{"id":274,"date":"2022-06-21T00:29:35","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T00:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/?p=274"},"modified":"2024-11-07T12:44:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-07T20:44:09","slug":"274","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/2022\/06\/21\/274\/","title":{"rendered":"West Fourth Avenue"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cBy three methods <\/em>we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\r\n

\u2014 Confucius<\/p>\r\nIn April of 2019 I left a sales position that I had held for close to ten years. I had become disillusioned with the position and recognized that it would be in the best interest, of both the company and myself, to make a clean break. Although I had been applying for positions on and off for about a year, I couldn\u2019t seem to land anything new. I blamed agisim as the primary reason but I knew, deep down, that I needed to find a new direction. I needed to get out of sales and customer service as I found myself becoming bitter and sardonically hilarious. I actually told a couple that they had an ugly baby during the course of price negotiations. Yeah, not my finest moment.  My only regret in leaving that job was that the CEO of the company took it personally and for that I am sorry. It wasn\u2019t about him. It was about me executing my exit strategy that he had inadvertently laid a foundation for. Three years later and I believe it to be one of the most defining moments in my life.\r\n\r\nI am grateful for the months of unemployment that followed that fateful day. In the solitude I was able to reflect on my life and the choices I\u2019ve made and where I wanted to go next. One of the  pivotal decisions I made during that time was to throw my hat in the ring of the Canadian Association of Fringe Festivals lottery. Which meant if I was chosen, I would  write and tour a one man show across Canada. Every year CAFF holds a lottery for artists to tour a minimum of five festivals across Canada. At the time I felt that this was something I needed to do and so I entered. Partly to give me something to work toward,  partly to substantiate my self-proclaimed identity as an actor and writer, and partly because it\u2019s been something that\u2019s been sitting in the back of my head since my first fringe festival in Toronto in the early 90\u2019s.\r\n\r\nAs I tried to begin writing my story I  became terrified. The writer\u2019s block in my head was black and impenetrable. The only thing I knew was that I wanted to write about my life. I also knew that I didn\u2019t want to write about my life in a way that was nothing more than a public therapy session. As I began to write, the only words I could write were dark, self-absorbed  journal entries. You know \u2026 therapy sessions.  I hated what I wrote and as the deadline that I placed on myself approached, I began to panic, to the point of being immobilized by it. The black block became a black pit that I felt I was soon to fall in. Then I had, what I believe to be,  a panic attack. It was a terrifying experience I wouldn\u2019t wish on anyone. I spent days swinging back and forth between terror and depresssion.  I truly felt that I was standing on the edge of a precipice, teetering toward my descent into madness. But slowly. By being still. Breathing. Meditating. I was able to step back from the edge of darkness. And at that moment a light shone within me  and I experienced  what absolute power I had over my life.\r\n\r\nI finally let go of writing my story and I started exploring the works of other people that wrote one-man plays. I spent about six weeks researching, reading and analyzing plays. It was exhausting and<\/i> depressing. I finally found a play I liked. Initially. It was about suicide. But after going through the script a few dozen times It stopped making sense to me and the more I read the more I was being drawn to write something.\r\n\r\nIn that moment of rest. The exact moment when an ebb becomes a flow,  I was once again moving. Pulled by a current. For me, these are life\u2019s exciting moments.  It didn\u2019t matter to me that I was no further ahead  because  if there\u2019s one thing that photography has taught me it\u2019s that it only takes one step to change perspective and it\u2019s the step sideways that offers the greatest change. I think exploring other writers was that side step for me. And so I began again, writing from a new perspective.\r\n\r\nBy the middle of February 2020 I had the first draft of a play that I was finally happy with and by mid March I felt like it was something I\u2019d enjoy bringing to the stage. But a global pandemic had something to say about that and the festivals were all cancelled. I was both disappointed and relieved.\r\n\r\nThe play was titled \u201cThe Hat Tree\u201d, an anagram for \u201cThe Theatre\u201d. It ended up being my swan song. That wasn\u2019t the intention but the writing of the play was continually changing me, changing my perspective, changing my direction. I wasn\u2019t going in circles, I was spiraling forward. The nature of the sun and the stars.  Time wore on and the pandemic took a toll on the 2021 Fringe Festival as well. Eventually the necessity to say goodbye to acting as a profession and see it more as an avocation. I guess it was a therapy piece after all. It\u2019s difficult to explain but  I feel like I\u2019m back in 1999 just after arriving in Vancouver. I\u2019m curious about my new perspective and I\u2019m a little excited about it. Giddy even.\r\n\r\nThanks for reading,\r\nAndy Rukes\r\n\r\n<\/strong>\r\n

<\/h6>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBy three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2014 Confucius Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=274"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26069,"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/274\/revisions\/26069"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/andyrukes.ca\/greenroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}