The Tribute

When this week started, I was at the bottom of a deep valley, weighed down under a number of concerns. The ones about my economy had already bothered me for months, as frequent readers would already know, but now my worries included another area of much bigger importance.

I sat under the moon watching the eclipse, with silent tears running down my face, because of this emotional crisis involving someone I care deeply about. Our beautiful nature has always fascinated me to an endless degree, and phenomena’s like this make it so clear to me what really means something in life. We are all so small, and none of us have any idea what we are part of in this universe. The only thing we know is what we feel, and what we have between each other. That’s why love and kindness is the best and most important we have.

I made a decision that night. And it seems to be one of the best and most important in my life so far, as it started a domino effect of good things coming my way. The next day, I finally visited a gymnastics gym, which I’ve been longing to do ever since I got here. I always wanted to be a circus acrobat as a kid, and every time in the gym that kid goes crazy.

I exploded with joy and energy on the high bar, the trampoline, tumble track and so on for some hours, dreaming about Cirque de Soleil, as always. Then, what do you know; some former Cirque performers walk in, we start talking and it turns out these guys are best friends with the casting directors, and now they wanted to help me make a video to send in so I could audition for Cirque. Since I can’t scream on paper, I’ll just say a dream was reborn that day (!).

Filled with more energy and happiness than in a long time (but still with the usual worries about rent etc. in the back of my head) I stumbled upon a certain forlorn magician who I’m sure most of the readers of this blog already know about. He had let his ridiculous amount of weird stuff out on the street, and I noticed that nobody stopped to help this desperate man to pick it up. The rest of that tale has now been aired all over America, and apparently also my home country Norway.

I had a great time at Ellen’s. The staff was incredibly nice and I had my own room filled with free snacks, drinks and a big flat screen showing the rest of the show. But truth is I couldn’t enjoy any of it, I was fully occupied with pulling myself back together after my little crying session backstage. I had prayed for an economical miracle for weeks, and now this happened – it was too magic to be true. Out on the streets about an hour later, I screamed a loud «YEEEES!», followed by a «thank you!» to the one upstairs. Little did I know, that it was only the beginning.

Next morning, I woke up to discover a million messages and all kinds of social media notifications on my phone. My dad suggested that I should check out some Norwegian newspapers online – they all had my freaked out face and my stupid sweatpants all over them.

Nobody asked me (!) – but as an aspiring actor I couldn’t really ask for anything better, so I’ll go with it. Ever since, my phone has gone totally insane and has not stopped buzzing for a second. My Facebook account is blown up, my all-new Instagram account went from 0 to almost 500 followers in a day, and the number of readers of a certain blog has gone straight in the air.

As a kid, I always dreamed of becoming a celebrity and getting this kind of attention. Probably it was the main reason I wanted to be a circus artist or the new Brad Pitt – until I got older and learned a couple of life lessons. Strangely, it almost seems like the philosophizing under the moon a couple of days earlier must have been some kind of unconscious foreseeing; never have such a reminder of my values been more perfectly timed.

It’s undoubtedly been a lot of fun with all the journalists and the publicity. I deeply appreciate the miracle that just happened to me, and any help it might give me to achieve my dream here. But more than anything, it has taken me to a state of deep reevaluation of what it is I’m doing and what really means something to me. This all happened on the same day that my biggest role model, coach, best friend, mentor and second father died of cancer two years earlier.

He would have been 76 years old now. At the same time, neither my family nor old friends were here to share this great adventure I got into – then what is money, what is «fame»? This emptiness, combined with the enormous gratefulness I felt, made it clearer than ever what is important in my life.

The money I was randomly granted was sorely needed, and I am left in awe of what a blessing I’ve been granted. But what really surprises me, and reinforces every single core belief and value I have, is the incredible warmth and kindness I have received from people in the wake of it all. So many nice words – pure kindness – from so many friends, and people I don’t even know.

I want to thank not only Ellen DeGeneres, but every single one who has given me feedback – it has given me joy, inspiration and motivation. I have felt deeply, to the bottom of my heart, how important my loved ones are to me, how lucky I am to have them and that nothing matters without them.

It has been strikingly clear how right I was in making my decision that day under the moon, and it motivates me to keep believing in the same; never stop trying to make the right choices and to do good – not only for yourself, but for others. You never know what it can lead to.

Life 2.0 is one of Khrono’s blogs, and will be presented with new blogposts every week. Petter Egge is a former student from HiOA and journalist at Khrono.no. He has decided to do something quite different. This is his stories.

April 16th 2014:
Chronicle #12: When words do not suffice

There are times, even for a writer
when written words become empty signs
Times when a writer don’t want to write
cause there’s too much between the lines

The whole poem-blog here.

April 9th 2014: 
Chronicle #11: «The School of Life»

Life is a funny little thing. It is for sure a trembling rollercoaster, but also a splash of water in your face and missing ground under your feet. It has its ways – mysterious, inscrutable – of surprising me, not just when I thought I had it all together, but even more often when I’m already out of balance.

The whole chronicle #11 here.

April 2th 2014: 
Chronicle #10: «The Decennium»

From waking up scared of an earthquake, to not take notice at all. So: I’m happy to announce that I might already be a real Californian.

The whole chronicle #10 here.

Mars 25th 2014: 
Chronicle #9: «The Wake Up Call»

They say you’re not a real Californian until you no longer notice the earthquakes. This week started with something of a wake up call. As mentioned in previous posts, sleep is quite limited for me over here due to lack of time. That one night when I finally managed to enter deeply into those psychedelic lands of dreams at the right time, with no alarm set for the next morning – THE EARTH decided to shake me out of bed at 6:25 AM with a 4.4 magnitude earthquake.

The whole chronicle #9 here.

Mars 18th 2014: 
Chronicle #8: «So You Think You Can Act»

Do you know how to walk? No, you don’t. Can you sit, crawl, or lie down? No, you can’t.  You can’t even lift your arm up in front of you. I know you can’t believe it – neither could I. But every day here, I am proven wrong.

The whole chronicle #8 here.

Mars 11th 2014: 
Chronicle #7: «The walk of Shame»

Ever had the feeling that your duties seem to pass by like a super fast train and you just can’t catch up with it for the life of you?

The whole chronicle #7 here.

Mars 4th 2014: 
Chronicle #6: «Teaser»

I was a journalist, a gymnast and a musician. I had everything I needed – except what I wanted. Thats why I decided to quit my job, say goodbye to my friends and family, and leave for acting school in Hollywood. The Video presented in this blog is a small taste of what life has been like the first few weeks.

Here you can see the video-blog.

Feb. 25th 2014: 
Chronicle #5: «In a cold sweat»

For a guy who has lived all his life by the rules and routines of a gymnastics regime, there is no doubt that life here is a tad more divergent. Having nothing to do at one moment is just as shockingly unfamiliar as it is to run from a film shoot to my roommates’ baptism in the next. At any point earlier in my life, the degree of variation stretched from sleeping, through eating and practice, to toilet visits, school and back to sleep. The circle of life has definitely taken a new shape.

The whole chronicle #5 here.

Feb. 18th 2014: 
Chronicle #4: «The Proposal and the Valentine’s»

Real life, as we will know it the next eight months (though dreamy it may still seem to me), is about to blossom. As the hassle of settling down slowly dies out, challenges of school is coming to life, growing over the heads of its students.

The whole chronicle #4 here.

Feb. 11th 2014: 
Chronicle #3: «Life’s a like a box of chocolate»

As we still can’t seem to get friendly with our apartment (at least our rent), it took my roommate and me no more than three days to decide to move out again. Already stretching our comfort zone with one bedroom, we are now downgrading to NO bedroom.

The whole chronicle #3 here.

Feb. 8th 2014: 
Chronicle #2: Move-in Day and monologues

When gas, water, power and insurance companies got back in to business on Monday morning, Murphy’s law did the same; what could go wrong – well, you know. For the landlord to let us move in, they needed confirmation letters faxed from all of the above – which should be no problem, since we asked them all to do so when opening our new accounts. After half a day of waiting by an empty fax machine, we dared to call them back with a friendly reminder – only to discover that they’d forgotten all about us. When they eventually faxed it, only one name was on the paper – and we’d really prefer that both of us could move in. 

The whole chronicle #2 here.

Feb. 5th 2014: 
Chronicle #1: «I need a dollar, dollar is what I need»

Ok, just to make it clear right away: I am NOT a blogger. Since the dawn of the blogosphere, my prejudices have kept me far away from its kind. But as we all know, the first unwritten rule of a struggling actor in Hollywood is that «Everyone must accept some kind of prostitution in order to survive up until the big breakthrough.» So, I could have fulfilled the stereotype of waiting tables between my auditions, or I could do a «Sylvester Stallone» – but instead I am now spreading trivialities about my still-to-be famous self. Oh, the irony.

The whole chronicle #1 here.