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First,

I'm Just Getting Started

By Sunshine BondPublished 3 years ago 4 min read
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the lively blooms of a plant I don't know in City Park, New Orleans, Louisiana

Welcome to my Vocal Media page! I look forward to engaging with people, other creators or just an audience, dare I dream "my" audience, via this platform, as well as just to the experience - I'm here to learn what I can do, what I'm capable of, how far I can go, where this can take me, and what we can accomplish together.

I really want to just share my experiences of being human, a human being who struggles but also dreams, and how dreams and struggle intersect. And I'm going to find what it is I really enjoy writing about here and what best engages my audience, what resonates with you, and how we can feed back to each other. It could really go in so many different directions, and I am relishing that idea.

I want to start from a place of acknowledging dreams and magic, and that they can happen and we can make them real, with the flip side of the coin that life is a struggle and making dreams come true can be difficult. Making magic look easy is, well, hard. But maybe, in some ways, this is a necessary struggle? Tonight, I had the guilty privilege to be able to go to my local movie theater, one that's been in existence for over a century, and currently operating in a covid-safe way, to see "The Last Vermeer". I say "guilty privilege" and it's a bit of an oxymoron for me because I probably really couldn't afford a movie ticket; realistically, I shouldn't have bought it, but I'm privileged I got to do it anyway.

Anyway, let's see if I can reference a salient point of the movie without committing any spoiler crimes (goddess, I hate spoilers): one character takes another to task about his integrity, or lack of it, to his art: he was ever too afraid to walk through the fire of struggle, unable or unwilling to really stand for his own unique, creative vision, to take his place with the great ones.

Let me ask this interesting question in a different way: is struggle necessary for art? Don't we want people to have their basic needs met so they can thrive in health and well-being? If the basic survival struggle were taken out of creating, being an artist, would we still create? Which leads to the question of being human: don't we all deserve the very basics to be covered, don't we owe it to each other to honor each other's lives by making sure we are all just basically okay at the very least? Then maybe more of us could focus more of our energy on creating and less on surviving. I think there will be struggle enough left over still even then, for those of us who feel it's absolutely necessary.

As for me, here are some of my own struggles: I want to be a working and successful actor, but I'm not getting very far. "Why are you not getting very far?", you ask. I don't think it's because I lack in talent. I think I would be able to know if that was my problem. But, hey, if that is my problem, I haven't had enough opportunities to prove it. It could be I'm lacking in skills. Skills come with learning and experience. But I'm struggling too hard with the basics of life, and the complications of life, to be able to gain that knowledge and experience. Also, I'm a single parent. And I'm not wealthy. Due to the pandemic, I no longer have stable, gainful employment, and that was already iffy for me even before coronavirus entered my world, something which a lot of artists, actors, experience and have always experienced. I am getting older, though I'm optimistic that Hollywood and the film industry at large are being more open and real about the contributions of women and women who are no longer in the very budding, very fetishized, spring of their youth. Let's face it: I'm a woman, and we struggle to break through that glass ceiling in the majority of professions. I could add more to the list of challenges and obstacles in my chosen journey, but I think these are the basics, and I know many who read this will relate and understand. I'm not writing this to harp on my difficulties in life, rather to have a moment to just be real with you. I also acknowledge the realities of those who face even more difficult challenges on the road to accomplishing their dreams.

And part of my reality is that I think I deserve a chance, or many chances, and I am here today to say that I am giving myself that chance, those chances. Even in the middle of this rather dark and grim time in humanity's history, even in the middle of my own dreary vistas, when sometimes I feel like letting go of hope, I am pledging to remain stubbornly hopeful, and I am giving myself the space (and refusing to give it up) to dream about creating magic, and making it seem effortless, and being in collaboration with other dreamers, creators, and magic-makers who are also holding on to their dreams and refusing to give up.

I thank you wholeheartedly for reading this far. If you got anything out of this and you'd like to contribute so I can continue to write, feel free to leave me a tip; it will be immensely appreciated, and who knows what I'll choose to write about next? Stick around and see, I know I am.

goals
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About the Creator

Sunshine Bond

human, storyteller, actor.

i'm an actor in my story as a human.

https://facebook.com/SunshineBondActres

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