What is life without death?
What is love without hate?
What is destruction without creation?
And most of all, what is comfort without fear?
Think of the old adage of "No pain, no gain." Everything seems to cycle together over and over again. They are seasons of a year that can only be described as an archaic pendulum. Back and forth. Back and forth. And for polar opposites that don't fit that, there is always the image of a coin with a head and tail. Somethings are one in the same; for example, love and hate.
What love and hate have in common is passion. From there, the passion grows... morphs to the external and internal forces.
Comfort and fear, have a common ground that isn't quite as obvious as love and hate. It isn't a coin connection, but they don't act as seasons either.
Before I go any farther, I want to clarify how I am using the words. I'm using the word comfort in terms of living in comfort by removing one's self out of the path of harm's way. And I'm using fear in terms of living with anticipation, usually anxiety.
Two words that we have been defining factors on how we view life. Do we let ourselves learn how to "comfort" or strive for a "comfortable" home away from fear? Or do we live with "fear"? Why do we watch movies and t.v. shows that horrify us in our own homes?
Unlike love and hate, comfort and fear are co-dependent. They are different, but each defines the other, much like the correlation of sweetness to sourness.
During the past years, I've been familiar with comfort. But at the same time, I despise it. In a world where we all die, and have threats crossing boarders, this bubble feels fake. Too much comfort, I would become ignorant of others (which I struggle to avoid). Too much fear, I would break. Yet at this point, I fear comfort and feel comfortable in fear. How I managed to blend the two together, I cannot say. Before, I knew that I was lost in what used to be familiar, and I still am. Yet, in a twist I did not see coming, I now have an odd sense to fear. Should I be afraid of this sudden ease towards what usually causes anxiety, or have I finally reached a state of relaxation in my mind so that I can still be comforted?
Personally, I think it's healthy to fear things. But when that fear disappears, what is left to hold you back? Especially when you don't find comfort comforting? Where does that put you?
And because of that, my mind opens up even wider, and threatens to make a deliberate change.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
The Actor's Sacrifice
The beginning of May comes in, you would think that I have came back from this soul-searching that came from the mass amounts of feces in a paper bag that Life left at my door. However, that does not mean that I should completely ignore what just happened. And what just happened was a giant black spot in my artistic career. Let's just call that type of phase as the Eclipse. Sounds pretty enough... No. Prettiness is not the point. We are talking about a time of emptiness, so Space sounds more appropriate.
So I have successfully managed to last a year after my first serious relationship. As anyone knows who experienced initial heartbreak, it sucks, but eventually you get over it. The heart becomes stronger, or something along those lines. Why does it seem as though I cling to that break up, unlike other people who figured out how to move on from that first love? Because unlike those other people, I was unfamiliar with the flood of emotions that exhausted my body; as time moved on through the year I found more and more ways to try to escape that pain. For awhile it didn't feel fair. I love music, but I couldn't listen to some of my favorite songs because of that sadness that came that way. For awhile the only video game that I felt comfortable playing was Left4Dead because others may ignite me into a fury that could only be calmed by first-shooters. And I hate zombies, just as a side-note. When I got stressed, I went on long walks or runs because I knew they kept me outside of the house and way from any tempting vices. When I went back to school, not only did I have that remaining layer of "grieving-ex" process, I also had pressures for my thesis, my new position, and politics. Never mind it was the beginning of my senior year. To deal with school politics that are more complex than a neuron smashing machine, more irritating than a mosquito bite, more confusing than that multi-colored hydra-camel-bonsai hipster that I met in my last trip, and is just as invisible as the aforementioned analogies (not the neuron-smashing machine, though the neurons are invisible to the human eye). Needless to say, I'm not a politician. As long as it makes me emotionally tired, it's going to be the last job I will take.
So to top my utter hate for politics, I had to give up my rather non-political and more reconstructive government position. (I swear, it makes sense.) Due to lack of communication, I lost a roommate in the confusion, and my sense of communication shut down, just like my thesis. -Note previous entries for communication.
And then... soul-searching. As in, a personal realization that shook my world. And something that I only have the guts to only slightly allude to publicly online. But even by acknowledging that discovery, I make more advances in the journey of my mind.
Where does this exposition come from? And why even bother to mention a secret that I keep closer to me than the quilt that my mother and I made?
Why would I care about emotion?
Have I ever mentioned the duties of the actor...? Or the musician? Maybe I have mentioned it in passing once or twice.
Actors are meant to convey human life, and portray the logic and the emotions of the characters in a world born again and again, day after day.
Emotion helps connect the audience to the player. We are reliant on each other, for it is the job of the actor to take the audience somewhere a bit different, to see this "world" in a certain light. And emotions are part of the job.
There are some acting forms that allow the actor to separate the actor from the character. Bertold Brecht was keen on reminding the audience that they are in the theater, and that has remained a form within itself. But when we approach closer to the methods, such as Method Acting, there is a part of the actor that crafts, at least a few portions of their D.N.A. into the character. Otherwise, how could we make the person come to life?
In the cases of that joint actor-character relationship, there needs to be an emotional honesty between the two. In my own work, I have fostered bonds with my characters, and bridges between them. Each role forces me to acknowledge my reality before diving into the work. It's like checking the safety hook before bungee jumping off a bridge: if I don't double check my surroundings then I am going to have a hard time back to level. Acting is dangerous. One could say that it makes people become dissociated from reality. That, if done incorrectly in certain styles, it would have more losses than profits. (Method acting gets its notoriously because of the deep levels that the actor goes to physically and mentally.) Talent and a lot of practice keep those actors safe. But emotional health is also vastly important for this field. The state of our minds can have some influence in our work, and I think it is more obvious when you are still in the beginning of your training.
To go into your field of study, and to completely ignore the emotions within you can be dangerous, generally speaking. At some point, business becomes personal, and you will reflect that in what you do. And when I was overwhelmed in my own life, I found that the rare instances of performance I left me nearly drowning. Musical moments were relieving, but acting left me even more confused. Actually, acting left me even more frustrated because all that emotion I was storing in the bottle of my mind threatened to burst me up. It is possible to utilize your own emotions to fuel your performance, but I have one issue. I don't like being angry. It's an easy emotion to use, but hard to tame. By nature it is violent, sporadic, and blind. With my consistent, if not weekly- no daily, frustrations, then that fuel would blow up the space.
In order to act, I have to acknowledge my emotions and attitude. I would have to be delusional to think I could successfully proceed without knowing that I, myself, am feeling crappy, or under the weather. To act means to be honest to oneself, so to give the best performance to the audience.
Actors have to learn to sacrifice their emotions, their vulnerability to their art, for that character and the audience. Without their devotion, there is no life. This statement- this post, is my way of sacrificing myself. If I am going to be honest to myself, then I might as well do the same to my audience. We have a relationship, and I am committed to develop with you. You are going to notice how I act, the different colors of emotion, but if I am having a difficulty communicating my work then I need to change. So this is my confession, and I hope the next time I perform on stage, or wherever, you can observe the character and the actor. It is my job, and I hope to do it for as long as possible.
So I have successfully managed to last a year after my first serious relationship. As anyone knows who experienced initial heartbreak, it sucks, but eventually you get over it. The heart becomes stronger, or something along those lines. Why does it seem as though I cling to that break up, unlike other people who figured out how to move on from that first love? Because unlike those other people, I was unfamiliar with the flood of emotions that exhausted my body; as time moved on through the year I found more and more ways to try to escape that pain. For awhile it didn't feel fair. I love music, but I couldn't listen to some of my favorite songs because of that sadness that came that way. For awhile the only video game that I felt comfortable playing was Left4Dead because others may ignite me into a fury that could only be calmed by first-shooters. And I hate zombies, just as a side-note. When I got stressed, I went on long walks or runs because I knew they kept me outside of the house and way from any tempting vices. When I went back to school, not only did I have that remaining layer of "grieving-ex" process, I also had pressures for my thesis, my new position, and politics. Never mind it was the beginning of my senior year. To deal with school politics that are more complex than a neuron smashing machine, more irritating than a mosquito bite, more confusing than that multi-colored hydra-camel-bonsai hipster that I met in my last trip, and is just as invisible as the aforementioned analogies (not the neuron-smashing machine, though the neurons are invisible to the human eye). Needless to say, I'm not a politician. As long as it makes me emotionally tired, it's going to be the last job I will take.
So to top my utter hate for politics, I had to give up my rather non-political and more reconstructive government position. (I swear, it makes sense.) Due to lack of communication, I lost a roommate in the confusion, and my sense of communication shut down, just like my thesis. -Note previous entries for communication.
And then... soul-searching. As in, a personal realization that shook my world. And something that I only have the guts to only slightly allude to publicly online. But even by acknowledging that discovery, I make more advances in the journey of my mind.
Where does this exposition come from? And why even bother to mention a secret that I keep closer to me than the quilt that my mother and I made?
Why would I care about emotion?
Have I ever mentioned the duties of the actor...? Or the musician? Maybe I have mentioned it in passing once or twice.
Actors are meant to convey human life, and portray the logic and the emotions of the characters in a world born again and again, day after day.
Emotion helps connect the audience to the player. We are reliant on each other, for it is the job of the actor to take the audience somewhere a bit different, to see this "world" in a certain light. And emotions are part of the job.
There are some acting forms that allow the actor to separate the actor from the character. Bertold Brecht was keen on reminding the audience that they are in the theater, and that has remained a form within itself. But when we approach closer to the methods, such as Method Acting, there is a part of the actor that crafts, at least a few portions of their D.N.A. into the character. Otherwise, how could we make the person come to life?
In the cases of that joint actor-character relationship, there needs to be an emotional honesty between the two. In my own work, I have fostered bonds with my characters, and bridges between them. Each role forces me to acknowledge my reality before diving into the work. It's like checking the safety hook before bungee jumping off a bridge: if I don't double check my surroundings then I am going to have a hard time back to level. Acting is dangerous. One could say that it makes people become dissociated from reality. That, if done incorrectly in certain styles, it would have more losses than profits. (Method acting gets its notoriously because of the deep levels that the actor goes to physically and mentally.) Talent and a lot of practice keep those actors safe. But emotional health is also vastly important for this field. The state of our minds can have some influence in our work, and I think it is more obvious when you are still in the beginning of your training.
To go into your field of study, and to completely ignore the emotions within you can be dangerous, generally speaking. At some point, business becomes personal, and you will reflect that in what you do. And when I was overwhelmed in my own life, I found that the rare instances of performance I left me nearly drowning. Musical moments were relieving, but acting left me even more confused. Actually, acting left me even more frustrated because all that emotion I was storing in the bottle of my mind threatened to burst me up. It is possible to utilize your own emotions to fuel your performance, but I have one issue. I don't like being angry. It's an easy emotion to use, but hard to tame. By nature it is violent, sporadic, and blind. With my consistent, if not weekly- no daily, frustrations, then that fuel would blow up the space.
In order to act, I have to acknowledge my emotions and attitude. I would have to be delusional to think I could successfully proceed without knowing that I, myself, am feeling crappy, or under the weather. To act means to be honest to oneself, so to give the best performance to the audience.
Actors have to learn to sacrifice their emotions, their vulnerability to their art, for that character and the audience. Without their devotion, there is no life. This statement- this post, is my way of sacrificing myself. If I am going to be honest to myself, then I might as well do the same to my audience. We have a relationship, and I am committed to develop with you. You are going to notice how I act, the different colors of emotion, but if I am having a difficulty communicating my work then I need to change. So this is my confession, and I hope the next time I perform on stage, or wherever, you can observe the character and the actor. It is my job, and I hope to do it for as long as possible.
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