Week 13: Month 3: We Have a Starting 5, Soon We'll Have a Bench
It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.
Dropped out from engineering to become a comedian.
Sunk $10,000 into a 10 year goal of doing the Edinburgh Fringe.
No money made.
Lived to tell the tale.
Became a substitute teacher.
Sunk $10,000 into buying the tech so I can
tell stories online.
No followers gained.
Living to tell the tale.
Kept friends, gained new ones.
Getting ready to perform in New York, Orlando, Canada,
and tell so many others’ stories.
No money saved.
Telling the tale to live.
“We’re not gonna be losing for much longer” -
Shai Gilgeous Alexander
“Trade your worldly wealth to gain friendships among men so you’ll be welcomed into eternal dwellings.” -
Jesus, Dale Carnegie, Tony Robbins, Alex Hormozi
“It is better to be a warrior in a garden than a gardener in a war.”
Miyamoto Musashi
I didn’t lose anything. Only gained an army. At least I know who’s ready to fight now. Luckily my savior is a warrior and a gardener. He’s also the vine and the giver of Life. And he’s sending me to war and to plant seeds. He’ll water them. All he’s asking me to have is faith.
"For sale, baby shoes, outgrown." - Nathanael Philip Mosher and a little Ernest HemingwayThe Lord will take you where you don’t want to go when you don’t want to fight and make you rest when you just want to go and fight, fight, fight. Hence, I’m in New York writing this, missing the calm, quiet, streets of Culver City, yet knowing that the most exhilarating thing I can do is to continue to obey the call of the Lord.
I don’t always want to, but then again I did pray and pray and pray that one day I’d become a comedian. And here I am, a comedian. That’s all I have right now as my potential source of revenue this month, and I’m deeply afraid, and yet I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I haven’t been able to keep up with the continual content schedule we’ve been putting out these past three months, as I’ve been under prime duress managing the impending tour dates of New York, UCLA, Orlando, Winnipeg, and Victoria. I’ve been sinking my teeth into the idea that jokes aren’t embellishments, but welcome relief on a hard and well-deserved journey.
And so the jokes will come, but the hard and well-deserved journey, that’s just getting started. I care about story and telling the truth. Living a life centered around living a good story is only possible by yielding to the Truth itself, the one who leads me beside still waters and restores my soul.
PPDK is going to look a lot different very soon because it’s becoming what it was originally intended to be: a storytelling collective centered around putting the story of one’s life in the light of Truth, pointing to the fact that life itself is much bigger than you.
I love telling stories and I’m learning the main reason I do it is because it gets other people to tell me theirs. I sat and listened to my friend Tim Limbrick recount to me the tale of how he dealt with the tragic loss of his Father, and learned to assume the responsibility his Father had always known he was able to grasp and steward. It’s such a wonderful feeling to listen to someone be authentic and find their faith in a previously precarious position they knew nothing about how to get out of.
The past three months have been a whirlwind of overwhelming stress, excitement, transcendent awe, followed by backbreaking labor only to finally find rest in the arms of a good, good Father. And every time I think that all is lost, someone comes to tell me that they see what I’m doing, and they’re ready to tell their story too.
Last week I humbled myself and finally told my Mom, “You’re the most financially savvy person I know, and yet I listen to you the least. Can you be my de facto Chief Revenue Officer until we have enough for you to be CFO?”
Of course, she said yes because she’s my Mom, only the biggest investor in my entire career and not to mention life itself. That 10,000 dollars came from her + some crowdfunding and it was meant for me to pursue a lucrative career in something like medicine. And even though I didn’t, she still let me lose it altogether. And she still loves me.
It’s time for me to accept the help and realize that even though people respect me as the guy who makes things happen, I don’t need to focus so much on being the guy who makes money, or the guy who knows how to market, or the guy who knows how to sell. I will have to learn and do all of those things, but just like telling stories, I only do it so that other people have the courage to come along and try it for themselves.
PPDK is going to be a collective and we already have our starting 5. It’s Nathanael Philip Mosher, Nehemiah Williams, Levi Williams, Tom Bajoras, and my Mom, Loida Mosher as the one who’s going to coach us on how to accept money so that we can fund the darn thing without so much shame and guilt.
I’m doing a show with my friend Sean Conrad, and he’s getting out there and telling his story and confronting the embarrassment and shame we sometimes feel calling ourselves Christians out there in the world when we know the blatant hypocrisy that it might trigger in someone’s fragile and fearful mind. And yet we’re just the same. I’m scared to follow Christ into dark comedy clubs where sometimes the nihilism runs so deep it drives those to suicide. And yet he wants me to go there, because he sent me there and he wants me to fight. He also wants me to plant seeds. It’s just not me who’s going to water them.
He’s the gardener. He’s the king. He’s the fiercest warrior to ever live. He’s the vine. He’s the giver of Life. He creates all things.
I make jokes. It doesn’t mean I need to be so precious with them that I stifle them silly with all my trembling anxiety about how they’ll be received.
I’m the guy who makes things happen. I’m not the Creator. And I’m not the guy who makes money.
I have my Mom for that now.
Here’s a little taste of what PPDK is going to look like moving forward:
If you want to support our tour, consider making a one time contribution here:
buymeacoffee.com/ppdkproductions
You can also make a recurring donation by subscribing to PPDK Productions, which you’re currently reading. It’s is a production company built around other people telling their life story. The reason it’s not under my name is because it’s not supposed to be just me posting everything. Right now, that’s just how it is, because some of the team members are going through some difficult times. It’s not easy putting your heart out there, and I know with time I won’t be the only one doing it. Until then I keep writing and trying.
Here are four Google Docs containing four full length scripts to shows I've performed:
1) My Hilarious Testimony - https://docs.google.com/.../1FnlQpTnDLsFxL43nVaip.../edit...
2) Nathan Mosher is Injured - https://docs.google.com/.../1b6xnYulzWMESLXI8VCfq.../edit...
3) "Who Would You Be if You Weren't Afraid of Suffering?" - Ep. 1 of Nathanael Philip Mosher Has Friends - https://docs.google.com/.../1fxF4C5K7XjvWMOoreYFg.../edit...
4) "What is Fun To You?" - Ep. 2 of Nathanael Philip Mosher Has Friends - https://docs.google.com/.../1rC8DiWiZREIoViBawmtk.../edit...
Sincerely Yours,
Nathanael Philip Abad Mosher
AKA The Paraprosdokianist
"Paraprosdokian + journalist" = "Paraprosdokianist" Or: one who pens journalistic columns of paraprosdokians. Paraprosdokian: Greek for "against expectation" a rhetorical device in which the second part of the phrase makes you re-evaluate the meaning of the first, otherwise known as a one-liner or turn of phrase, joke, lyric, proverb, parable, quote, wise saying, or piece of life itself summarized in the shortest unit of story resulting in: one's expectations being upheld, subverted, affording one a renewed perspective and sense of compassion.
We want your story. Please connect with us. If you want to see a collection of stories we’ve told, go to our website: ppdkproductions.com