds debuting on nearly the same week and the over saturation on these platforms seemingly confuse our audience, dilute our content — making everybody just special enough to deem no one as extraordinary. My my, how the tables have turned.
Without this coming off as the ‘woe is me tale’ of another ‘actor’ who never made it — there are plenty of things I could’ve done about it back then, really, and I know it. I think that’s a hurdle of human nature though, to think of things every single day that we should be doing for more, and for better; even if it means ignoring how productive we actually are.
The daily hurdle of feeling like not being enough, thankfully isn’t just an actor thing. It is, nonetheless, one of the many things holding me back from being a full-time creative. As it costs money to be free enough to pursue your dreams — the older I get the more I want security as much as I want the luxury to sit back and enjoy picking apart an actor’s award-winning performance.
I was absolutely fearless in my twenties.
Fear of getting too old to be in the pictures is another unique hurdle I have as a woman compared to my male counterparts. I’ve gotten over some of the age thing though. I realized, in general, less roles are written for people my size, my color, my gender, but the fact that my story still hasn’t been told yet gives me a certain confidence in the universal truth which accompanies storytelling.
As far as organization is concerned and being a better prepared individual…well, there are free courses online for me to study that stuff. I’ve started there and am trying to wrap my creative brain around some of those logical concepts; I’m needing to keep my fingers crossed and me in your prayers!
Ah, the peace and inherent beauty in a daydream…
One year from today, I’ve sold at least 25 bottles of my hair treatment oil. I’ve finished the pamphlet that accompanies it and am in the process of self-publishing it. Mayhaps, I’ve finished the first draft of one of five scripts I’m teaching myself to write — or have starred in a feature indie or stageplay (depending on the trajectory of the virus and the world opening back up). That’s my realistic vision for one year from now.
My ideal year from now actually pains me to write down.
Having a pipe dream that may never come true is actually becoming more comforting to me as each day floats by.
Although, despite all my complaints when I’m finally at the end of my life, I’m for sure going to feel this way about it:
If I had to be plagued by one sickness, I can’t think of one both better and worse than the acting bug.
