Agreed on the class vs. performance thing. Realizing I didn’t *have* to perform anymore was a huge weight lifted off me. My friend, Tony, says (re: acting) you “do it ’til you’re done.” And of course, there’s the old saw about only doing it at all if you absolutely have to. It’s a tough row to hoe, vocation-wise.

I’m not sure if that exercise was part of the Meisner technique, but that sounds right. There’s a lot of great stuff within acting exercises. I often enjoyed those more than performing.

I liked The Four Agreements - simple, clean, and you could spend the rest of your life working on it. Perfect meditative stuff. And while I read a different book by Cesar Millan, I noted a lot of things in there that seemed kind of…applicable to other circumstances. Dealing with people who are hot in the moment, who are really enmired in their Shit, is a lot like dealing with animals: they don’t have the distance to see things, and they react from their lowest-common-denominator brain.

Oddly enough, I made it through my entire acting career without personal exposure to the Meisner technique, which is what I think you’re describing in that post. (And for the record, anyone who’s interested in some good writing should go check out those posts. Our Claire is no slouch in the self-observation dept.)

The former gets a bit too new agey for me at times, but the 4 agreements are sound (Be impeccable with your word. Don’t take anything personally. Don’t make assumptions. Always do your best.). Not always easy in application which I wrote some about here

The most useful thing I took away from the book is probably that establishing I’m right (and hence someone else is wrong) is not always important or helpful.

The dog book may seem an odd choice, but he talks a lot about calm-assertiveness as the energy needed to lead a pack. Since people live/work in packs, a lot of the group energy dynamic info applies to humans too.

There’s also recognizing what’s actually driving someone else’s behavior. A repeating exercise I did in a directing class (and you’ve most likely done for an acting class) helped me get better at telling what someone is actually doing.

your friend and fan
Kare

What you said about acting from reaction is very true, its a survival mode way of acting that grows from lack of awareness of our own thoughts and motives, it is often very unhelpful.

What you are touching on here is a much higher way of meditation of which the cross legged kind is only a beginning. To take up the meditative thread of living and follow its loving impulse and follow that as best you can. But its often very difficult to do, because that thread doesn’t always conform to the set of rules many agree are right or wrong ways of living. Suddenly you have to be true to yourself, which is the highest true-ness, not the true-ness of a set of learned rules.

Some people you come across will understand immediately what you represent and you’ll find true friends, others will never comprehend your motives. You plod on, its fascinating, the best thing is to keep focusing on what you want to create with this love and never lose sight of that.

The thing with love, is no matter how messy and awful life gets, to keep
persisting with it, not to give up on it, keep focusing on it. Thats the essence of every meditative practice ever taught.

Thanks for your thoughts on love, and love to you.

I hear you on the rest, but it’s complicated. To come at something from a place of love does not mean being bullshitty or someone/thing you’re not. Compassion is a thing to aspire to; the most annoying thing about a lot of new age philosophy is the troweling on of P.C. goodness over the truth. Poor truth! What did it do to deserve that?

Lots of times, people don’t get past the first step (”Where am I right now?”); lots of other times, people don’t even *know* there’s a first step. Neither is a particularly great place to be in, unless you’re one of those naturally good people, and then it only works as long as you’re able to handle whatever conflict is thrown at you.

Like I said, complicated. Interesting, though.

Liz - Such a lovely conversation deserves another that will live on. Thank you again—for both.

I remember our conversation warmly.

Even more this extension of it brought me to remember pieces of myself I’ve been looking to reclaim this week, this moment. Friends often have that effect. Is it their words or the trust they inspire?

To sum it up, I believe in *tough* love. I think society is just too polite. By keeping it real, you are “showing people who you really are” and this is more than love. There’s a great line from a movie that goes, “Love is just love.” Confronting reality, I think, is the greater end; granted extending love and connecting with others has a lot to do with that.

Having said that, I admit that it can pretty tough to get through those ‘This I Believe’ stories!