STILL CURIOUS?

Jail Breaks Are Fundamental

STILL CURIOUS?

Jail Breaks Are Fundamental

The most fundamental (essential; basic; rudimentary; core; primary) ability to nurture in ACTING HUMAN, our ‘brand’ of self-creation, is a practiced capacity to PAY ATTENTION. 

Wholehearted curiosity roots in attention well paid.

Our limited sense of self emanates from reflexive identification with ideas/thoughts. We are magnitudes trapped in jails we’ve been persistently led to make for ourselves.

If we sincerely check in with ourselves we find a self yearning for freedom. A SELF keen to explore a universe of possible selves that live life alive. 

As Joseph Campbell says, we hear a mythic call that urges us to enjoy the “experience of feeling alive.”

“It is very hard to talk about, but when it happens the freedom from one’s usual identity comes as a relief. The contrast with one’s habitual ego ­driven state is overwhelming . . .” ~Mark Epstein  

Paradoxically, with relief comes with a side dish of anxiety. We are unaccustomed to life as a free and protean self. Learning to see this change clearly; learning to appreciate an intentional self-creative process in daily life takes practice centered in our capacity to pay attention.  

The benefits that accrue to us are many and of inestimable value. As we feel them in life lived alive our motivation to create skillfully surges.

OUR OLD FRIEND COURAGE 

“Creativity takes courage.” ~Henri Matisse

As we pay attention vital questions arise naturally.

First among them (especially at first) is: what risks are we willing to take? The unknown scares us. That’s why we’ve been readily susceptible to the habit of “I know” mind. 

"It’s in risking ourselves — in revealing ourselves to one another — that we become ourselves."           ~Nancy Zapolski

We are never alone. That we appear separate from each other is a vigilantly promoted illusion. We are differentiated yet inseparable. You and me? We can’t have one without the other. 

HELLO! Parts and wholes? 

We are always in relationship. In revealing ourselves to one another, we see ourselves reflected as WHOLE.

Out of fear and in keeping with with cultural norms we have become accustomed to seeing individual identity almost exclusively. This persistent illusion comes at great cost to our wellbeing. 

“We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people.”   ~Jacob Bronowski

Our failure to share attention - our lack of willingness to touch one another in heartfelt ways - is strained by a limited sense of self. 

SELF TALK

Quality of attention is tied to story and our role in it as perceived at any particular moment. Most often the roles we play come off the rack. We barely notice and hardly participate.

We accept an assigned identity, and when it gets wobbly, we pretend. We maintain. We perform. We’ve been carefully trained.

Half-hearted behavior is common. In the parlance, we phone it in. After all, we know what happens next and after that, too. We’ve done it thousands of times before - We know. 

“Knowing” mostly happens in language - thoughts, images and beliefs. We forget, if we ever knew, that words and ideas are commonly agreed upon pointers. They guide us when mindfully used. When taken as the actual things they represent they imprison us. When commodified they land us in solitary confinement.

“The map is not the territory.” ~Korzybski

To thrive we must break free of confinements we’ve come to accept all too easily. Step one: Pay sufficient attention to notice, and then pay greater attention. Commit to enlarge your capacity to notice and pay full attention.

It’s not easy to let go of “easily” in favor of creativity. Curiosity and learning comes with risks. Taking risks takes practice. 

Life is complex, like well-made wine, though not necessarily complicated. We tend to complicate our lives so as to avoid surprises, we forfeit living alive rather than experience the shock of recognition. We fear seeing ourselves anew.

When we delve into ACTING HUMAN fundamentals we discover simplicity is key. First and foremost: Simply PAY ATTENTION!

“Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's creativity.” ~Charles Mingus

“My art is about paying attention - about the extremely dangerous possibility that you might be art.”  ~Robert Rauschenberg

You are not who or what you think you are. You are the whole Universe, bestowed with infinite possibility. Behold the truth of that reality. 

Don’t quite believe that’s true? Humor me. Create yourself “as if” it were true. Let’s see - okay? Start by paying attention.

I recently read a new biography of Francis Ford Coppola, The Path To Paradise, by Sam Wasson. I recommend it without reservation.

Wasson gets to the nub of Coppola’s creative process as a circular engagement with self.

Francis creates “the experience. The experience that re-creates the self. The re-created self creates the work.” Rinse and repeat ad infinitum. 

Take a risk. Coppola takes staggering risks in his work. And in his life. No need to go as far as he does. He’s more than a little nuts.

In ACTING HUMAN terms the ‘work’ is life. One singular sensation.

Experience the shifts that are inevitable in your life and identity. Inhabit the story. Simply pay attention. Feel. With patience, perseverence, and courage your capacity to experience life alive will naturally bloom.

PRACTICE

Make space to rest in contemplation. A cousin of meditation. Find a comfortable place to sit or lay down to play with words as they float through your open mind. 

Start with Curiosity. Allow that this word exists within a cloud of associated words. The cloud floats and changes shape, the associated words float within and without the passing cloud. 

Words can form new clouds and that behave in similar fashion.

Here’s a starter set:

Curious  

Question

Attention

Courage

Heart

Play

Care

Create

Connection

Listen

Generosity

Appreciation

Truth

Kindness

Patience

Practice

Feeling

Sense

Help

Humanity

Warmth

Vulnerability

Share

Compassion

Amuse

Feel the impulse to explore and learn. Enjoy the kaleidoscopic show. 

There is no wrong way to practice this contemplation. You might take a moment to imagine a child at play. To the extent you can, identify with that child. 

Contemplate for as long as it is fun. No set time.

Repeat daily. Iteration is fundamental to all practice.

With practice you will come to recognize that individual words have no independent life. Language, when serving us well, connects and comes alive. Words and ideas are interdependent and live in created circumstances as vibrant extensions of us in a shared and living Universe.

THE BIG PAYOFF

“Paying attention is the most basic and profound expression of love.”  ~Tara Brach

When you give someone wholehearted attention, listen with all your senses open as Aung Ba suggested, all you need do is meet eye to eye and you will see this truth reflected.

“Simply paying attention allows us to build an emotional connection. Lacking attention, empathy hasn't a chance.”  ~Daniel Goleman

“The most precious gift we can offer anyone is our attention. When mindfulness embraces those we love, they will bloom like flowers.”  ~Thich Nhat Hanh

“There is no pure perception — of a flower, of a mountain, of a person. In everything we look at, we see partly a reflection of ourselves — a projection of an internal model seeking to approximate the actuality. If we are conscious enough and unafraid enough of being surprised, we will keep testing the model against reality, incrementally ceding the imagined to the actual. One measure of love — perhaps the deepest measure — is the willingness to remove the projection in order to perceive what is truly there. There is both sorrow and consolation in knowing that although we can only ever glimpse parts of the totality beyond us, we can keep trying to see more clearly in order to love more deeply.” ~Maria Popova

Until Next Time. . .

Lights Up!