I've been having one of my periodic "What, again, was the point of doing this theater stuff?" moods, combined with an (un)healthy dose of "people the same age as me are much more successful than I am". And if I don't know what my goals are, then how can I compare myself to anyone, even in an unhealthy fashion?

Of course, I have a lot of fun being on stage. And that's likely reason enough. But then I feel like if I planned out some of the ways and times I get on stage, I could increase that fun, but I'm a little bit of a loss about how exactly that will out pan out.

And then I have to wade through conversations like I had with one of my New York-based coworkers at lunch who can't seem to grasp that just doing it for fun might be enough and keeps giving me off-the-wall suggestions of the ways I could be making money with this comedy stuff. "There's a market for cheap sitcoms!" "Ummm... OK. I'll keep that in mind."

So let's just throw here some links to some stuff I've been thinking about in association with this stuff:

Danny O'Brien asks the musical question, How many people do you need to be famous for? looking at the notion of thinly distributed fame.

Ani DiFranco on success

Hugh MacLeod's How to Be creative

Dave Eggers on "Keeping it Real" (or here)

Jesus Jones' Mike Edwards on cashing in vs. selling out