I was twenty years old in the spring of 1986 when my father handed me a failing record store and said,
“Run it.”
Not advice.
Not encouragement.
Responsibility.
Customers.
Money.
Consequences.
No applause.
No safety net.
I was a musician.
I loved music.
I didn’t think anything of it.
But that store taught me how to talk to people.
How to stand my ground.
How to read a room
without anyone explaining it to me.
That’s where confidence really comes from,
not affirmation,
consequence.
Then I took an acting class.
And something opened.
A door that had been banged on for decades but stayed closed.
Acting didn’t make me fake.
It made me exact.
My words.
My eyes.
My breath.
It didn’t give me an escape,
it gave me access.
But acting…
acting done right…
that’s a grind people watching don’t see.
They see the three hours on stage.
They don’t see the rehearsals.
The notes.
The coffee breaks
where you’re holding other people’s lives together while yours is barely stable.
Early on, you don’t get paid.
So you work another job.
And audition.
And stay available.
Always available.
Nothing comes easy
unless you sell your soul.
Unless you become one of their clowns.
One of their monkeys.
Smile.
Perform.
Repeat.
Next.
I didn’t do that.
And that’s why it hurt.
That’s why people crack.
That’s why they numb themselves.
Not weakness.
Extraction.
Now I run a cigar lounge.
People come to relax.
To unwind.
To be entertained.
And somehow…
you become part of the furniture.
Part of the atmosphere.
You hold space.
You listen.
You’re “on.”
Every day.
There’s no curtain call.
No exit music.
No moment where the role ends.
So you give.
And you give.
And you give.
And then one day you get home
and there’s nothing left.
Not tired.
Empty.
This isn’t burnout.
This is the body telling the truth.
From the record store
to the stage
to the lounge,
The rooms changed.
The demand didn’t.
I learned how to give
before I learned how to stop.
And at some point,
a man has to decide:
Am I living…
or am I just supplying energy
to rooms that never give it back?
This isn’t quitting.
This is noticing that presence is not an infinite resource.
And neither am I.
c 2026 Chu The Cud
All Rights Reserved
Chu The Cud 