Follow your enthusiasm

A cure for burnout and a compass to passion

In an earlier part of my palimpsest path where I did theater years ago, one of my favorite parts of every performance was the audience talkback: an exciting time just after the show ended, when the house lights turned on and we got to have an actual conversation with everyone who came to see us and decided to stay.

I’d get so into it that I was often nominated by my castmates to facilitate, which in hindsight should have been an indication that I had a calling beyond performing eight shows a week (along with other signs, like the fact that I was secretly writing about algebra at 3 a.m.; keep reading).

It’s no secret that I live for a good conversation, and that one of the ways I define voice is the unique and dynamic conversation that’s yours to lead. So I thought: Why not try out the talkback at The Ecstatic Review, like a more interactive FAQ? This newsletter is one big conversation with you, after all—so let’s flip this thing around, turn on those house lights, and open up the floor!

In this trial run, I’m going to share questions inspired by ones I hear a lot in my work at Ecstatic Voice, asked by a cast of characters I’ve totally made up, that all connect to March’s theme of enthusiasm. If this format sticks around, I invite you to submit your own.

For those of you who prefer to take in longer pieces while you’re on a walk or cooking dinner, I’ve also voiced this talkback. Beginning next month, voiceovers will be a feature of paid subscriptions to support production costs. Our sound department of one (me) thanks you in advance.

Alright, let me find the light switch while our house band Scary Pockets leads us in:

Thanks, Scary Pockets! Great song choice.

OK, who’d like to ask a question first? How about you, in the—wow, that is a fantastic hat. Very Wes Anderson meets Jane Austen.

Oh, thanks. Mr. Darcy summering at The Grand Budapest Hotel would be my dream.

Oh my god: a genius mashup.

Well, I appreciate you saying that because I’m feeling pretty non-genius these days. I used to love creating things until my job completely beat me up and burned me out. My question is: How do I find my passion again?

I hear you, and in my own way, I really relate. I’m certainly no stranger to burnout; in fact, it was on a stage like this one that I once got so beat up and burned out that for a while I thought I’d developed stage fright two decades into my performance career.

When that happened it was deeply devastating, not to mention super strange. Life felt like that Dolly Parton song “The Grass is Blue”: nothing made sense. I felt like I didn’t know who I was, and I had no idea what I was going to do. I had bills to pay, so I got a job to keep the lights on—and when I wasn’t doing that I took long walks and cried a lot, wondering if my own light would ever turn on again.

Somewhere in there, I found myself returning to a thing that I’d been oddly enthusiastic about before the burnout. The thing was math, and specifically a website called 11 Betties: where, for reasons I didn’t yet understand, I couldn't stop writing about math in the context of pop culture, heartbreak, a hexagonal garage I stumbled upon while driving downtown, everything.