Intermezzo

As I was sitting on a couch which I had bought from a man who I loved, but who did not love me, I thought about love, and the meaning of it, and the desire for it.

Every day I wake before dawn and go out onto the stage. This is sheer lunacy, for the stage, any stage, is fraught with dangers and pitfalls. Or so I thought. I have come to realize, perhaps, that in my earnestness to create something - to finely hone a character or simply sing a phrase as best I can, I have imposed the impossible upon myself: I have tried to make people love me. I have tried, and still try, to convince others that I am worthy of their affection and adulation. I felt compelled to act on the stage because I wanted people to look at me and to feel love. For a long time I did this because I felt that if I were myself, and not playing a character, I was not worthy of love. But people do not love you because of what you do. They love you because of who you are. And everything you do, therefore, must spring out of an authentic sense of self, and then must be let go. And this is acting, I guess. But what is the difference between doing and being and acting?
And is not the development of an authentic self just narcissistic method-acting?

A part of one's personality is like a limb. It can be shaped and honed and sculpted and painted and even discarded. However, it does not mean anything more than mere flesh and bone. Which is to say it means nothing, and everything.

In this realization comes the freedom to try and to fail. In this comes the freedom to not care. And when you cease caring about yourself for even a moment, you can grasp the infinite, which is far more then flesh and bone and even love, for that matter.

Something greater than love, you ask? There is indeed. Peace.
But can there be peace without love? There can be indeed --

Respect.