Based on your reply to my comment you got it. I’m only telling you this because I know it will piss you off.

thanks for not posting your rant in all-caps.

second, i hope you seriously don’t expect me to admit any kind of mistake — this is the INTERNET, after all.

maybe, though, we actually agree. maybe we can both be right? if it is only the most well-paid 2% of actors that make a living . . . that proves my point about competition. i’m not saying the other 98% are untalented. and i’m not saying that it isn’t hard work. i just said that a lot of what passes for ‘training’ is useless hoops set up by middlemen. but i guess it’s also true that like you said, some training is vital to the skill.

what i am saying, is that the successful people are great schmoozers. which takes practice. and for every minute one spends working on one’s shmoozing technique, that’s a minute NOT spent improving one’s dramatic technique. if you’ve ever watched some starlet who can’t act well, give a dumb interview and been pissed off that she is a millionaire, then you are basically on my side. welcome!

I spent 8 years studying acting and another 12 pursuing it in a very small regional market Did a few TV shows, one movie, a couple of commercials and fought the rest of the time to pay the fucking rent.. It ain’t easy and I am always first in line to correct people when they think it is. It is an art, and requires studied skill and years of training and a tunnel vision the likes of which you will never know (and neither will I). And in the end most of us choose to take a fucking shit job that affords us insurance and a paycheck we can rely on rather than pursue that which is in our heart and blood.

So fuck off on this one Schultz. You are way off base. Models maybe. And the wanna be actors for sure. But the actors who have trained and studied and suffered and sacrificed - jusyt lay off. You need to post a retraction here my friend. You are only playing into an ancient -ism against actors.

But anyway, your rant reminded me of how in Buddhist cosmology there’s supposed to be six realms of existence that you can be reincarnated into. The human realm is one, but the one immediately above the human realm is the realm of the asuras (also called the jealous gods). The asuras are ferocious multi-armed godlings who are smarter, stronger and more able to experience pleasure than humans. They’re often painted as being bright red with all these old-school type weapons, wearing golden armor and looking pretty bad-assed. The problem with asuras, though, is that they spend all their time scheming, fighting, and jockeying for power. So instead of enjoying their lives as bad-assed bright red super beings, they spend all their karmic goodies on finding ways to get one up on each other. And what REALLY pisses them off, is that just as we can see animals (supposedly another realm), they can see the devas or the God realm. The God realm is even better and happier than the asuras, so the asuras are pissed off and jealous their whole lives, even though really they’re way better off than us ridiculous humans (and let’s not even get into the hell realms…) Anyway, it seems like maybe this was a way they were trying to explain the detriment of competition-skills on life, except in the context of 5th century BC India.

Speaking of which, since you just had a religious revelation, maybe you can work this into your own personal Schultzian cosmology.