But it’s not odd to me. Actors are storytellers. And storytelling is the essential human art. It’s how we understand who we are. I don’t mean to make it sound high-flown. It’s not. It’s discipline and repetition and failure and perseverance and dumb luck and blind faith and devotion. It’s showing up when you don’t feel like it, when you’re exhausted and you think you can’t go on. Transcendent moments come when you’ve laid the groundwork and you’re open to the moment. They happen when you do the work. In the end, it’s about the work.
~ Bryan Cranston, A Life in Parts
Related Post: Bryan Cranston – Breaking Good
Live & Learn 
But why oh why, is it so hard to open one’s self to the moment? Why is it work when it is our life? He’s so damn talented…I hope there are moments when he just gives it over. And yes, I’m workin’ on it.
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For me, it’s because my head is buried in the moment, the moments, and the ah ha transcendence passes me right by.
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Reblogged this on O LADO ESCURO DA LUA.
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Thanks for sharing.
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Just the message I needed to hear this morning! One foot in front of the other, slow and steady wins the race. Just. Keep. Working. (And while you’re at it, stay open to the moment…) More coffee!!
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A lot more coffee… 🙂
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it is.
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It’s always about The Work.
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You writers are a breed unto yourselves and one I so admire.
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Ya gotta do the work to get the moments! I think everyone keeps looking for an easy way out of that truth! 🙏🏻
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That’s the TRUTH.
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Hi David. I was just reading Bill Gates’s list of his favorite books of 2016, and I was curious if you’ve ever put together a list of your recommended books. I was thinking about possibly putting together a list of favorite/recommended books from a variety of people, and would like to include you since you seem to have such a wide variety of interests and tastes…
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Hi Jim. Thank you for the inspiration. I did something similar in this post (wow, 4 years ago) and you have prodded me to produce an update. Let me noodle this…thank you.
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Sad to admit, but I think I’ve only read three of the books on your list; Grapes of Wrath, Run Rabbit Run, and Confederacy of Dunces. Or at least they are the only three I’ve heard of…
I know I definitely read Confederacy – laugh out loud funny. I kept picturing the guy who ran the comic book store on the Simpsons.
Looks like I’ve got some catching up to do!
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Smiling. As to catching up, your thoughts remind me of:
Alone in the garage with all these books. There’s no room on the shelves anymore. Now they live in piles. Technically, I’m a part-time resident of the apartment upstairs, but I spend many hours down here in what I call, without enough irony, my office. Our ex-neighbors used to film amateur porn in this space. When they moved away, they left behind powerful overhead lights (if I leave them on overnight, the place will burn down), and I sit here, awash in brightness, gazing at these stacks of books that will squash me when the big one comes, and I think: Earthquake or no earthquake, I’ll be dead before I read a quarter of the books down here. I know this for certain and I wonder if repeating it out loud will make me believe it. I’ll be dead before I read even a quarter of the books down here. That leaves at least three-quarters of these books unread. But to measure a life in unread books seems about right to me. All the experiences we will never have, places we will never go, people we will never meet. Even so, just to hedge my bets, I’ve asked my family to bury me with a decent library.
~ Peter Orner, from “Notes for an Introduction” in Am I Alone Here?: Notes On Living to Read and Reading to Live (Catapult, 2016)
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And I’m looking forward to checking out your list Jim.
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