I Belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, and Thoughts On My Involvement in Theatre.

Cyberspace is exciting. I don't know who I'm talking to. I don't know who may be reading this. But I think blogging is safer than chatting in chat rooms or even having a facebook or myspace account. I want to keep my identity a secret not because there are people looking for me, but because, a) I just feel safer that way; and, b) I'm a teacher and I don't want my students to Google me and find out what my political, religious and other controversial sentiments are.

Speaking of subjects you aren't supposed to talk about at work, let me tell you about my faith. I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I have been my whole life. I've served a mission and have been married in the temple. I go to church every Sunday, and I hope to be a righteous follower of Jesus Christ for the rest of my life.

I used to have aspirations to be an actor, a comic book artist, a movie director, an author, or something exciting like that, and I still sort of do have those aspirations, like a ga-zillion other Americans in love with popular culture and jealous of celebrities' fame. But nowadays I'm happy without worldly acclaim or notoriety. I'm happy in my community and my home.

Or maybe I really do want fame and this blog is a small way to achieve a small amount of fame. I don't know.

I've been involved in theatre in high school and in college. I started acting because my older sisters were both involved in it in high school and they thought I would enjoy it. They were right. So I owe my involvement with theatre to my sister's influence. When I was young, I thought my sisters were great actors and that they acted for the love of the art and for self-expression and for all those noble reasons that Oscar winners cite during acceptance speeches. But I had a conversation with my sister not too long ago about her high school theatre experiences. She said something like, "Oh, I don't know if I really liked acting or was any good at it; I think I just wanted attention." That threw me for a loop. All that time I thought she really wanted to be an actress, but she just dropped out of college and turned into a hippie and then got married and had kids, so it never really worked out. But here she was telling me that theatre was merely filling an immature psychological need. And then I got to thinking about my own involvement in theatre. Was I sincerely interested in the art of theatre, or did theatre just give me a chance to get some attention?

I still don't know the answer to that question. Probably my love of theatre comes from a combination of three desires: a desire to develop my talents, a desire to satisfy my ego, and a desire to study an art form.

Introspection is good for me. It's good for you too. Think about why you do the things you do, and you may soon come to realize that your actions are motivated by less than noble considerations.