For Everything There Is A Season ...

Identity.

There are people who love me. I never asked to be loved, although in truth I believe all people need at least one person to teach by example what we consider the best attributes of humanity.

There are people who think they hate me, not many, but a couple. In truth I think these people live in fear, and hate seems to momentarily quench a never ending thirst to be loved.

Ironic, isn't it?

Who am I?

This seems to be the age old question. Who am I? I learned long ago not to take my identity from what I do. If you asked me, I'd say I was a playwright, because I know that's how I'm most easily identified. But this is what I do, not who I am.

I'm directing two plays this year. I start with "Harvey" in June at a theatre about twenty miles from my front door. I'm following this by directing "Inherit The Wind" in September at a theatre about twenty miles in another direction. If this makes me anything at all, it would be temporarily insane.

I teach acting classes and have just started leading a quite active creative writers group.

And the list goes on and on. Honestly, I've done everything in life I've wanted to do, gone in every direction that appealed to me.

But none of this is me. I've learned that I'm one of those people who actually enjoys mowing the lawn, I enjoy being there when a friend wants or needs to share a thought. Genuine creativity makes me cry for happy, "adult" material of just about any kind bores me. I'm a product of my own morality and generation.

More and more I think that who I am depends on what is in front of me at any given moment. There are few constants . I take what I do seriously, but I never take myself seriously.

Maybe there's one constant.

I'm a child of God - not because I say so, but because He says so.

Yeah, I can live with that.


JB