This I Believe

This I believe was a homework assignment very much along the lines of what I normally post on here, so I figured I would just put it up, so that you can learn more about me on my adventure. :)

“This I Believe is an international organization engaging people in writing and sharing essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives.”

“We invite you to contribute to this project by writing and submitting your own statement of personal belief. We understand how challenging this is—it requires such intimacy that no one else can do it for you. To guide you through this process, we offer these suggestions. thisibelieve.org

Actors are the students of humanity, the embodiment of empathy, and the vehicle of catharsis. As an actor I must learn to be everyone. I must learn to understand who they are, who they’ve been, and who they want to be; and in coming to fully understand someone it is impossible to feel anything but love. In short, as an actor, I must learn to love. In learning to love, I have come to believe that there is nothing but love.

I believe the power of love, the beauty of love, the passion of love, the hope of love. Love is what gives us the inspiration to achieve.\There is a defining love that drives me forward and it is only my fears that hold me back. These two sides of a coin, this yin and yang, that have left me balancing on the precipice between hope and despair.

For myself it is the love of admiration that drives me. Quite simply, I love to be adored and with that love I have an equally unique fear the shames me. A fear that can drive me to a standstill, that halts any possible remembrance of love.In my fear, my anxiety which in truth is nothing but fear, I run, I hide, I despair in all that might ever be because there is nothing but fear here inside. The only possible solution and answer for this fear is love.

It can be any kind of love from any source. The love of a father, a friend, brother, mother, sister, wife, or even myself. Yes, the most powerful and meaningful love I have found in my life is that of the power of accepting and understanding myself, and therefore loving myself. However, I have no greater fear than myself. The fear of my potential, my success, and the maddening fear that I am not good enough to stand on this earth - and so, facing that fear, I choose love. A love that springs hope eternal, a love that allows success in my life, a love that allows me to be free. A love that disperses fear like the lantern dispels darkness. A love that abides. I believe there is nothing but love.

Showing off

Sometimes I talk about the fact that I do theater and such. It's an important thing on my journey, so I thought I share some videos I'd made of me singing. (It's a play list of 3 songs, lasting about 7 minutes)

I went to see the Vagina Monologues.

I went to see the Vagina Monologues. I went with a lot of trepidation. My friend had described it to me as stories about women's *surprise!* vagina. From sex, to rape, to masturbation. Being a nice Mormon kid from Orem,.Utah. The idea freaked me out, but I said I would go and it was a famous piece of theater that I wanted to see for the sake of seeing once.


It was beautiful. It was exactly what I was told it was going to be and it was SO MUCH MORE. I went in with my brain saying, "Oh, the sex organs are vulgar. Penises are vulgar, but since I have one it doesn't seem so vulgar, but the vagina? EWWW GROOOOSSS." I'm a really mature person, I know.Yes, they use the f word and even the c word and I was like... I'm supposed to be feeling uncomfortable... but I was enraptured. Women were talking about their vagina, yes - but they were speaking about themselves and who they were and that their vagina was, in fact, a part of them and THAT'S HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!

They spoke of their "down there" as imagined as an entirely different part of them, something foreign. A disease, or parasite. People treat sex and their sexual organs with so much disdain and horror. There is no shame.It's a part of you, an essential part of you. I'm a Mormon, I believe in intelligent design. That GOD created us, and guess what? He made those a part of us for a specific reason. It is us as humans and society that have shunned them, created sex into a terrible monster. Yes, there is a beautiful reason to wait till marriage for this, but that reason isn't because it's disgusting, or harmful. It's because it's beautiful and powerful. It's a power that I believe is best found with someone you've committed to for an eternity, something that can unite two people into one.

My entire life I've have been taught that women are queens and princesses and deserve to be treated so. Which is true, I just never knew why. I thought I did, but I didn't. There was a story of a girl that hated her vagina. She felt only scorn and disgust and wondered why anyone would go near it, but she started speaking of this one man who was nothing special. He was plain and boring, until they touched and yada yada yada, they were in her bedroom and he just says, "I wanna see you." I'm right here, duh. "No, I really wanna see you." She describes him as a vagina connoisseur. A true lover of the vagina. Including hers, this woman who feels disgust at the thought of a part of her OWN body, and he's just sitting there. Admiring her, not "it," not a separate entity, designed for pleasure, or child bearing, he was staring at her. Telling her she's beautiful, not that she has a pretty vagina(is that a thing?) Telling HER she's beautiful. She began become aroused, by his attraction to her. Recognizing that this is part of her and she's beautiful. You might think that this is a weird story to prove the divinity of women, but it's not. The divinity of women comes from within. There is NO outward force that qualifies or disqualifies a woman of her divinity. Not rape, not a man, it's her and only her. Sometimes external forces can help one appreciate that divinity, but it comes from within. The abolition of fear and shame will help women find themselves and divinity.

Three quarters of the way through the piece. A little 6 year old girl came out and was asked some questions about her vagina. My brain immediately screamed,"HOLY CRAP THIS IS SO INAPPROPRIATE FOR A LITTLE GIRL!" Then they asked her what her vagina would say, what it would wear, and some other questions that were a part of the interviews that all sorts of women had given. I realized that, yes, some grown up words have been used(Like the "C" word and "F" word) but if my daughter grew up knowing that her vagina is a part of her and that it's a good part of her. It's nothing to be ashamed of, and that it's HER's and her's alone. That yes, there will be pain, pleasure, and spirituality associated with it her entire life and that it's her's to control. She is not her vagina, but her vagina is still her.

I went into the show, and my immediate reaction as these women came out, was a judgement on their looks. That disgusts me now. I thought it was normal 6 hours ago. I thought it was OKAY. I made judgments on how attracted I was to them. Do you realize how wrong that is? To assume that I have any power, any place or right to make that judgment? It's okay to not be attracted to a person, but I made judgments on their character, I literally had the thought of, "Oh, that girls not very attractive why is she talking about her vagina," and, "Oh, that girl is really attractive. Crap, now all I'll be able to think about is her vagina." I disgust myself sometimes, and that's not cool. I should know better, but I let myself slip. My higher standard became one of physical attributes, I have let physical attractiveness dictate my life before. I watched those women walk off stage at the end of the show and I was in awe of all of their beauties. Their strength and courage.

One woman told a story of watching her daughter give birth to her granddaughter. Once again, my initial reaction was, "EWWW GROSS!" She goes on to describe looking into her daughter, at the power and majesty that comes within her. The magic and beauty that is child birth. She described the birth vividly, so vividly that my immature self that says the vagina is vulgar was immensely uncomfortable, at first; but as she described it..it became beautiful. I was amazed.

The most amazing thing to me was after the show. I recognized that the girl sitting next to me had a vagina. It wasn't weird. It wasn't vulgar, it wasn't wrong or shameful. It wasn't anything about sex, it wasn't anything about impure or non-chaste thoughts. It was, hey, you have a vagina. I have a penis. That's all folks. This shouldn't be news or anything, but even though I knew what a vagina was...it was almost shameful. Neither a man nor a woman should be ashamed of any parts of their body or the other's body. It's just amazing to me that an hour of vagina monologues can make women less "sexy" and far more attractive. It amazes me that despite everything I've been taught I failed to see where their beauty comes from. In short, the Vagina Monologues were beautiful, amazing ,wonderful, charming, heartbreaking, and moving.