Sense of Victory: A call to action.

Anger has been a dynamic force in my life, but I'd like to discuss how I try to use it as a positive force.

Let's begin,
My thoughts jump to a concept I call Sense of Victory(SoV). This is the process of finding victorious moments in day to day life. I'd like to think it sounds self-explanatory, but to be safely redundant here are some examples: Did you get a chore done? That's a victory. Finish Your homework? Winning. Wrote that screenplay that will propel you to fame and fortune and stardom? No one's buying that, but congratulations, victory! Etc.
In essence SoV is a motivational tool, an adjustment to your thinking that works by choosing to wage battles against yourself. Part of its design is an aggressive mentality, you must willingly choose your battles. Just like you miss every shot you don't take, you lose every battle unfought. To that extent there is a degree of fueling anger required for SoV's effectiveness. You need to ask what do I not want to happen? What do I consider a personal loss? What set of circumstances that may come to pass, downright offends you by it's existence?

How I came to develop SoV,
I tend to be pretty open about my personal struggles with depression. SoV came about primarily as a tool to combat this. Often in depressive episodes, apathy becomes overpowering. The pleasures you may derive from various things wane. Motivation and desire to accomplish tasks goes zip, because there is no satisfaction to be found in their completion. This becomes the natural default state. Thus there comes a need to make an active and conscious choice to resist this new default.
The idea of giving in to it offends me. I do not want to feel defeated by a small part of myself. Thus I challenge myself not to. Win the war one battle at a time. Personify concepts you wish to distance yourself from as the enemy.

Do you want to accomplish more?
Make laziness your enemy.

Do you wish to become more outspoken?
Make silence your enemy.

Do you wish to be kinder?
Make apathy your enemy.

Anger can become a call to action.

Defiance,
I find defiance to be a core part of the human experience. When confronted by a choice, we possess the ability not to acquiesce to circumstance, but to decide upon and pursue an outcome. The fact that I can use the word "choice" to outline a situation is proof of this. We as human beings have the rare capacity to conceptualize outcomes. When given instruction, we do not obey automatically. To this extent I believe it to be a human responsibility to excercize this ability. Society presents numerous situations in which we are motivated fiscally or by civility to not challenge the flow.

"Don't let school get interfere with your education" - Mark Twain,
One of my favorite quotes.
Here at LSU there is a clearly defined audit on what we as students must complete to receive a degree. As we've discussed, the composition of this audit is not a certain recipe for an individual student's success, nor do I believe it at any point should be considered as such. As I have mentioned before; the liberty in choosing my own educational path, to whatever small extent, is my reasoning for concentrating in Theatre studies. Again, this is opposed to a Performance concentration despite my every intention of continuing as a performer. I encourage awareness of this dichotomy. There are also a great many factors encouraging individuals to follow certain paths. For example, studying Mass Comm over Theatre as it may be a more lucrative post-graduation life.

Oil Prices,
I was at a party recently, where several new best friends/ complete and utter strangers were discussing the recent drop in oil prices. From what I gather, a great number of engineering students are "shitting their pants" and switching majors like flies. Big fuzzy flies, who switch majors frequently, as we all know flies are wont to do.
Part of me can't help but laugh. The image of rats jumping ship jumps to me. Which I realize now is a far better metaphor than yadda yadda like flies. But that's neither here, nor two sentences ago. Many of us in this field have no expectations of wealth. But when the promise of wealth vanishes, how quickly other students find their paths changing. Maybe it's karmic irony. Seekers of wealth at the cost of passion find none, and are left wandering. Whatever. Cheap gas, man. 1.75 a gal? Holy nutballs man.


I encourage individuals to ask what path is best for them.
I encourage people to fight for what is best for them.
I encourage questions and skepticism.
In the face of Iron Wills, I encourage defiance.

Punk rock.
-SpaBelle.