Skip this one, if you want.
Posted January 31st, 2003 by Sean WilliamsTo say I suffer from bi-polar disorder is really missing the point. I suffer from it in the same way that drug addicts suffer from being high. It’s so tied to my personality that I embrace it like a gorgeous girl with the clap, relishing the infestation because it goes hand in hand with so much intimate release.
You’ve seen the movies and read the books, but for most of us, it isn’t Lord Byron or Mr. Jones or whatever. There are cycles of good and bad, and the good is quite nice (although it can be annoying) and the bad is pretty terrible (although it can help you work some shit out). The best part of the bad is what I am going through now, what Jordana calls ‘dysphoric mania’, when I have many of the outer signs of the manic phases but I am still fighting. This means I actually get a lot of work done, I don’t need very much sleep, and when I really set my mind to it, I can be pretty fun to be around. But there is also this nagging fatalistic feeling, a sort of desperate failing, like if I don’t continue pushing forward, if I stop for even a moment’s breath, I will spiral horribly.
I wrote yesterday about Iraq and several other things, but upon re-reading it, I just couldn’t post it. Self indulgence smells worse on me than on just about anyone else. Which is ironic to put in a blog, but I am really using this as a way to exorcise the crap I shouldn’t be working on and focus on my music.
I mean, seriously, level with me, did I really just say that I need to be focusing on my music? When people say that kind of stuff to me, I hope they get cancer, and quickly. I mean, do it, for fuck’s sake, don’t tell me you need to do it.
Several of my friends are writers, or attempted writers, and their work ethics are each beautiful in their own way. My dad and mom were both artists growing up, both of them had to spend long stretches, pencil in hand, glowering over scores, memorizing or creating them. And I know that, despite everything, when my dad said he needed to study, it wasn’t because he thought he should. I felt like whenever he wasn’t studying, he was wishing he could be. And my mom, I mean, Jesus, my mom would sometimes ask me to be quiet for a minute in the car when she was driving because music was coming to her. She would run upstairs and disappear in her studio. That is to say, her door was open, we were walking in and out, but she was buried in her music, entirely.
And I never feel like that unless I am memorizing a script. I feel like my dad and mom looked growing up. The problem, of course, is that my dad chose the symphonies his orchestra was playing, and my mom chose every note she was writing. As an actor, I walk around terrified that I will scramble, pray and prostrate myself to get a role that, ultimately, I hate. I did a film some time ago that I have no feeling for whatsoever, none of my identity was in it, I don’t have a clue what the script was about, and yet I worked like crazy to make it good. I failed.
So here I am, working with the two most talented people I have ever known, trying to create the roles that I would want, hoping that I can find someone else to do them. I am writing songs that I would want to sing, and crafting a story about people that I would want to watch. It’s the only thing I know to do. And, yeah, there is that horrible sensation that if I stop, I’ll fall right off the planet.