Next job.. Conedy routine? Getting the energy out there and the CHI moving.

So I'm now a SAG actor. And I haven't done anything for a couple of years. My career, the career that meant so much to me 40 years ago, and which I still cling on to as though it gives me some kind of credibility, rather than being a mediocre failure of a man, as I sometimes think, feels further away than it's done in years. I don't feel I'm really involved in the arts anything like I was once upon a time, and it's kinda hard.

I'm entering a new artistic phase, I know. My recent trip to India and SE Asia has opened something up for me. I feel inspired. I feel I've been on a really wonderful Artist's Way trip for my soul. It's definitely made me feel more alive, and I guess that can translate into what I do artistically.

I'd like to do theatre, too. What's interesting is how I feel so trapped by financial ties. Acting is so much easier when you're wealthy, because you quite simply don't need the work. Doing it because you want to is really the place of power all performers need.

So getting my performance itch scratched is important, I think. If I can perform, even though I'm not being paid, or perform in a different arena, then I'm that much closer to the acting work.

I know I have something to say. And that really is the key. Whether a person is a comedian or a straight actor or an artist or a film maker, having something to say is so important. You can't have appeal unless you have something to offer.

I think I have to do stand up comedy. That really is what I need to do. It's difficult, because the humiliation factor is enormous. But oddly it's an area where I think I've mastered humiliation. I can take it. I like it. It makes me reset the bar.

I guess I just have to write a good stage act. Then get on with it.

In search of character - discovering what makes other people think, and thier motivation.Humiliation as a motivator

I'm watching a video about George Plimpton, and his adventures as a participatory journalist. And I find it interesting that he's talked to so many people about what they do in order to find a way into their world, and do the things they do.

One thing that's come up for him with sportspeople is the subject of humiliation. They all dread humiliation, and I wonder how much humiliation is a feature of motivation. Is humiliation something we're really honest and open about? Like bitterness, is it something we find so hard to get over?

One thing I've noticed about people who like to humiliate others is what I sense is their own humiliation. People who need power have been humiliated at some point in their lives, I think, and they never are able to get over it. Or at least the "successful" ones, such as Donald Trump, have real issues with humiliation. It's plainly what motivates him: his profound humiliation at some point in his life.

As an actor, I find the subject of my own humiliation fascinating. I'm grateful for the times I've experienced humiliation, because I think there's always been a lesson learned. There's been reasons for my humiliation, and it's been to do with my past, not the person doing it in the present.

The feeling of humiliation is like a an internal bath, as the wave passes through. It's like blushing, or dread, or an awful kind of fear.

Anyone who has never suffered humiliation hasn't really lived. I think it's a rite of passage. For an actor, it's definitely a rite of passage, because if you haven't suffered it you've never taken a risk as  a performer.

Humiliation is another way of confronting the ego. To witness one's own humiliation is to witness one's own ego dissolving. It can only benefit, in the long run, once the experience is properly understood and integrated. 

Personally, as my own "character", I'd say I'm strongly motivated by past humiliation. I've been deeply and profoundly humiliated in my past, and I've never really gotten over it. Sometimes I think much of my motivation for what I call "success" comes down to past humiliation: school, childhood, work, career, relationships, sense of powerlessnesss, etc. Much to do with humiliation.