FREDRIK SCHEIKE

What a week. What a week. In the world in general honestly. Working every single day, Donald Trump elected president, Leonard Cohen dies and I've passed my 2 month anniversary as a 28 year old. Obviously in an ascending order of importance. All jokes aside, I can't believe how quickly both September and October flew by and how we're already really gearing up for what it is our busiest period. We're working back to back and nonstop with a number of different, both old and new plays, and I have my work at the academy, my private classes and my odd casting job here and there. Obviously time passed quickly in October because it was the preparation of all that is and was to come during this time, but still.. I'm flabbergasted, taken aback, aghast with how rapidly time passes. Every day is thrust upon you in an ever increasing velocity, whether you're ready or not. Sometimes you don't even see it coming, but all of a sudden it's saturday, next week, time t

The last few days, well, the last two weeks have been a little turbulent to say the least. I've not found a real place for myself to sit down and just be, take time for me, process and actually write things down the way that I would like. Well, I haven't taken or I haven't had. The wording doesn't really matter. I've essentially had to much on my mind in order to let my mind wander to the place from which I usually create. I was sick with a complete loss of voice, which made me sound more terrible than Frankenstein's monster and made it more painful to speak than if you had razorblades in your throat. And just a few days ago my uncle finally died. I say finally, which makes it sound kind of terrible, but I mean it in the most loving, caring and remembering way possible. I haven't been able to find any words and it's been really difficult for me to express myself and my feelings. I can normally find them with ease, but this has been a mind numbing exper

By and large, we're pretty much living the dream as actors when we are able to support ourselves by doing what we actually love to do. When we don't have to run with the tail in between our legs to the closest Starbucks in order to scrape together the last little pennies for rent every month. When we actually do what we love and get paid for it, that right there is the epitome of success. Which of course leads me to talk about something that I'm so darned proud of and proud to be able to support. I'm talking about Nerea's latest project which is her studio, aptly named "Estudio Nerea Lovecchio". I know it's been a dream for her for quite some time now, but now finally the stars have aligned and made the opening of her own space possible. It's something truly emotional to watch your partner actually make a dream come true. It's a profound shared joy that I feel and an enormous sense of pride for her bravery and entrepreneurial spirit, becaus

livet, bortblåst, inlåst, avslaget och ljummet, riktigt skumt att åren bara går. det blir ju rätt lätt så när man inte kan stå still  när man gör vad man vill   när för varje gång som klockan slår -  gör en knäsvag, med artros, skolios, och annat som gör slag i saken,  hemorrojder ut i baken,    (fader tid är en sjukdomars virtuos,) gör att man ogärna längre visar sig naken,   i en femplusårs kris, visar att klockan består, och vi har inget att säga emot, tacka och ta emot, ännu en dag, ett dygn, en månad, ett år, där korten på hyllan samlar damm, ifrån fjol och året därpå. skål och tack för att du kom  och tack för att du finns, det är grattislationer man minns och försöker göra till nått positivt, tvetydigt, otydligt,   omöjligt, men aktansvärt och älskvärt och inte en stund för tidigt. glädje är fiktivt, och delad är dubbel, gör mig kritvit i spegeln, räknar gråa hår och anar trubbel. 28 är trevligt men gör livet knivigt, jag somnar om, syns imorrn,  t

So there she was, posing, smiling, pouting her lips and acting all cool. Pulling up the victory sign and pouting her goddamn duck lips, laughing as there was nothing wrong with the world whatsoever. Her friend is laughing too, taking a lot of photos, making sure that every pose and every twitch of that smile is well documented. No selfie can be complete if not for another 40 takes. You have to get the right one in order to be perfect. And I'm on the other side, watching this whole spectacle, feeling my stomach churn and turn, with huge amounts to just go berserk at everything that is going wrong with this world. I'm on the other side, not wanting to observe, but I do. I cannot divert my eyes from this continued perversion of human ideals, and as another flash pops, finally my train comes to the rescue. The girl, the lost little teenager who's trying to get just another like for her Instagram/Facebook/Twitter page is oblivious to the fact that the poster shes' p

You win some, you lose some. You learn to handle the losses and you learn to really accept that you sometimes actually deserve to win. One is easier than the other, guess which? I just had an audition for a British/Spanish miniseries and I am grateful for having done it, for having been called in and for having truly worked as hard as I have to accomplish doing it. Even though I'm fairly certain that the audition and the part is off to someone else, I did my best to keep my nerves in check and put my head down. But my selfconsciousness probably shone through the empty facade that was my terrified face. So why be grateful? Well first of all, it's about the fourth actual major fictional audtion that I've done here in Spain which in itself is pretty amazing, but it's also one of the auditions that I've prepped the most. Let's face it, I know myself and my craft fairly well, and I have this tendency to get lazy while preparing, I know I do, so to actual

Oskiljaktligen gör döden ingen skillnad på oss,                 men ändå skiljer den oss åt. Likgiltig, rädd, tacksam,   befriad, fängslad, road,                döden skiljer sig för oss alla,             och döden skiljer oss åt. Gammal dikt från 2011.

You are not restricted, limited or bound by your past. You are, today, completely free of your past. That's what Saturday's (although I recovered it today) central thought for my meditation was. Now what does that mean? What does "being free of your past" actually mean? As I was meditating, I of course kept reciting the mantra to keep my mind focused, but I've also learned that you accept the thoughts that pop into your head, because if you actively ignore them they will only grow stronger. So I felt sadness and I almost started crying when thoughts of my past came into my mind. Why is that? I don't really know.  I've always believed that your past is what defines where you are right now which in term means that you are a product of it, not that it holds you captive. Your present day and moment are all products of what choices you've made in the past. Everything, no matter how small or big has lead you to this moment and all your choices a

I don't know. I wanted to write something with meaning, and I wanted to write something constructive and personal and something that could touch and be reflected upon, but instead I have an enormous block. I guess I don't really recognize myself at times. Maybe the time of blogging for me is over and the time of diaries has just begun. I was gifted a beatuifully hand painted text book that I take with me almost everywhere I go and in that I've been writing both stories and tiny observations in the past couple of weeks. It's great to invent and make up stories and have the opportunity to just put it down as soon as it pops up. One of the reasons why I wanted to write today is because I woke up from a "nightmare", well let's just call it a lightmare, because it wasn't as if I, or anyone I know, was dying or chased or anything like that. I was in the middle of an exam, and everybody was there and I mean everybody. Teachers, friends and family

And then it suddenly it me, in regards to my previous raging post, I'm no better. Just as I "was brought up to believe". Not saying that my Mom diminished my sense of confidence or self value, it's just that other people might look at what I write, and what I do and refer to it as completely lacking talent. My best might be someone's worst. Now that's food for thought. But I still reiterate the core of the my previous post as something that still ticks me off. You still have to have some sort of consciousness and self-awareness about what it is that you do. I'm not racking down on one's ability to create out of one's best, I applaud every attempt in making something artistic. Perhaps what I'm trying to say is that I envy the lack of need for things to be perfect, and I'm referring to the most minimalistic things such as typos or syntax errors, I just can't let those things slide. Now I know my best might be someone's worst,

Jag skriver egentligen för mig själv, och bara för mig själv så att jag ska kunna se tillbaka på,  som i en form av dagbok, var jag har varit, var jag kommer ifrån och hur jag har tagit mig dit jag är idag. Det kan låta tvetydigt då att som i mitt fall publicera detta på en blogg. Men jag tror att det finns ett visst syfte att skriva för sig själv, offentligt. Det sätter ett visst typ av krav på den som skriver, i det här fallet mig, med hur man formulerar sig, vilka saker man väljer att ta upp. Men jag tror framför allt att det är något frigörande att trycka "publicera", saker och ting försvinner på internet samtidigt som det lagras för evigt. Ett stort hål där allt bara finns, tillgängligt när vi helst önskar och utom räckhåll när vi så vill det. Jag har tittat tillbaka och insett att några av de absolut äldsta blogginläggen här är över 10 år gamla. Det är som en gigantisk dagbok som jag alltid bär med mig, jag behöver inte oroa mig om att tappa bort eller lagra sk

Recently I've been thinking a lot about what talent means, where confidence comes from, what success means and how we constantly define ourselves in the reflection of the people around us. You know, the smaller things in life. I recently had a run-in with a person who for me would classify as a hack, a person who has it's moments but for the most time rarely does anything out of the extraordinary, but who has all the confidence in the world. How is this possible and who do I call to get a dose of the same? A lot of people through the years have seen me as confident, almost to the point of being cocky and arrogant, and people in general have not been shy in voicing their opinions about my way of being or acting, no pun intended. I'm either full of myself, an asshole or any other beautifully phrased derogatory term. Not that I take offense or even take note, if people are bothered maybe, just maybe it's really them who struggle with something big, not me. But

och jag körde, rakt in i stormen,  där blixtar och åska, lät himlen ljuda runtomkring,  det lilla,  som var mitt. jag mätte mig själv, med vädrets stickor och vindens vimpel,  men fann mig själv, otillräcklig, bräcklig, oemotståndlig för vädrets   otymplighet. Och där stod jag, med moss under fötterna, och predikade ett återhållsamt liv, med skökor hack i häl. Don't be a stranger! Loves

I write when I feel I have to get something out. Or when I feel I've pondered something for a long time. I rarely lately write for the pure passion of writing and that's kind of sad. I wish I could take more time to actually do it. Well, there is time, there's always time, it's just a matter of priorities and choices really, two of the skills that sometimes I wonder whether or not I will ever acquire. Because how do you? How do you become an expert decision maker? By experience and by making the wrong ones is the easy answer, by making uncomfortable ones is an extension and by never abstaining from making one is the ultimate component. Honestly, I wasn't even going to write about decision making, but as decisions are what have led me to the point I am and what I was really going to write about, it serves as a good starting point. Being poor is expensive. Never have I understood that phrase until I've actually lived it. It's more expensive not to afford

As lists of all sorts and topics is the new "black" on the internet with new sites popping up daily dedicated solely to the new "You won't believe your eyes with these 10 amazing"... and so on so forth. It's kind of like a widespread infection, because a lot of these lists end up going so viral that almost every kind of traditional news agency now has to jump on the trend. Well, this is not about the trend, this is actually about a list I stumbled upon while reading an article online. I got attracted to click on it because I saw the grinning face of Jack Gleeson, better known as Joffrey Baratheon in Game of Thrones, and the headline that read "10 celebrities who quit the business and never looked back". Since I had no idea he actually quit acting after shooting the series I was intrigued. Each and every one of these people go through their reasons for leaving but his is the one that I want to tackle, because it's a reason that really pisse

Instagram is an amazing app that most of us now use more than daily. We upload anything and everything and can receive commentaries, images and videos from friends and we can even connect with our favorite celebrities and catch up on trends. We can use it to laugh or to be moved and we can use it to motivate ourselves. It's a truly great tool for self-promotion and I personally, as an actor, can tell that the pictures that I've uploaded from either something creative, or a project that I'm involved with are the images with the highest impact. I personally have almost 600 followers and I follow a little bit more. A lot of the friends that I have on my lists post stuff about everyday life, some of my actor friends post the occasional headshot or set picture, there are Mom's and Dad's who publish their babies, photographers who publish great pictures, models who publish stuff from their latest photo shoot, and selfies, selfies and selfies. On any given moment of a

So what happens when we lose track of who we are? What's our true identity, where is our true self anchored and how does it all tie into creativity? In the assumption of various characters that we play during our everyday life we tend to reflect parts of us that correspond to the certain prerequisite of that part. Meaning, we choose in which moments, which parts of us, we deem appropriate to share with the world. It's not appropriate to go to a business meeting in slacks and call your boss a loser, it's not appropriate to do this, say that and the other. It's the fragmented way that's the societal way. But when and where do niceties, politeness, manners and the will to be appropriate end and where is there a room to explore who we, under all the layers that we've accumulated, really are? It's all just a bunch of semi-philosophical thoughts running around my head, because lately I've been feeling shattered. Shattered into small, not to say ti

I'm just beginning one of the most exciting weeks of work for a really long time. Today I was off to do a fitting for a commercial that I'll be shooting on Wednesday, it took a little longer than expected so the audition I was supposed to have got pushed until tomorrow morning. Then tomorrow I'm basically learning how to teach in one of their classes. All to prep for the classes that the theatre has hired me for as a teacher of an extend program that they have in a neighboring village on Thursdays. So Wednesday's the shoot which I hope will be quick and then on Thursday I both have an interview for a language academy to teach English at corporate level, then I teach the aforementioned class. Then on Saturday we hit it home big with one of our birthday celebrations at the theatre. It's going to be really easy, and we've already prepped all of it. I should also mention I've started teaching private Swedish classes on some Sunday afternoons, and that I

I wanted to keep up with writing this week, I wanted, since Sunday to be able to post something on the blog every single day in order to practice my writing and getting into a habit of actually writing. The only way to get better is to practice, and the only way to accomplish my goal of finishing the play, is to find a routine, and just keep at it. Yesterday was instead filled with a bunch of other stuff. Work and small jobs and looking for ways to get the influx of money I so desperately need, all the while by not losing my creative self in the mean time. By actually using it, what I have accumulated in terms of talent and skills, I'm starting to believe (again) that there are ways to get by and to live. I've continued reading "Just Kids" by Patti Smith and I'm hooked, it's such an inspiring story of just how much one is able to endure for the sake of one's own art. Now I'm in a privileged place in comparison, I 've never had to bum aroun

I had a blog post, a long, well thought out, personal post brimming with "in-the-spur-of-the-moment" writing, that I wrote just a couple of weeks ago while on the bus while heading out to work. And as I opened up the draft on my computer just now, to correct and to actually publish. It all had disappeared and I have NO clue what it was actually about. The hint just being the somewhat ambiguous title "Reflections". I don't know what happened but I guess that somehow, the blogger-app on which I was writing was not connected to the internet when trying to upload and save the draft, so it just got lost in the eternal limbo in between. Typical. When I for once, sit down and have something to say and to write about, it just evaporates into the ether. Not that my semi-intelligent blurs on the blog is something that upholds world-peace or even affects a large number of people, but for some reason the loss of some intellectual property, something written and tho