Pretends

Funny thing is, just this time yesterday, I received a congratulatory email that I have been casted in a pilot for a TV show based in Indianapolis.   Unlike the Irish lottery emails that congratulate me, I actually had heard of this project before, because I did actually audition for it last week.  This was my first audition for any acting gig since high school.   I had planned on not getting the part. In fact, I have set up several such auditions just simply to practice and meet people in the industry.  It is a funny and dangerous thing to expect things to not work out, I am learning.  How to gracefully decline?  I had to ask some friends for help on this one.  Meanwhile I seem to be burning bridges before I knew I'd built them.  Note to self; don't audition for stuff you can't/don't want to do.  
The crux of the problem is this; The gig was acting, which is something I at least would like to try.  But it was not the kind of project that I want to be involved in.  I could guess from the name that the series was going to deal with material that is beyond my moral boundaries.  Not wanting to jump to conclusions, or be judgemental, I decided to go through with the audition.  The audition script, in fact, was not objectionable.  The sight-reading script, however, was very objectionable and, though my character was not reading any of those lines, I still would not want to be part of the project.  No worries, I thought.  I'm an amateur and they won't want to cast me anyway.  WRONG.
I am content to live without success in acting, comedy, or any pursuit for that matter.  I am not content to live a life that is not sincere and true to myself.  I do not want to be someone else just for a gig.  I would rather be rejected because of who I am, than have success for being who I am not.  Sounds simple, but in this industry it is easy to sell out.  After all, acting is about pretending to be someone else.  Once again, I find myself asking questions I cannot answer and pondering the complexities of a world I do not understand.