Golden -- I Am Not Afraid.

Today marks the first day of my next adventure. 

I flew in from my final week of filming Olympus last night, as I rode the bus back into Toronto I had a moment, or an exhale, as I realized, "It is done." 

This is not to say that I was waiting for what has been one of the most life changing events of my life to be over, it was acceptance that I've completed one chapter and will now be moving into the next. 

As I sit here, this morning in my bed, with my recently reclaimed cats, kneading my spare pillow into submission, I feel open; I feel excited and inspired. The possibilities have become endless once again. This might scare some, but I am not afraid. Instead, I am thankful. Over the last few months I've had the pleasure and the gift of spending a copious amount of time being with myself; learning who I am. 

I shifted immensely over this project, as always, as an actor and a man. 

I'm slowly cementing the people in my life that make me feel creative, allow me to be myself and encourage my offbeat patterns. Identifying this circle is allowing me to relinquish my need for control, gives me my much-desired confidence and makes me realize that we all need each other. 

Before I flew out to Vancouver, last week, my agent and I had a lovely conversation about where we want to go from here; I'm coming off playing a series lead on a network television show and have a new standard of work that feeds my trajectory. This is not to say that I'm now a classist, entitled actor who will only do a select amount of projects per year, *cough, Daniel Day-Lewis, cough* I'm certainly not in that position (far from it). What it is allowing me to do is give myself perspective and artist choice. 

As ambitious as it may sound, I don't want to be part of a project I'm not proud of. I don't want to look back in 10-15 years and go, "God, why did I do that?" or, "I needed to pay rent.." I will say this enough about my "Joe jobs". I want each and every artistic endeavour to be a source of pride and education. Perhaps it's a lofty idea, only time will tell. I have a wonderful and supportive partner, in my agent, and I know that she has my back; A rarity in the industry. With her and I's partnership at the height it is and me coming off of a project like this; everything is my favour. Now more than ever, it would behoove me to not go out there and kill it in my auditions. 

With my ideals aligned, my partnership strong and my resume improved, the only thing I need to get underneath me, to be truly successful, are my nerves. I have to learn how to work with them, rather than against. I shouldn't be ashamed of my nerves, but should thank them for letting me know I'm alive and passionate. They are part of me. 

Between some good/new friends, the biggest pieces of advice I have received lately are, ironically, to stop taking peoples advice and to start listening to myself. I have been in student mode for so long now and it's imperative for me to step into the artists/adult life; trust my abilities and the experiences I have under my belt. 

I have a tendency to continually ask people for advice, simply because I want to hang out with them or want to talk to them, almost always it turns into me asking them questions I already know the answers to, or walking away without much more perspective than what I went in with. I can meet someone new and not talk about my craft, or how they deal with being an artist, as radical as that may seem; we can simply talk about life. We can talk about their other interests, which are more essential to my work than ego stroking. It also keeps dawning on me that I have worked more than some people twice my age, in TV at least, and need to take pride in that fact. I don't need to start spitting my advice on strangers, but I can rest easy knowing that I carry that experience, both on my resume and on my face. I don't want to lose my positivity and wide-eyed perspective, but I have to step up and become an adult, "Studentmon digivolve to ADULTMON!" 

I have been meeting new people, who aren't actors, who have been making me feel so much more human. They have allowed me to learn about them and hear about their lives, which are vastly different than mine, and rightfully so. It's been refreshing to learn about things besides acting/writing/producing, I love all those things but sometimes one needs perspective. 

Right now, that one is I. 

I have accepted that I will need to get a part time job in the New Year, and am not bothered by that, because I will find something that will supplement my life, rather than become it. That's what I must to remember; My focus is my creative life, not being the best Starbucks barista. 

Life is in a great place for me; I'm golden. 

A good friend of mine and I had dinner the other night and spoke about the ease I feel in life right now and how I do not want to drop below this level again. She replied, "Then don't let it, but if it does acknowledge it, be in that state truthfully, and then rise back up." She is a wise woman. 

And now, I leave you with some Jill Scott: 

Golden

W.

In the Air Tonight.

A few weeks ago, a (new) friend of mine offered to take me hiking up the Stawamus Chief Mountain in Squamish, outside of Vancouver. Before this hike, the two of us had only met briefly on set through a mutual friend. Due to the lack of people my age in the cast I thought it would behoove me to not take advantage of meeting a new person, who might share some similar interests. Turns out we like a lot of the same things and are able to keep a decent conversation flowing; gotta love when I find those people. We met up downtown and drove out to the mountain, the terrain getting up to the peaks was far from easy but the view made up for it. When we finally reached "Second Peak" I was speechless: It was easily the most spiritual experience I have had in a long time.

I looked around from this massive piece of land jetting into the sky with a cloud passing by my face and the sheer beauty was like nothing I had ever seen before. Of course, I have seen this kind of scenery in films, but to experience it first hand was nothing short of magical. Sitting atop that peak, with more-or-less a stranger, humbled me. It made me respect the Earth and despise how materialistic I've become, how self-centered I am by believing that my problems are so massive. When I looked down onto the town of Squamish, with it's industrial harbor pushing out into the ocean, I felt pity. Here we are taking this beauty for granted, chipping into it to make room for more stuff, bigger condos and flashier lifestyles. It made me sad to think about how we, as a race, are depleting this natural beauty that is the Earth, for fictional fabricated happiness. 

The whole time, probably to his displeasure, I kept saying to Jeff, "This was how people lived! Natives would have travelled up to these peaks; they would have gathered their food from these bushes and trees. This was there internet, their TV!" It brought me back to the childhood feeling of anything was possible in this environment, stories and histories started to fill my imagination. I felt in touch with my soul again, it was cleansing. To add to this experience, Jeff and I were bombarded by 7, rather tame, chipmunks who proceeded to loot us for our trail mix.

They were the most aggressive chipmunks I had ever experienced. They had no fear; they knew what they wanted and went after it. These little rodents ended up crawling all over us, one even started scratching at my closed fist, thinking I was hiding nuts from him: I felt like a Disney character. 

The hike reinvigorated me, made me realize that my issues aren't really all that big and allowed me to approach my work with (a little) less control. I've spent so much time trying to figure out what to do, how to be good, how to look as calm and free as everyone else, and everything else under the sun, when it all comes down to simply letting go and living honestly.

I had a breakthrough with Martin Wood, who was directing me at the time, he said, "Don't fear it. Simply accept it." Something that has been told to me numerous times but hearing it that day finally broke my walls down and allowed me to do some of the best work of my career. It was hard, but the hardest part was letting go, relinquishing all the vanity, safety and judgment that keeps ones barriers up. When I finally released I just let Lykos take over and I truly became a vessel. 

Having that happen to me allowed me to go onto set this Friday confident and able to do solid work. It was completely freeing to just have fun and let it be what it was. I left feeling awesome, as I did the week before. There is a part of me that wants to break down this "freedom" into liquid form so I can bottle it up and inject before every scene, but that's impossible and I know that with time, and more moments like the aforementioned, it will become second nature. The key really is confidence in my abilities and myself. 

Today, I spent most of my day reading and writing on the beach. 

I'm learning to let go of all that is superfluous and unnecessary, things that don't actually contribute to my ultimate happiness. I'm excited to return to Toronto and purge my apartment of things that I no longer need. As a race, we need so little to survive: Love. I'm blessed to have a massive amount of it. Being part of this show has taught me to truly appreciate and embrace the amount that I have, so much of the world is without it. 

Money, homes, cars, clothes, they are all symbols that we give value to; they do not make or break a person. Good people are good people, regardless of whether they wear Tom Ford or hunt in the bins at Value Village. I feel this quote from Fight Club is appropriate:

"You are not how much you have in the bank. You are not the contents of your wallet. You are not your f**king khakis."

I am wealthy, successful and happy because I choose to be, because of my attitude and the way I treat my fellow human beings. At the end of the day, it won't matter how much I own, but how many lives I touched through my art and my relationships. That’s what makes me rich. 

I don't know whether it's the air out here, or what, but I feel so pure and euphoric. I have less than a month left and as much as I'm sad to see this wonderful, and life changing journey come to an end I am even more excited about seeing what the tide leaves for me to discover once is goes out. From now on if I can eat well, drink often, play always, laugh a lot, dream vividly, create inspiring work, see the beauty of the world, listen to the best music, see great films, foster wonderful relationships, make brave choices and live with an open heart I will be the happiest man. 

Now to train those chipmunks to do my bidding....

W.

Save Me.

I love meeting new people, hearing about their lives, lessons they've learned, places they've travelled, etc. Not only does it add to my catalogue of characters, but also it allows me to see how other people deal with their lives and perhaps give me an alternative perspective on my own. Or in this case, how they avoid dealing with their lives. 

For those of you who didn't know, I was living, or rather dying a slow and painful death, in the weirdest, most disgusting house I have ever been in. If you remember, I was cast only 4 days before I was required on set for the show. This gave me very little time to find an adequate, and within my budget, place to live. 

I had to settle with the first option that Kijiji offered me, and settle I did. 

I began living with an elderly gentleman, whose wife died about 4 years ago, and a boarder who was essentially the blond version of Lurch from The Addams Family.  The wife had clearly been responsible for maintaining the house; I honestly don't think anything has been moved since her death, except for the gym equipment into the living room and the spices from the cupboards onto the deck... 

Now when I decided (had no choice) to move into this place, I thought, "This will be an adventure!" I gave the residents, of this rather sad home, the benefit of the doubt and thought, "We will become best friends by cleaning the house together!"

Well, I had been there for almost 2 months and neither the older man nor the roommate made any attempt to get to know me, or show any interest in speaking to me about their lives. Instead, they griped about me using the toilet paper or forgetting my keys. One day I was denied entrance into the house until I promised to not forget them ever again.

Now, from these pictures, I want you to visualize what the rest of the house looked like.

Got an image? Now picture 3 times worse. 

Essentially, I managed to touch as little as possible by not leaving my room or cooking anything. I was afraid I might contract some disease from an unmoved towel, or the hair covered utensils. 

I won't even get into the bug situation. 

Interestingly enough, Lurch's room was meticulous. Like, serial killer clean. The strangest part of his room was that he kept 3 pictures of people (probably victims), in frames on his bed. Not on his dresser, but sitting ON HIS BED! He didn't work, had barely any belongings and just watched TV endlessly. Occasionally he would walk the older man's ancient dog, clearly blind, due to it's massive cataracts, and for some reason always looked wet. 

Did I mention that there was a deep pit in the back yard...?

This setting for Stephen King's newest novel was where I spent my downtime: close to the set, in a town 60km outside of Vancouver and a 15 minute drive away from people who knew how to engage with one another. I had no car, and it took about 2 hours to bus into the city. I started to go insane, especially on my days off. The older man was always working on something late into the night, other than cleaning his house or getting rid of the copious amount of junk. He consistently found something to complain about, whether it was the 8 vehicles sitting in his driveway that no longer worked...

Or the perpetually drenched dog's endless whining. Basically, it was awful and I regret not moving out sooner, it was nothing short of an irritating and disgusting experience. It wasn't until last week that I realized how much this space was affecting my psyche. It was deeply effecting my work and diet, or lack thereof, while making me dread coming "home" after shooting.

With any job, one needs a place of refuge, where one can unwind, relax and prepare for the next day. Living here, in this pre-Hoarder candidate's home, I was walking on egg shells, literally and figuratively, while trying not to use the toilet paper excessively for fear of dirty looks and unnecessary aggression over needing to wipe my butt. Needless to say, I finally moved out. I'm now staying with a lovely family who is clean, wholesome, normal and made me steak on my first night with them; substantially better, and much healthier for my mind. 

As Darren Hardy says, "Garbage in, garbage out." 

I'm learning to take responsibility for my needs: what I need in order for me to do the best job I can. To bring the best version of myself to set. To fuel my body the way it deserves. This experience has taught me to put my well being first, an obvious one, but in the process of me not wanting to cause preemptive waves I sacrificed my health. Something that should never be on the sacrificial slab. 

W.