Just a heads up, this post is a little longer than others in the past. That’s because I’ve combined several drafts into one big post. For the sake of you, the reader, I’ve split it up into different sections just in case you don’t want to read the entire thing and are only interested in certain parts. However, when I write I like to have everything flow together nicely, so it really would be in your best interest to read the entire thing anyway.
Who am I?
When I was around six years old, still living at my old house in New Jersey, I distinctly remember having a moment of self-awareness. I was walking around our hillside backyard thinking to myself when I suddenly became aware that I was controlling my own body, and that I was seeing everything around me from my perspective. I realized then and there that I must be the subject of some great story waiting to happen. “Who am I?” I thought to myself. “Why am I in control of me? Am I seeing myself in this life because I will one day be President?” I felt then that I must have some great destiny, a story just beginning that will one day be worth re-telling.
From that moment on, I have always had this feeling that I was meant for greatness - a feeling that I am the protagonist of my own autobiography. I didn’t know this was something that other people felt until last year when one of my friends introduced me to the term “Main Character Syndrome”. The term refers to the feeling where someone envisions themself as the central character in the story of their own life. While I don’t feel this to quite the degree that others have, this is a feeling I have felt my whole life, and is evident in my MBTI results as well.
The Myers-Briggs Type Indicator is a personality test that largely deals with how people perceive the world and interact with others. My results are INFP, which stands for Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving. This personality type is commonly referred to as the Healer, the Mediator, the Seeker, or the Dreamer. What I like about this personality type is that I match several main characters in fiction, including Frodo Baggins, Lucy Pevensie, Anne Shirley, Belle from Beauty and the Beast and Luke Skywalker. I also match with some famous real-life INFPs, including writers such as William Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien; actors such as Tom Hiddleston, Johnny Depp, and Heath Ledger; and musicians such as Regina Spector, Kurt Cobain, and John Lennon. I feel that because I have the same personality as so many of these artists, I am meant to join them. Is that my destiny then, to become a great writer, actor, or musician? But if that isn’t my destiny, then what is? Is it something I have to wait for, or something I have to seize for myself?
For better or worse this feeling has grown inside me over the years largely because of my exposure to Disney musicals. Nearly every Disney animated musical has a protagonist I relate to. These protagonists typically sing what is referred to as an “I want” song, and I feel each of them deep in my soul. Like Ariel in The Little Mermaid, I want to be “Part of That World”. I want to be “Out There” like Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I want to “Go the Distance” like Hercules. Like Rapunzel in Tangled, I also wonder “When Will My Life Begin?” And like Belle in “Belle (Reprise)”, I want adventure in the great wide somewhere, I want it more than I can tell. But it’s not just Disney protagonists, it’s Broadway musical protagonists as well. I want to find my “Corner of the Sky” like Pippin, and I don’t want to throw away “My Shot” like Hamilton. Like Tony in West Side Story, I have a feeling that “Something’s Coming”, something good, if I can wait. And like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, I want to be somewhere “Over the Rainbow” where the dreams that I dare to dream really do come true.
Work/Theater
So what’s in the way of me achieving my dreams? I used to blame circumstances like lack of a job and annoying student loan payments, but really the blame falls on me and my lack of motivation to leave my comfort zone. Why would I risk going into the unknown when the known is safe and comfortable? I don’t want to stay here forever - I’d like to finally leave the nest, but I’m also afraid of falling. I’m not confident that my wings are strong enough to keep me in flight before I hit the ground. Because of this, another fear is starting to appear - a fear that my life will never be more than it is now. At present I seem content to do what I’ve done ever since graduating college: work low-paying jobs while living at home, slowing chipping away at my student loans, and participating in community theater to keep me sane.
I struggled for a while to find a stable job, but now I’ve been with Target for three and half years. Even then, I’ve recently been giving lots of shifts away because the work environment has become almost unbearable. It’s not my co-workers (who I actually like), it’s the scheduling, management, and lack of good leadership. After a few small raises the last few years I get just under $18 an hour, which isn’t nearly enough to support living on my own. Plus, for the amount of work I do there and for everything I’m trained to do, I’m worth much more than what they are paying me. But as much as I want to find a different job, I absolutely hate job hunting. It’s so tedious updating my resumé for each and every job application only to almost never get any word back regarding an interview. I was lucky to get the Target job when I did, and I was happy to get any kind of pay, no matter how small, but now I’d really like to get paid something more than $18 an hour, which will not be easy to find. I don’t have that much student debt left to pay (at least compared to others), but a new job would ensure I could finally take care of at least one thing that was keeping me stuck. I had been putting off sending more payments when I heard there was a chance it might all be cancelled, but that doesn’t seem likely to happen now.
I really wish I got paid to do theater - community theater is unfortunately all volunteer, otherwise I don’t think I’d be at Target any longer. Sometimes my work friends ask me why I don’t try to do this professionally. I typically tell them the same answer: a Target budget doesn’t even pay enough to afford living on my own here in the valley. Until I’m able to get a different, higher paying job, moving somewhere else where they have opportunities for acting professionally is out of the question. I wouldn’t even mind getting a job at a theater just working backstage - I’ve stage-managed for a few different shows now.
I enjoy helping out backstage and behind the scenes, but where I really thrive is being on stage. While Target drains me emotionally and physically, I get lots of energy from acting with my friends. You’d think it odd that an introvert like myself would feel this way about something that takes place in front of a large audience, but I love it. Theater gives people the chance to see me and hear my voice. In group settings I have a hard time being heard (which is why I prefer one-on-one conversations). But in theater, people literally pay to come, sit down, and watch me speak. It’s my best chance for people to see and hear me. And aside from blog posts, which I post far too infrequently, theater is my main way of expressing myself.
One of the reasons I enjoy performing live theater so much, is that it gets people to see another side of me. When I’m on stage, I can be anyone. The characters I’m typically type-cast as are sweet and innocent characters like John Brooke from Little Women or Charlie Brown, which mostly match my personality. However, I’ve also played a few more villainous roles, which are a ton of fun - the most fun so far being Lord Farquaad in Shrek the Musical. But I feel that I can easily do more than that. If given the opportunity I want to cry on stage - I bet I could do it. I can sometimes make myself cry while singing along with certain Broadway songs. But while I love singing, acting is more my strong suit on stage.
Recently, I’ve been very grateful to play Paul Bratter in Barefoot in the Park. While the character is similar to me in some ways, it’s also very fun to play a character which much more emotional range. In this comedy, Paul and Corie Bratter are newlyweds. The character I play a sensible and practical young lawyer while Corie is much more lively and free-spirited. While Paul gets excited about starting his new career, he gets easily stressed out by everything that he finds wrong with their new apartment. The way that I play him is that he is also very introverted - he is drained of all his energy after spending the entire evening out with his wife, mother-in-law, and upstairs neighbor. What follows that is one of my favorite scenes in the play - I have a whole argument with Corie about how the evening went and how we don’t have much in common. I almost never shout in real life, but in this scene I raise my voice in anger several times. There’s also a part in the next scene where I’m alone on stage for a couple minutes talking to myself, and I have a lot of fun with that as well. I won’t give spoilers in case you’d still like to see it. Tickets can be purchased right here on the website, in person at the box-office, or over the phone at 559-686-1300.
Relationships
While the romance on stage in Barefoot in the Park is all fake, I like that this production shows the audience that I do have a romantic side. I haven’t shared this with many people, but they likely have guessed already - I haven’t had much luck with romance. 100 years ago at my age I would have already been married with at least two kids, living in a house I own and working a single job that pays enough to support my entire family. That seems a little unrealistic in today’s world, but I would have thought I’d at least be married by now. My Dad got married when he was 40 - I’d definitely like to beat that record.
I’m sure part of it is that I’m introverted, maybe part of it is that I’m too picky. But I think it’s more than that. Those that know me know that I’m a quiet and humble person, so I have a hard time “marketing” myself. That applies to both job applications and dating - I’m not great at speaking well of myself because I’m afraid of sounding vain, even though some self-confidence would go a long way in getting a better job and/or getting a girlfriend. I typically tend to believe the lies I tell myself: I’m too old, too inexperienced, too quiet, or too awkward. It also doesn’t help that nearly every time I work up the courage to ask a girl out I get shot down. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong, or what girls are necessarily looking for in a guy, but I have enough self-confidence to know that I’m a catch.
I’ve tried a few dating apps, but I don’t like them all that much. I prefer meeting people face-to-face. I like to see not only how they interact with me, but how they interact with others. Also, a lot of people only use dating apps to hookup with other people or causally date. I don’t like the idea of only casually dating because I’m not interested in investing my time, energy, and emotions into someone who isn’t also looking for something more lasting.
And one more thing while I’m on the subject: the phrase “nice guys finish last” has unfortunately always been true for me, and I hate it. Why do girls always go for the “bad boys”? I don’t want to completely change my personality just to get a girlfriend - I want her to love me for me. I’m just tired of people only seeing me as nice, polite, friendly Michael. Yeah, okay obviously these aren’t bad traits, and there’s nothing wrong with having them, but I am so much more than that. I’m not saying that I’m a bad person, just that I have much more depth than it seems if you would just take the time get to know me. I realize I am very much an introvert, but if people looked much closer “they’d find out there’s so much more to me” (and yes, I stole that from “One Jump Ahead (Reprise)” from Aladdin, yet another Disney protagonist song I relate to). I want people to see the real me, not just the me that people always see. Yes, it’s good to be nice, polite, and sweet, but I also have a great sense of humor, I am an excellent listener, and I have a keen sense of adventure - I want to do things! For example, I see pictures of abandoned buildings taken over by nature and it fills me with a sense of longing, of adventure! I want to go to these places - I want to be in these places where so many stories, so many lives happened. The idea of stepping foot in a place where no one has set foot in decades fills me with a sense of wonder and excitement - I think that’s why I like the Indiana Jones movies so much. Of course it could be the other way around. Maybe I want to go to these places because I want to be like Indiana Jones: the adventurous protagonist searching abandoned places for long-lost treasures, only to find that the real treasures were the friends he made along the way.
Just a little nerdy
Speaking of Indiana Jones, I have to share just a little bit of my nerdy side as well. For those that don’t know, I am extremely interested in movies and movie-making. I love watching behind-the-scenes extras for movies and TV shows. I like seeing how certain shots are accomplished, or how actors prepared themselves for their roles or scenes. I’m also just a huge fan of the stories as well: my bookshelf is organized according to all my favorite franchises - Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Harry Potter, and of course, Indiana Jones.
The upcoming fifth (and apparently final) installment of the Indiana Jones series, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is easily my most anticipated movie of the year. Unlike many fans, I have enjoyed every movie in the series, even Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which the majority of loud and outspoken fans seemingly hate. It makes me sad that because of all the backlash, Dial of Destiny will likely not reference the characters or events of Crystal Skull in any meaningful way. It’s the same sad treatment fans of the Star Wars prequel trilogy got when the Star Wars sequel trilogy had almost no mention whatsoever to the prequels but instead relied much too heavily on original trilogy iconography.
Aside from seeing Harrison Ford as the legendary character again, one thing that excites me about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, is that it is highly speculated to include time-travel in some capacity. This will likely be polarizing for for the majority of Indiana Jones fans, especially those who disliked the sci-fi elements of the previous film; but as a huge fan of time-travel fiction myself, I couldn’t be more excited. And as much as I will miss Steven Spielberg behind the camera for this film, I believe James Mangold will do this film justice. Granted, his only films that I’ve seen are Kate & Leopold, The Wolverine, and Logan, but his previous film, Ford v Ferrari was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Picture, so I’ve got high hopes.
My second most anticipated movie of the year is what will likely be the penultimate film in the Mission: Impossible film series: Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, as well as it’s sequel which releases next summer. This is a series which has only gotten better and better with each installment (except for 2 and 3, which weren’t as good in my opinion). The most recent film, Mission: Impossible - Fallout I would consider to be one of my favorite movies of all time. The action and the stunts are outstanding as always, but this film also has great character and story moments, plus some of the best music in the whole series. These films are also great at building tension. Fallout especially has some excellent moments of suspense that I won’t spoil here in case you haven’t seen it. It’s a movie that I can’t stop watching once I start it, and I am eagerly anticipating its sequel.
I generally try to see all my favorite franchise movies on opening night, but the funny thing about these movies is that they both open on show nights for Matilda the Musical, the next show I’ll be doing after Barefoot in the Park closes.
Religion/Christianity
Now here’s the big one. I have written extensively on the topic of God, Christianity, and faith, but I’ve posted almost none of it on here. I have draft after draft of unpublished posts talking about this subject. I honestly don’t want to shake the faith of those who are true Christian believers, because they seem like good people. I want to be like these people, but I don’t want to be fake about it - I want to be sincere.
What I’ve come to realize is that I’ve never really had my own faith, just the faith of my parents. My dad is a pastor and my Mom plays the piano for the services. I was raised on VeggieTales, Adventures in Odyssey, and Keith Green videos. I went to church, Vacation Bible School, youth group, and Christian summer camp because those were just the things that we did. I said a prayer at around 3 or 4 years old to accept Jesus in my heart, and I was baptized when I was like 13, but I didn’t feel any different before vs after I entered the water - it was just the next thing I was supposed to do. And this isn’t just me retconning my backstory to fit how I feel today - I genuinely felt that way back then, I just didn’t know how to put it into words.
The past several years I’ve come to realize that everything I grew up with living in a Christian environment gave me a lot of knowledge in my head, but I don’t know that I’ve ever felt it for real in my heart. I have all these facts but they don’t seem to mean anything other than answers to a Bible category on Jeopardy. When I sing worship songs in church, I’m just singing to sing - I don’t actually mean the words I’m singing, but I want to. I don’t want to be fake. If I don’t mean what I’m doing, then I’d rather not do it at all. I want to be genuine. I also used to pray all the time, but then I realized that I was just treating God like a magic genie. “Please God, give us safe travels today.” “Please God, heal my sick friend.” “Please God, help me to do well on this test.” I would pray little prayers like that all the time, but they started to feel like messages I was sending out into the void with no response. I may as well be wishing on a wishing star or holding onto a good luck charm. There’s no relationship with God in that - just me sending up a wish list, like a letter to Santa. In the rare times that I pray now the prayers are more like “God, if you’re out there, if you’re real, if you can hear me, please heal my sick friend because there’s nothing else we can do, and I’d figure I’d try this again. I know you’ll do what you want anyway, but I figured I would try this.” I obviously don’t ever get a response, because how can I? I don’t understand how people say they “talk with God” when there isn’t a person there you can see, hear, or feel to communicate with. The Bible tells of God talking to people through burning bushes or even a voice from heaven - why don’t we get that now?
The thing is, I’m unconvinced. I want to believe that everything I’ve ever been taught since I was a baby is true, but I want to believe it for myself, and I want proof. I often hear about Christians being persecuted for their beliefs or giving up entire aspects of their lives to follow Jesus - I just don’t see how it’s all worth the trouble. Preachers often speak about how the Christian life is full of persecution and hardship - why would I purposely choose something like that? If I am to dedicate my life to something like this, I feel like I need real, tangible proof that God exists or that everything the Bible says is true. It’s hard to put real faith into the Bible when it was written so long ago by so many different authors. What about the other books that were written that didn’t make the cut - who decided what stays and what goes? Who decides what is Biblical canon or not? The Bible says that it is the living, breathing, word of God, but is there proof of that outside the Bible? I’m not making a case for it either way, I just want to know. My parents and other Christians will tell me to just keep trying to read the Bible, but I’m not very motivated to when I don’t seem to get anything out of it. Maybe it’s like working out, I just need to keep at it to eventually see results, but I’m not convinced that the results are worth the effort.
If I truly became a Christian when I said the prayer with my parents when I was like 4 years old, then that means I’m going to heaven, right? I don’t have absolute proof either way, but I like to believe that there is an afterlife. And as much as I’d like to, I can’t say with 100% certainty that I will go to heaven when I die, and I don’t know how other people can say that with such conviction. What do they have to go on? Where does faith like that come from? How can someone have such assurance in something or someone they cannot see that if affects their whole being? I genuinely hope that my questioning and my doubting doesn’t draw others away from faith - I’m glad for those that have such strong convictions, I just want to know where they come from.
So if someone were to ask what my religious beliefs are, I would still say Christian. I just have to be sure to tell them I’m not like the loud obnoxious people who give real Christians a bad name - the ones who use the name “Christian” as a means to support their own politics or ideologies. Those people are also not genuine in their faith - to them, Christianity is a means to an end. These are the folk that make me afraid to speak publicly about faith at all. I still strongly support and believe Christian teachings and I know how to be a good person, I just don’t feel like a have a real relationship with Jesus like most Christians claim to have.
I need to discuss one more part of Christianity that I just don’t get. They say Jesus died for me so that he can have a relationship with me because he loves me. But what makes me special if Jesus died for everyone? It just feels to me like a free handout. Everybody can have eternal life if they want it. Cool, why not? Better than eternal death. Where is the relationship aspect of this? I sometimes cry in movies or TV when a character sacrifices themselves to safe someone they love - so why doesn’t Jesus’ sacrificial love make me emotional? Is it because I’ve heard the story so many times I’ve gone numb to it? There’s only so many ways the Gospel can be presented, and at this point in my life I’ve probably heard them all.
I know this period of doubting can only lead two ways - either I come through this stronger in the faith than I’ve ever been before or I continue to live on the fence, slowly letting it all fade away. I don’t think I could ever turn completely away from Christianity, but I am sick of pretending that everything is fine. To be honest, I want to believe. I’d like to believe that everything I’ve ever been taught since I was born is true. I just have serious doubts about the whole thing. I sincerely hope that I will come through this an actual happy and genuine Christian, not someone just going through the motions. I know that would make my family happy - I love them and want to make them happy. I just don’t see myself getting there anytime soon.
I’ll end this post with the lyrics for this Switchfoot song from 2011 that has been stuck in my head for the past several months. These words apply to basically every aspect of this post that I wrote about:
Vice Verses
Walking along the high tide line
Watching the pacific from the sidelines
Wonder what it means to live together?
Looking for more than just guidelines
Looking for signs in the night sky
Wishing that I wasn't such a nice guy
Wonder what it means to live forever?
Wonder what it means to die?
I know that there's a meaning to it all
A little resurrection every time I fall
You got your babies, I got my hearses
Every blessing comes with a set of curses
I got my vices
Got my vice verses
I got my vice verses
The wind could be my new obsession
The wind could be my next depression
The wind goes anywhere it wants to
Wishing that I learned my lesson
The ocean sounds like a garage band
Coming at me like a drunk man
The ocean telling me a thousand stories
None of them are lies
I know that there's a meaning to it all
A little resurrection every time I fall
You got your babies, I got my hearses
Every blessing comes with a set of curses
I got my vices
Got my vice verses
I got my vice verses
Let the pacific laugh
Be on my epitaph
With it's rising and falling and after all
It's just water and I am just soul
With a body of water and bone
Water and bone
Where is God in the city life?
Where is God in the city light?
Where is God in the earthquake?
Where is God in the genocide?
Where are you in my broken heart?
Everything seems to fall apart
Everything feels rusted over
Tell me that you're there
I know that there's a meaning to it all
A little resurrection every time I fall
You got your babies, I got my hearses
Every blessing comes with a set of curses
I got my vices
Got my vice verses
I got my vice verses
I got my vice verses
