jeff obafemi carr: the media scientist

i’ve got almost 18 years clean from punching a clock to survive. working as an artist is still a matter of getting up every morning and deciding what parts of you you’re willing to share with the world to express your gift and feed your family. it’s a matter of facing the fearfulness the world teaches us, grabbing it around the throat, choking the power out of it, tossing it aside, and moving forward boldly. if it was only that simple, eh?

well, it is.

i had a great conversation with my wife this morning. she’s an artist, too. gifted songstress, talented director, solid actress. heck, she even writes plays. we were talking about how grateful we were to have been a part of founding a professional theater company, and all of the ups and downs we faced. we’re getting ready for a huge “Alumni” event and we were talking about all of the people who have come through the halls of the theater we call ART. many have gone on to higher levels of success; some have retired from theatre; others do sporadic work here and there as a part-time hobby; and then there are the others: those who were so gifted, but found themselves gripped by fear, as opposed to the other way around.

it’s tough to live in this world sometimes; i acknowledge that. as an artist, an entrepreneur, a mother, a father, heck just an average citizen. it’s tough at times for one reason: many people live in fearfulness. fear that they won’t have enough money; fear that people won’t approve of their decisions; fear that people won’t like them; fear that they have on the wrong clothes; fear that they haven’t saved enough for retirement; fear that that won’t ever find a mate; fear that their mate will leave them; fear that they are raising their kids wrong; fear that they might make a mistake and offend someone; fear that they might lose their job; fear that they may never get a job; fear that they won’t get the job they truly desire.

ugh. do you feel how heavy that is?

that’s the power of fear, and it is infectious. people who live in fear reinforce that fear in other people. i’ve known actors over the course of my 20 years in the business who were gifted and powerful, who i thought were destined to grace stages world-wide, but fear relegated them to bagging groceries. bagging groceries is an honorable profession mind you, and honest work, but only if you choose to do it because of desire, and not because the thought of being successful in what you love scares you so much you bury it deep within you. once you bury a dream out of fearfulness, something else happens: it consumes you to the point you become a fear monger. so when you’re bagging the groceries of a young aspiring actor, you find yourself telling them, “yeah, i used to want to act myself, but that shit is hard. the best thing you can do is find something solid to fall back on.”

Dream-Killer. you look up and you’ve become a dad-gum Dream-Killer. that’s what fearfulness will do to you. it will make you inspire fear in others.

i have a friend who is in the beauty industry, has been for years. she’s always wanted her own salon and talked about it for years. she was recently downsized at one spot and looked in the mirror and told herself it was now or never. she called me and told me about her idea to open her own place. she listed her concerns (the economic environment, competition, etc.) and listed intently for my response, which was: “What the hell, go for it. it’s your dream, baby!” now i’m not claiming any credit whatsoever for her starting up her dream; i’m just bearing witness that i’ve committed myself to not be a Dream-Killer. i didn’t hear from her for several weeks, but then the other day i got a picture text message of the sign hanging over the door of her new salon. that’s grabbing fear around the neck right there.

so whatever industry you find yourself in, keep in mind that you’re going to have to work a little bit everyday to shake off the concept of fear, only because it’s what has been taught to us. there is an unstated agreement that fearfulness is a part of life. but i’m here to say that it doesn’t have to be like that. fearfulness is an addiction, like a drug. and like with drugs, you can decide that you’ve hit rock bottom and had enough; that you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired; you can put yourself into re-hab right now by pushing through that fear one moment at a time.

pick something inside you you’ve always loved and dare to bring it back into the light of your daily existence. let it live and breathe again. enjoy it. let it make you smile. work on it a little bit every day with some significant action to give it more life. and when you feel that tinge of fear creeping up behind or beside you, whirl around, grab it by the throat, squeeze, and tell fear:

“You can’t have this, because this belongs to me. Now, get to stepping!”

and watch what happens next…