Good deeds.

Good people are hard to come by. It seems that the growing number of people that are born into this world is inversely proportional to the will to do good for those people around us. Maybe there is only a certain amount of common good that exists. As more people are born, the common good keeps getting stretched thinner and thinner, until at some point, it'll snap. People will start killing one another just because they are having a bad day. It seems as though we are pretty close to getting there already.

I hope that this is just a pessimistic hypothesis that doesn't prove true. In fact, this thought process began as a moment of introspection about my feelings towards everyone that exists around me. I admit, I have, on more than a few occasions, thought that it wouldn't be half bad if most of the population was obliterated by a pandemic that I and a few of my close friends and family happened to have an immunity against. Or perhaps, just a simple natural disaster that would eat up several million people. I don't think it's a necessarily evil thought process, just a natural human response when sitting in Los Angeles rush hour traffic, wondering when the hell all these people start existing? But then again, as the Bible describes humanity as inherently sinful, my thoughts may have not exactly been influenced by a Godly point of view.

BE THAT AS IT MAY, it's tough to keep doing what would be considered good deeds, just because of the fact that there are so many people. If you spent your day trying to do good for everyone around you, you would have no time, energy, or money left to do anything. You might think I'm rationalizing the situation, but try driving out to Westwood, Los Angeles, and see if you don't get tired of handing out change to the endless stream of homeless people that are asking for money. I see the same people every day, at least three per block, and I get to thinking that I might need to keep some change for myself to pay for parking meters! Is that just selfishness? Or maybe it has gotten to a point where we all have started to avoid good deeds because it precipitates a snowball effect, and it's terrifying to know where that ball will stop. Maybe when we all have nothing more to give to anyone, and that prospect is a little scary.

I admit, it's gotten to a point in my life where I DO ignore people around me, just in case they might ask me for stuff, or ask me to do something for them. To balance it out, if there are things that can be done I do it; Doors held open (elevators are exempt, because it's fun to fuck with people and "hold the door" even when you're really pressing the closed button), helping people pick up dropped items, letting the occasional idiotic motorist merge into the lane in front of me.

And sometimes, the demand for a kind act is just thrust upon you. Today, I was dropping off my nieces at their respective schools. That alone right there was a kind act, because those two can be a handful, especially when I'm not fully awake to deal with their BS. As I was leaving to come home, a barefoot girl came running up hysterically, screaming for someone to help. As I was the only person around for a block, she addressed me telling me that someone had forced her into a bad car accident and had driven off. She was chasing down this car barefoot.

My car was parked about ten feet away, so I offered to help. She jumps into my car, and I'm still wondering what the hell I'm doing. It was all so sudden, I didn't have the time to think about all the terrible things I could potentially be getting myself into. Murder, rape, espionage, and general mayhem now that I think about it. Anyway, I was driving her after this car. Seeing as how the girl just got into a car accident, I did my best to drive quickly, seasoned with a dose of extreme caution.

As it turns, out, the culprit of the accident was an older asian man wearing glasses. We got his license plate number and headed back to the scene of the accident. Right before we rounded the corner, I saw smoke rising up through the trees and I remember thinking, there's no way that's from her car. Boy was I wrong. Her car was perpendicular to the road, on the opposite side of the street where she had been driving, impaled on a tree, with flames licking the ground from under her engine. This hysterical girl jumps into her FLAMING car to save some of her belongings.

The girl eventually found some shoes. I stayed a while longer to make sure she was okay, talked to the police, then came home. All this had happened before 9AM PST. What a crazy way to start the morning. The kicker of it was that this situation couldn't have been executed better had it been scripted. The way these random events seem to happen to me makes me wonder. Does the consciousness I have of my actions and purpose create a whirlpool effect, thereby forcing situations where I have to make quick, not-very-well-thought-out decisions that might help to make things a little better? Maybe so.

All this leads me to believe that if everyone had a sort of introspective outlook on life around them, the common good could recover a little. If we contributed a little awareness to it, we would cease to strain it, and help it to grow a little bit.

And the occasional negative thoughts we have when we get cranky, that's only human reaction. If we choose not to give into it, I think we could all make things a bit more bearable on these crowded streets.

Truth Hurts

I'm beginning to pay a lot of attention to signs. I've spent quite a bit of time ignoring signs in my life, and that has led to more heartache and misery than I care to admit affects me. I'm not talking about signs of convenience, the ones where you're just looking for an excuse to be lazy, or comfortable, or to not have to do something.

I'm talking about signs that God puts in your life to make some big changes. Let's say you've been hating going to work the past year. Not just hating work like most people hate work. Hating the people, your actual job, and realizing that being there makes you question your very value as a human being. It probably means there is a different calling that you should be taking up in your life, one that makes you happy and more fulfilled. Those signs. The big ones.

The same thing goes for everything in your life, especially relationships. How do relationships start? Signs. You get a sign from a girl, or a guy that they're interested. Where things go from there, depends on the person. If someone immediately sleeps with you, THAT'S a sign that they do that sort of thing all the time. If that's your style, great. If not, that's a sign that you should probably get out of that relationship before it has a chance to fester into something that needs to be amputated; in this context, you might lose your heart.

Or sometimes, you spend your life waiting on someone else, until they have time to spend on you. The signs are there. Your existence becomes an imitation of living. You don't know how to define yourself without the other person to give you some worth. In the end, the only sustenance you have is the other giving you a pat on the head to tell you that you're doing okay. What kind of bullshit is that?

No one deserves to be treated as worthless. This is not to be misconstrued to mean that everyone is a diamond in the rough. After all, people put themselves into the position they are in. If they choose to see their worth, and rise above it, they will. But we all make mistakes, after all.

The signs might be telling you that someone doesn't deserve to have your trust and love. You can't help wanting to give it to her though... It's human nature to hope for the best, despite all the information that you have that indicates she is screwing you over, and the good stuff she's giving to someone else. She's a cheap person for giving away the most valuable thing that you gave her, but you refuse to believe it.

You learn the most about someone after you lose her. Things you already know, but you chose to ignore. You have to relearn it. If it makes you angry, it's because you're learning the truth. The truth enrages because it doesn't care who you are, what you own, how much money you have. The harder you try to avoid it, the worse it gets when you encounter it. That's why the sooner you learn to love the truth, the happier you'll be.

The signs indicate that the truth is sneaking up on you. Pay attention to them.

Food for thought...

It's been awhile since I've blogged. Since I don't think anybody reads this anyway, I'm not motivated to apologize to anyone except for myself. God gave me a moderate amount of talent that enables me to communicate via written word without completely coming off the page as barely educated. Unfortunately, I don't tend to utilize it very often.

Anyway, it's been a really fast couple of weeks for me. I can barely remember the few times I've checked the clock as the days passed, and those few times seems to have all occurred on the same day. I've barely had to time to absorb anything that has happened, which is tough for me, because I tend to get swept along very easily. My memory is neither the best, nor the most reliable on the best of days, so I kind of hope that I've learned something new every day without overlooking any experience.

So on to the major events. After "quitting" at Chili's after my indignant outburst a few weeks ago, I was a little distraught by my sudden joblessness. At any given point in the past two years, I've had at least one, and sometimes up to three jobs at a time. I decided that I had the liberty to take a few weeks off to reflect on my life, consider my options, and maybe find a better job. My GM, who is freaking awesome, told me that things happen for a reason, and that my situation, although it might seem hopeless at the moment, would turn around for me.

Small comfort for a broke, out-of-work, out-of-a-job actor. I knew I had money coming in for a Heineken ad I did a month ago, and hopefully a decent tax return, so I decided to wait out the financial storm.

Long story short, one because I don't feel like typing THAT much, and two because I have a lousy memory, I got hired to work at BJ's in Westwood, LA. The money is a lot better there, and another bonus is that I actually like the food. I was very relieved to find that, with enough hard work, I would be okay financially within a month. In addition, I went on an audition for a McDonald's commercial that I booked. First of all, it's a SAG project, so since completing it, I am now a SAG eligible, professional actor. Second, it's a national network and cable spot. If I make the editing cuts, I will be paid residuals for a few months, every time that commercial airs across the United States of America.

Talk about good luck, and amazing timing. In retrospect, my GM's words were very true, though with requisites. Things turned around for me, but not without my own hard work and determination. Good luck is the design of diligence.

In addition, God does not put things in your path that you will not be able to overcome. This is something I realized in the past six months, as I've experienced all sorts of interesting personal trials. All kinds of goodies. Fantastic stuff really. Stuff of movies. The drama, the suspense, really it's been kind of a bitch. A great big Clifford sized bitch that stands over me, constantly drooling on my shoulder, and me, I think it's rain, then realize the water stinks of Goddamn Kibbles'n'bits.

But all you could do is your best. I've gone through certain trials in my past in order to prepare me for the future, and in light of this, I pray for wisdom, strength, and courage. Life is my adventure.