purpose

The Determined Way Of The Sea Turtle

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

If you ever get the chance to watch a nest of sea turtles hatch, I recommend dropping what you’re doing and running to the beach. 

It’s a rare sight and I was lucky enough to witness it with my family on vacation at Fernandina Beach last week.

I’m not a biologist or ecologist or whatever type of “ogist” that would be an expert in sea turtles. That being said, here is my unscientific report on the brief and magical migration I saw firsthand:

The sand above the nest, taped off to protect it by a local preservation society, began to rumble earlier that night. A neighbor came up the beach telling everyone the hatch was imminent. When we arrived the sand was bubbling like boiling water getting ready to explode. Continue reading →

What’s The Meaning Of Mad Men?

/ Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

mad-men-season-7-posterA lot of critics have been questioning this final season of Mad Men, as is their job. Seems like there’s been a rising tide of criticism that these last 6 episodes have not been up to the quality of the rest of the series.

One common complaint is that it seems like there’s no urgency to the story. Most people are wondering just what it is this final season and this show in general is all about.

For me this season it’s become fairly clear what Mad Men has been all about this whole time:

Mad Men is about the way Don Draper, and our culture as a whole, seeks meaning in meaningless things. Continue reading →

Tips For The Beginning Time Traveler Part Three

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

I downloaded a new app for my iPhone a few weeks ago called Timehop. Timehop presents your day in Social Media History, allowing you to travel back to your posts across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and just about every other outlet (except for Myspace).

photo-3It also has an adorable dinosaur named Abe for a mascot. He’s at least 10% of why I downloaded the app.

Timehop is pretty neat. Looking back at all your old status updates and tweets is more fun than you might think. Our old social media posts exist in a weird realm of the internet. They seem so important at first – important enough for us to stop what we’re doing and let the world know exactly what we are doing.

Then, moments later, they disappear, slowly scrolling down our news feeds until they’re simply yesterday’s news.

As fun as it is to look back in history, it’s also a little depressing.  Continue reading →

What Were You Created To Create?

/ Alex Doriot / 4 Comments

I1620527_10152048961043778_884335416_nt’s almost here.

Hearts are racing. Nerves are jangled. The hours spent rehearsing are finally paying off.

The days spent acting for an empty rehearsal space are about to turn into days engaging with hundreds of children in the seats of the Imperial Theatre.

It’s almost show week.

The curtain will rise next week for 13 performances of Storyland Theatre’s Hansel and Gretel. For a couple of months now we’ve been rehearsing three days a week, memorizing lines, finding our characters, and learning how to sing (well, me at least).

There’s nothing quite like show week. A few days before the week begins you start getting antsy.

You know your lines. You know the blocking. Your costume fits.

You’re ready to stop rehearsing and unleash the show into the world.

I think I get so anxious to perform because it is what God made me to do. Continue reading →

Live Like It’s Live

/ Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

SNL-imageLive From New York, It’s Saturday Night!

For 40 years, those 7 words have been uttered from studio 8H in Rockefeller Center announcing the most exciting 90 minutes of television comedy every week.

The most important of those 7 words is the first one – Live.

“Saturday Night Live”, despite what you may think, airs LIVE. It does not air on tape delay. It does not air 3 months after it was recorded. New episodes air live at 11:30 pm Eastern Standard Time Saturday nights.

There’s no getting around this. If the sketches aren’t ready or the actors aren’t prepared the show cannot be postponed. There’s a contract with the network and with the viewers. The show must go on no matter what. Continue reading →

Why I Don’t Like The Taste Of Communion

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment
Wikipedia

Wikipedia

I was always nervous about Communion Sunday growing up. 

When I was young I wasn’t sure if I should take a cracker from the plate or keep passing it down the aisle. Sure, I was hungry, but was I really allowed to “come to the table” as the pastor would say?

Then, once I did feel comfortable participating, I became nervous about spilling the juice. What if I soiled the carpet in God’s living room with Jesus’s blood?

Communion never meant much more than anxiety to me growing up. I never really got the relationship between a flavorless cracker, a baby shot glass of grape juice, and the immense sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

I thought to myself, “If the life Jesus offers is so full and abundant, why is this remembrance and celebration so stale and bland?” Continue reading →

Why God Wants To Burst Your Bubble

/ Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

IMG_1488“They probably don’t even know they’re in captivity.”

My girlfriend and I were visiting the Georgia Aquarium a few weekends ago when we heard these words. We were standing in awe of the magnitude of the attraction, blown away by the wonders inside one of the largest aquariums in the world.

One guide was telling us about fish who have been born inside the aquarium. He said those words to us, and that the water is so big these fish don’t even realize they’re not in the ocean.

Of course they don’t. How could they? They’ve never experienced anything other than the aquarium. They don’t realize there’s a whole other world out there beyond the bubble they are in.

Do we? Do we realize there’s more to our life than the bubble we were born into? Continue reading →

Wake Up With Purpose

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What does your morning look like? Do you typically sleepwalk through the same routine seven days a week? Does the alarm on your iPhone go off for over an hour before you finally throw off the covers? Are you up every morning at 7:30 but not really awake until 11:30?

Maybe you should try waking up to something different. Maybe you should try waking up like Rick from “The Walking Dead”. Rick-Grimes

In the first episode of “The Walking Dead”, a routine traffic check goes awry and Officer Rick Grimes is shot. The next time we see Rick, he’s waking up from a coma in an Atlanta hospital.

The problem is he’s the only person left in the hospital. In the indeterminate time since Rick has been shot, the world has become overrun with zombies. The walking dead have taken over the hospital and the world around him.

There is no time to waste when Rick wakes up. His life is in danger. His family is missing. There is no time to fool around with the snooze button. There is no time to procrastinate. Continue reading →

We Hate To Wait

/ Alex Doriot / 3 Comments

It’s hard to live life from the couch. But I feel like that’s where The Roc and I have been stuck the past month.

That’s my dog The Roc on the left. He’s an old miniature pinscher I adopted a couple years ago. Last month he had surgery to remove an infected toe, a cyst above his eye, and a growth inside his mouth.

He’s had a rough time of recovering from surgery. We’ve been back to the vet nearly a dozen times since then.  Just when one area seems to heal up a new problem arises.

My heart breaks for him. He’s not meant to be stuck on the couch with a cone on his head. He’s meant to explore and go on adventures. It’s hard to thrive when you can’t get away from the doctor’s office. Continue reading →

How To Be The Most Interesting Man In The World

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Who do you think is the most interesting man in the world? You may be surprised, but my answer is not going to be the familiar spokesman in the Dos Equis commercials.

No, the man I think is the most interesting in the world has held a variety of jobs. He’s been a movie star, fisherman, toy inspector, musician and published author. He hobnobs with celebrities and has played a vital role in many historical encounters. And occasionally he gets into fights with a giant chicken.

That’s right, the most interesting man in the world is Peter Griffin, the main character of “Family Guy.” Continue reading →