I want you to want me (and say so)

As an average straight dude, it's not often you hear certain kinds of complements from the opposite sex.

"You're cute" or "You're attractive" or things like that are almost exclusively heard while in relationships, from friends or from bold gay dudes (I love you bold gay dudes, you make my day). We get a ton of other complements and I'm not here to say that we're really hard done by. But, women think about and enjoy sex just as much as men and check us out as much as we do them. (I'm not making that up they've done studies. If I was a better blogger I'd link them, but I'm lazy so google it.) The difference is they tell their friends and not us. They feel liberated and share pictures online of Hollywood hunks and  muscly male models (nailed the alliteration) with comments like "Unf" and the like. Half of Buzzfeed's traffic is earned through lists of hot dudes with all caps captions like "YES PLEASE" "THIS" and "LOOK." And I think that's great. What I'm saying is, its time to take that liberation and put it into our real corporeal lives. It's as much on us men as it is on women. If we want to feel desired, have our confidence boosted and our egos inflated (to a healthy level of course) we need to let women know that the days of "we pursue, you are pursued" are over. It's a lot like that Looney Toons sketch in which Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck argue about which hunting season it is, but in this version it ends with them agreeing that its just a free for all and then making out.

It's easy to think that men don't need that sort of attention. That they're stoic and confident and fine without. But we all have insecurities and we all want to feel desired. Men very much included.

But what the hell do I know.

Art is hard

Art is hard. Not like math is hard, or fighting a bear with only a lasso and your wits is hard- in that the actual work is tough to do (though that's often the case as well). No, art is hard because art is the ultimate unrequited love. We give everything we have and everything we are into it and sometimes, oftentimes, it rebukes us fully and completely. Those of us who are passionate (re: stupid)  enough to pursue it as a career know this full well. Despite talent, ability, and sometimes even drive, the road to success is a crap-shoot. The reality is for every success story there are 100 failures so anyone with a brain can reason that your chances of failing are far higher than succeeding. Saying you're starting a career in the arts is like looking up at a cliff, watching 20 people fall to their deaths and saying "Yeah, that's for me" and starting to fucking climb. Fledgling artists have fears, all the time, every day, and that is made worse with the knowledge that on some level it's all self inflicted.

Why do we do it? Maybe it's optimism or faith in our own ability. Maybe it's blind ambition. For me it's the simple fact that doing what I do as someone in the arts is the only thing that makes me truly happy. It's the only thing that satisfies me and it's the only thing I want to do.

"But Jake you don't know that, you haven't tried everything."

"True but I've already found my thing. That's like looking for your glasses, putting them on and then continuing the search. Why would you keep looking?"

That being said, earning money is a necessity that only becomes more and more necessary as time goes by and your life expands. A functioning adult, something I'm aiming to be one day, earns a living. So getting a real job, is that failure? You aren't making enough to live on from your art so that's a fail right? I have no idea.

Every artist decides what defines success and failure for them. Some simply think by doing it, they're a success. Some think if they have that job and no other they're a success. Some want fame and loads of cash. Some only want recognition from their peers. Some simply want to say the one thing that they've been burning to say their whole lives. And because the definitions are so fluid its easy to feel like you're copping out or giving up. I'm going back to school to get a degree in teaching and some of the time it feels like I gave up. I'm still writing, still acting, still going on auditions and even thinking about trying stand up comedy but because I'm officially "getting something to fall back on" I feel like it's over before it even begins. I don't know if that's the case or not, maybe that's for me to decide.

But seriously, what the hell do I know?

Why we like Villains

Walter White was the best character on Breaking Bad. Sorry Jesse fans but its true.

While we found him revolting by the end we also couldn't help but like him. Why?

 We like villains.

But Jake, how can we like characters who consistently lie, cheat, steal, and even kill? I will tell you, fake rhetorical person.

Villains, or the good ones at least, are confident, charismatic, intelligent, self prioritizing people. They do and say what they truly want to and don't let social convention or law get in the way. How many of us can say that? My bet is not a single one. We gain catharsis by proxy watching these kinds of characters shatter the rules and make their own because its what we'd like to do. A villain is his or her best self, just in the absolute worst way. Being our best selves is something we should all try to do.

So, without the murder-theft-evil-plotting, I'm gonna start thinking like a villain and I suggest you do too.

Don't turn around when things explode, say cool things before kissing people and putting on sunglasses.

But more importantly set your goals high, make plans, put yourself first, have confidence.

Be a mother-lovin villain.

But what the hell do I know?