In one exercise, we drink an imaginary cup of coffee for months.

I feel the shape of the mug in my hands, the weight of it.

I grasp the handle and ah, there's the heat.

I can feel the heat.

I smell the rich, smoky aroma of the coffee.

Tasted on my lips.

I spend hours doing this.

My Latin is pretty good, but this is all Greek to me.

Acting forces me to use all of myself, not just my mind.

My body, my heart.

And I love it like I love basketball and baseball.

It's not curing cancer, but it feels important. It feels good to me.

I start to realize how much energy I spent keeping busy,

trying to move faster than my feelings,

but here they want me to slow down,

to feel everything.

They demand it.

And I can see now how my previous academic success was also somehow performative, posturing.

But now I'm inhabiting a different, more primal, maybe even more authentic part of myself.

And so I make the call, kind of. I subtly abandoned my doctoral thesis without telling anyone, and I decide to become an actor without telling anyone. I grew up watching David Ducholveny on TV.

As a teenager in the 90s, his depiction of Fox Milder in the X-Files had a big impact on me,

and made me realise that it was actually okay to think differently.

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