There’s this new game coming out soon that’s really cool and important, and it’s something I think you should all know about. It’s called 2015. This mad scientist has been working away at it for a while and it’s going to be unveiled tonight, at midnight.
It’s a lot like 2014 – most of the same characters will be there. A lot of the same action. The graphic design will be pretty similar – hyper-realistic images that you’ve come to know and love. But what’s different is that 2015 is sort of like Choose Your Own Adventure. YOU get to decide what happens in 2015. Something in 2014 that frustrated you? You get to make choices in 2015 that change that. Something in 2014 inspired you? In 2015 – YOU get to make it happen. If you felt like some things in 2014 were going the wrong way in the world, YOU get to make choices that can help push things another direction. If you liked 2014 but feel like there was a bit too much sadness, in 2015 you can choose to put some new and original joy into the world. See, it’s got a lot of the same stuff as 2014, but in 2015, we get to decide what happens. It’s not an easy game, and there are still some rules and aspects they haven’t worked out (sadly, still only one life allowed per player). But it wouldn’t be very good gameplay if there weren’t a few challenges, amirite?! But together, I’m pretty sure we can take it down. It’s a pretty sweet game. I’m glad that we’re gonna get to play it with one another. Love, JJK
0 Comments
I cannot imagine looking back on life without viewing out 2013 as a landmark year. In 2013, I fully supported myself without regular employment (#FreelanceArtist). I produced my (to-date) most successful play, in every sense of the word, particularly the ones that matter to me: more joy was created with From Denmark With Love (the making of it and the sharing of it) than anything else I’ve ever done, by far. I wrote my first novel; I wrote a song cycle; I received my first commission and wrote an opera. A vampire opera. I’m devising and directing a new play with high school students.
Life is beautiful. But I don’t see those accomplishments as the important aspects of my year. Rather, 2013 is a year in which threads of came together into balls, and bows, that I could grasp and go “A-HA.” Like big LIFE Eureka times, in ways that I already know will redirect my life from this year on. The big theme of the year for me was Joy. I’d like to share a few thoughts, and I hope you’ll share yours in return. An Economy of Joy Imagine for a moment you have none of the training you have about the world, society, how it works. Money does not exist. You don’t have to have a job, you don’t have to pay rent. Imagine you were brought up to believe that your sole goal in this life was to create more joy, for yourself and others. What would you do? And now imagine that everyone was trained to aim their energies towards that same goal: creating more joy. What would that world look like? For me 2013 was a time when I saw the flowering of how our world might thrive on joy. It was the year in which I saw, again and again, people choosing to take time from their day to be creative, loving, and surprising, all in the name making someone smile. What if JOY was the basis of our economy? What if you got a point for every smile you brought into the world? Five points for every laugh? Ten points for cheering up someone who was having a rough day; one hundred points for throwing a block party and bringing your neighborhood togeter. And what if you paid your rent with those points, bought food with them? What if you had to earn 500 laughs a month, just to keep a roof over your head? Imagine if everyone in the world had to. We’d either have a lot of laughter or a lot of homeless folks. 2013 is the year in which a world of this nature began to take shape for me. Not only the imagination of it, but the world itself in action. Here are some of my favorite moments, when members of our species chose to take a moment to love, create, and bring joy to another member of our species, just because… - Letters for Scotty - BatKid - Aaron’s Last Wish - Pay It Forward Starbucks - Remembering Karim In my own life this year I experimented with this new economy, not intentionally, but stumbling into it, like feeling your way to a light switch in a room you don’t know. During From Denmark With Love, I made a bet with our audience: if we sell out a performance, I do my curtain speech dressed as a Bond Girl. I came out in Ursula Andress’ white bikini, in Tatiana Romanova’s ribbon choker and bedsheet (with nothing underneath); and – one night – completely naked except for gold body paint, a la Goldfinger. In July, with the help of the cast of Denmark, we started the Boston Theatre Bowling League. Thus far, we are unvictorious. But we have swank team uniforms. In August, on Facebook, I hosted International Dress Your Morning Beverage Like a Unicorn Day. Fourteen crazies turned their coffee mugs into unicorns. In September it was GAMTAOS Day (Give a Mohawk to An Office Supply); 23 silly souls jumped on baord to bedeck staplers, laptops, pencils. In November, for my birthday, I sponsored International Dinosaur Appreciation Day. Over 100 people created pictures, videos, and stories. After 8 hours of meetings and no Facebook access, I discovered this glory on my phone and broke down crying on the Blue Line, overwhelmed with joy at all the sillyness that had poured forth. The craziest thing: people thanked me for giving them something fun to do. The thing is, what has worth is up to us. What a community chooses to value grows in worth. If we perceive a company, or a product, or an action, to have more worth than another, that thing’s value goes up. It’s all arbitrary; we choose it. So why not choose Joy? A Challenge: Spend 2014 spreading more joy than you ever have before. Pick a goal: Make one person – a different person every day – laugh. Or write a song, make a video, that makes people laugh, and work to make sure 10,000 people see it. Give someone an accident, a surprise, and opportunity they would not have had otherwise. Create room for wonder in someone’s life. Do it over and over again. Choose joy. And give it to someone else. Imagine that world into being. And see what happens? With Love and Laughter, JJK Exactly two years ago today - on June 11, 2012 - I left my last full time job to become a freelance artist. The goal was to make as much of my art as possible and to make a living at it. I succeeded at both for a while. In those two years I have:
- Written 6 plays (all but one has been produced) - Written the first draft of my first novel - Written over 25 songs - Completed 20 paintings (not including shoes) and 36 custom flasks - Played music for 7 house parties on my Sing For Your Supper Tour - Helped create and perform in two full length collaboratively devised pieces - Designed two sets and about a dozen puppets - Earned my bartending license - Read a lot of books (stopped counting but it’s over 200) - Seen a lot of films and plays (again with the counting, but close to 350). - Worked with over 20 school aged kids in various theatrical and educational capacities - Worked on about two dozen other theatre productions in some form or fashion - Appeared onstage as a king, an old man, a bullfighter, Ursula Andress, and naked except for gold - Written an adaptation for an opera libretto (which opens in one week) This summer, the aforementioned Opera will play for two weekends, and an art installation I’m designing will appear on Martha’s Vineyard and then begin a world tour. These are two of the biggest challenges I’ve ever taken on. The act of leaping into this void of freelance was one of pure faith; not of fearlessness but of looking fear in the eye and going forward anyway. The first year became an experiment: “what scares me more than anything? Great – I’ll do that next.” This led to playing concerts, to being naked on stage, to writing a novel, to take on the opera adaptation (I have now written as many operas as I have seen). My own fear became the whip that charged me forward. And yet I have never been more afraid in my life than in the past six months. Because with all that I’ve done, I’m just not making it work. Never in the past two years has it been harder to keep going. Never have I felt more daily pressure and worry. As I write this on June 11th, I do not know how I’m going to pay rent in 19 days. I’ve tried to sell paintings; find new gigs. Some days I think about declaring bankruptcy so I don’t have to worry about debt. And some days I just want to sell out, churn out a few Hollywood rewrites, or be a rent boy, or find a sugar mama, or do something just so I won’t have to worry about the money anymore. And that’s what worries me most: Not that this isn’t working. It isn’t, but it was never supposed to be smooth or easy. What worries me is I can now feel fear chasing me. And yet… When I started on this project two years ago, I had not the meerest inkling of the ideas to come. That list above: I couldn’t have told you any of that was going to happen (except for one play, which I’d already started). The world has started new each of these 730 days and each has led to new surprises, new friends, new projects, new fears and challenges, new ideas. I still believe that anything is possible. That everything is possible. And so for my second birthday, I’m trying to dig back out of my mind. To believe again. To feel fear again and greet it as a friend. So this is a birthday note to myself, reminding me to leap empty-handed into the void. Reminding me that when you follow your bliss, doors will open where there were no doors before. Reminding me that the greatest joys come from chasing the greatest fears. Here’s to another five years. And to finding rent for July. |