EMPATHY

Meryly We Roll Along

Empathy

Meryly We Roll Along

Are there any of us who were not taught, in one way or another - mostly while institutionalized in school - that success and security depended on adherence to imposed rules? Were we ordered to behave ourselves?

Were we coerced by grades, and other subtle and not so subtle reinforcements, to forgo our playful learning impulses in favor of the prescribed ‘curriculum?’ Were we pushed to toe the company line?

Enormous force was employed in an effort to demean if not obliterate our natural curiosity.

CURIOSITY

The death of curiosity comes at an inestimable cost. It cuts us off from ourselves, each other, and a deep well of possibilities. It sets us up for separation and rigidity. It inculcates fear as a fierce demotivator.

You’ve likely noticed that we live in an extremely unsettled time. Fear is not our friend, especially not in overwhelmingly frought circumstances. Much more useful to cozy up to all that encourages alert action.

As we experience genuine threats to our wellbeing in almost every area of our lives we are left bereft of our creative birthrights - curiosity and courage - without which empathy and community recede into  squinting distance. A bridge too far. 

“The economic engines of society want to make each of us a very narrow person. The ruling institutions will almost always resist our efforts to develop into whole human beings.

It’s hard work. But it gets easier if you accept that resisting these pressures is one of your main recurring projects, and hence give it the energized and informed response it requires.” ~Ted Gioia

Never has ACTiNG HUMAN been more necessary. We are here to see, feel, and help one another. To enlarge our vision. To see with new eyes.

To recognize that we are not alone. On the contrary, with an ‘energized and informed response’ we can emerge as a creative community uplifted in generous awareness, and repossessed of our capacity for playful learning. 

With resilience we can birth a world of new beginnings in service to love and peace. We’re not just blowing smoke. We have the power of galaxies are at our backs.

EMPATHY

It is of the essence that we close the gap between us. That’s what acting in the Universal Theater is all about. ACTING HUMAN, at its heart, maps actors craft on our moment to moment life together in the ‘real’ world. 

Crazy wisdom does not imply insanity. We live individuated lives on many levels. The emphasis on that level of reality is abundant. The flip side, the paradox, gets almost no attention. We connect to each other and the universe inextricably as a matter of life and death.

COURAGE

“From the moment we are born, we are taught what to think, how to act, what is good, and what is bad. Yet, as Americans, we are also encouraged to cherish our individualism as masters of our fate. If all of our beliefs and gut reactions are merely training, then who am I as an individual? It’s a conundrum that I think about a lot because how do you know you’re brainwashed if you’re brainwashed?

The point of our best art and literature is to force us to recognize that we’ve been brainwashed from birth and then to reexamine every opinion we have under the light of reason and logic rather than default to tradition, obligation, and sentimentality. Only then can we be sure of who we really are. Only then can we be free. The problem is that the price of finding out who we are can sometimes mean disagreeing with those closest to us and thereby risking being cut off by them. We spend so much of our lives craving acceptance that we don’t want to chance losing it. But what is being accepted? A manufactured version of self straight from the cultural conveyor belt.

Be yourself, we are constantly advised. But who is that self? It is easier—and more comfortable—to never question, to just live the fantasy of being an independent thinker instead of facing the truth of being a submissive member of the herd living only for herd approval. Even our tepid forms of rebellion, like drinking alcohol or speeding, or fighting, fall within our culture’s approved expressions of rebellion. Naughty, but still herd acceptable.

None of us can be cocky or complacent. Finding and maintaining your Authentic Self is a daily, lifelong struggle of uncomfortable self-questioning. But it’s so much more fulfilling and exhilarating than just agreeing with everyone else out of fear.”

~Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

In a culture where ‘go along to get along’ is sold hard from birth it takes extreme courage to risk being seen as different or odd. Approval and belonging are strong desires. To modulate them requires skill and purpose. That’s why we practice.

Where FUD forms the coercive essence of how we’re kept in line, our appetite for risk is low to nil.

Fear. Uncertainty. Doubt.

This potent trio has an extraordinary ability to crush creative initiatives. To question in the shadows of FUD calls for courageous curiosity.

It takes courage - an open heart unafraid to engage and imagine - to live life in questions. Life lived in compelling curiosity gives rise to open hearted courage.

If we want to create lives lived alive we must nurture curiosity with faith that courage will naturally arise. 

The qualities of courage and curiosity are mutually inclusive. They are synergetic. 

“We are hardwired with curiosity inside us, because life knew that this would keep us going even in bad sailing … Life feeds anyone who is open to taste its food, wonder, and glee - it’s immediacy.” ~Anne Lamott

We ACT HUMAN together in uncertainty, accepting that uncertainty is another name for infinite mystery and unlimited possibility.

We untangle the fearsome context of uncertainty and doubt, to sense that commonplace security is a thief not a protector. This is how we open our hearts to ourselves and each other. We live with less fear, greater creativity, and a sense of joyous relief, unbound by fear and keen to play.

Please take this invitation to make ACTING HUMAN an active community. We can support each other in the comment section.

Share experiences, challenges, pieces of wisdom, pet pics, quotes, paintings, refrigerator art, grocery lists, tidbits of all kinds, nonsense (the more the better), stories from our lives that inspire and/or raise questions to contemplate together.

All parts show us whole. We are holographic wonders.

We can meet in the midst of mystery, and the upheavals of our time, to gently urge sanity and humanity through our ACTING HUMAN connection.

Until next time,

Lights Up!