I have slowly killed myself. Very slowly. I've decided early on in my life that I will be an actor at any cost. But as I get older, I realize that my stamina for the business is diminishing. I grow weak each day. Each night I find no purpose for sleep for the next day offers no hope. I wake up to more bills, more hunger pangs, more afraid of losing the roof over my head. I used to think I can always live in my car if I have to, but now I'm even afraid if my car will be even around much longer.

I'm an actor, damn you. I am a teller of stories. I breathe life into the words, I bring the person off the page, I add my own joys and pains into that person, and bring fire into your cold shivering heart. I am good. I am very good. I make my living by shredding my humanity in front of you and I have the power to bring it back together for another night, for another take. Do you have any notion what kind of strength it takes to do that, night after night? Is it any mystery that many of my fellow fools take to drink and consume the drugs? Because like a vase that's broken in many pieces, you can glue it back together, but each time it is broken, a piece disappears.

I have lost so many pieces. Tiny particles of precious porcelain have been blown away by the uncaring wind. I have lost my belief in continuing on. By the time you read this, I am long gone. Why? I don't know. Out of spite perhaps. I have provided for my love ones. Suicide will always be a selfish act, and no matter how much I may leave, it can never equal the height of grief I leave behind.

I am an actor. I am an actor of color. I am an Asian actor. How I hated those combined words. I have watched my colleagues, fellow students, white friends move on and advance in their careers, into films and into television. Actors who have confided in me that I was the best in the class, the man they have always admired, the actor they wanted to become. They have confessed to me how they can never be the artist that I am because 'I give selflessly.' The actor they have always warned that 'you will never make it in Hollywood, because there is no room for you. They will eat you because you have so much heart.' But then again, they were my friends and maybe they were just being nice, that maybe I wasn't really that good. I give them a final smile, all the luck in the world, and the deepest of my gratitude. I have performed great roles, but they have withered away in the wind. I only hope that I will forever live somewhere in someone's imagination, in someone's faith that finite moments in the theatre will always be infinite.

I ponder everyday why I always had to break down walls created by the color of my skin. I cursed God for giving me this desire to act, the sincerest talents, but not the strength to continue fighting. There is this myth that's been stuffed down our throats, at least in mine, that if I believed in the dream and pursued on, I will succeed. In my mind, in my heart, maybe I did succeed, but it is hard to swallow all this success, when debtors are at the door, when you are indeed "a starving actor." I tried to make do with the odd jobs, the office jobs, the schemes, but when that is all you do and your agent doesn't call you during pilot season, it robs you of your self-esteem. How funny this all sounds now. It seems petty. All I want is to be paid for the craft I studied, to be validated as an artist. Those who say they are artists but crave no validation are selling something. I suggest you avoid them like non-franchised agencies. What's the point of being an artist when you don't get recognition, that you too can contribute with your talents along side your fellow artists?

And so, I go. With or without the grace of God, I go. I do this out of spite to those who pretended they were my friends, out of hate of those who measured my humanity by how much I earned, and out of love of the craft and this whole god-forsaken business.