The "Fear Of The Death" Thing

It’s possible I’m the only human still awake at 10:15 pm in this land of 6am yoga. I just finished up leading an Improvisation For Life workshop at a spa/ranch in the desert in Arizona, and I’m wide-the-heck awake. I’d give anything for one of those little javelina pigs to come waltzing up to me on the little patio outside my room where I’m writing, while my adventurous buddy who came with me here is sound asleep, dreaming, no doubt, of tomorrow’s early hike, the way 5-year-olds dream of Santa coming, the night before Christmas.

Okay, just to be clear, the park rangers get very upset when you call them “pigs” because they are technically very much NOT pigs…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AwD3WN3kEc

There’s this feeling I experience, after a show, a workshop, a training  anything big and perform-y that I’ve been planning and gearing up for. It’s like this narcissistic satisfaction that comes over me that just makes me feel like there is a point in being here after all. (On this earth, I mean.) Because, yeah the point is to help other people, right? By teaching them all the shit you know after a long-ass life of doing this stuff, and it feels great to see them go “Ohhhhh” and “Yeeeeaaaah, that’s really something I want to learn and work on!”… to watch them feel stronger. And very altruistically, it is great to see that, but there’s also this sense, and more so as I’m getting older, that I am not going to totally DIE and having left nothing behind. Cuz let’s face it. There’s no getting around that lust for immortality. You can sit on a cushion all you want and watch that shit with curiosity, but, bub, get real: it’s still there. You want to have mattered. And that’s okay.

And now, sitting here in the dark, with only the glow of a Mac, (and no javelin pig-not-pig in sight), I’m picturing all those experiences we just had, floating out there in other minds and I’m pretty damn satisfied. And there’s a little less of the Fear Of The Death Thing. I’m also a little horrified that I’m writing that I’m in need of some immortality, because it’s not the kind of immortality most actors crave so desperately (fame, household name), I’m over that, but I’ve sort of replaced the need for fame with a need for helping people. And while that sounds better, I’m not so sure I’m passing the Enlightened Test. (Cuz, um, it’s a test right?) I mean… yeah, okay, it’s a test. I’m pretty sure there’s a test at the end of this.

Okay time to go back inside and go to sleep, and dream of sugar plums and pig-not-pigs.