This is badly structured.  Let me try this again.

Here are some things that drama school is teaching me and why I believe art school is the best damn thing to happen to me and why everyone should do it:

Myself as creator

Recently I’ve noticed in group work that I like to skip over things before moving on to the next thing.  This is a bad habit that I’ve had for a very long time but it’s only recently that I’ve realised how much of a hindrance it is.  There’s a lot to be said for group work, of butting your ideals up against another’s.  It exposes all your bad habits, and puts them into the public fray.  In Comic Strip Mime I want to gloss over sections and then move on to the end, whereas the rest of the group (mostly boys) want to refine and detail sections over and over again.  The tendency for our group, however, is to get stuck on one image and not move on.  In my overly impatient head I justify it as: get through all the images, then go back to the beginning and refine and transition them.  But at the same time I know that that theory does not work either.

Upon examination of this, I’ve decided that there must be a balance of creating solid images/sections and moving forwards.  In my work for my father, I scribe with as much accuracy as I can, fixing things as I go.  Sometimes I get to the end and then go back, but generally it’s good to get through a section first before fixing it.  Perhaps this is how I must work creatively as well.  Get to the end of a section as accurately and best as I can, go back and fix as necessary, then move on. It contradicts with the notion that Will Self puts forward, of ‘Don’t look back until you’ve written an entire draft, just begin each day from the last sentence you wrote the preceeding day.’  I thought this for a long time, writing randomly and round in circles, but I am not positive that it works.  I do think work needs the creation of certain sections, a slight refinement, and then the moving on.  In CSM, it seems to be working, although we are quite slow, and it is how we will continue to work.  I have to say as an addendum that I would not be able to recognise this without the abilities of my classmates, all of whom are younger than me, far more talented and much more imaginative when it comes to physical mime (this is why I was never a dancer).

The other thing I’ve realised through group work is that I cannot work in isolation.  I have thought for years that the best way to work was to work in isolation and then when the time was right to suddenly reveal my brilliance with a perfectly formed piece.  Now I realise that is complete delusion.  All creative works exist in the space between people. An art work is incomplete without a viewer.  A story is incomplete without a reader.  A film is incomplete without an audience.  An experience does not truly exist if not witnessed by another.  We need the reflection of ourselves in others to exist (which is why we need art, because art is the reflection of ourselves as a society.  Art is a way of analysing our constructs, of holding up a mirror to our actions.  But that is for another story, another debate).

My solution to this is to seek out community, groups and other artists as much as possible.  Say yes to everything I can.  Be the channel for something greater.  Only then can dreams grow and flourish.  And to share.  Give of myself to life and others.  Offer my services.  Learn by being a vessel for others.  All those stories that have never been completed remain so because they exist only in my head.  I think I read somewhere that one should never talk about one’s first draft before it’s finished.  I’m starting to think this is the stupidest idea ever.  By giving ideas thought, life, one gives them the breath and authority to live.  John Collee, former doctor and current Hollywood writer (Happy Feet, Master and Commander, Creation – and yes, the only reason I know all this is because I used to look up other doctors turned writers) wrote about this in the BBC Writers’ Room, and I’m starting to think that this is true:

There’s this myth among young writers that you’ve got to live in a darkened room and all of the idea has to come out of your own head and you have to guard it otherwise someone will steal it. That is such bollocks. Because actually stories are created, like any scientific discovery or anything of creative value, by a dialogue with the world around you. So I talk and talk and talk my stories and, and in talking them the little sequences which start off as one line cards then evolve to a page each. And when you’ve got a film that is about to be written, it’s a forty-page document which has a summary one-liner at the top of each page which will give you the plot from beginning to end, but you can also read all the detail of what is happening in that sequence and what the sequence has to achieve.

Another thing that I’ve realised through group work (oh, catharsis!  How I admire/am terrified of you) is that I have been very afraid to step out and strike in case that strike might be wrong.  This is something that has only seeped into my work the past few years but it has been detrimental to the degree that I have produced actually nothing at all for fear of fucking up.  In preparing for classes, I have often held back for fear of doing the wrong research, or working on things before I am ‘ready.’  In the act of writing, I will be unsure as what to write, and therefore will write a vague paragraph that doesn’t achieve anything, and then quickly move on to the next, in the hope that eventually I’ll see the light.

So, to counteract this I must practise being in tune with myself, and in tune with being a channel, so that my accuracy and intent for the ‘right’ impulse is better.  To strike out, even if the striking out is terrifying.  You can always turn around and go back.  I guess the fear is always that you will strike out so far that it takes forever to come back…but that is why being able to be still and listening to the channel (oh this is getting very Scientology here, but bear with me) is important so that it can bring you back to the true path.  To always listen to oneself and heed one’s heart.

The last thing that I’ve realised I had to do is to decide what my purpose was in life.  Because all this secret attempts at writing and not really being any good at acting either has been detrimental to both.  Deciding that I want to be a vessel for something higher has been both inspiring and exciting to me.  The best question, and the only question that it poses to me at the moment is to think “I wonder what’s next?”  Because now the joy is in the doing, and the trust that I am going somewhere is deep-seated and in no way can be taken away.

I’ve spent too long with my head beneath the pillows, being terrified of what’s out there.  But I must seek what’s out there.  I must put myself on the line.  I must act as a channel for myself and for others.  I must tap into the collective unconsciousness. I must offer my services and ask what I can do for the world.  For then I will be able to truly grow.

Goals for myself, in my quest to become a channel for something greater than me:

• Know that I can do anything I want to, as long as I put my mind to it.
• Let go.
• Be a channel for something greater at least once a day.
• Try and fail. Put one foot in front of the other.  Keep going. Nothing can be achieved in inertia.
• Ask for help.
• Share my dreams.
• Help others.
• Take myself to the edge.  Constantly.  The more you do, the more you do.

Stuff I have been reading related to this topic:

• How To Be Insanely Productive And Keep Smiling – Zen Habits
• I’m Paralysed With Existential Dread – Salon.com

Movement is preferable to paralysis. By paralysis I do not mean stillness, but rather the blunt, muscular locking together of opposing forces. Sitting still in a park on a bench by a path where children pass with balloons and nannies eat sandwiches and ducks waddle about your feet is not wasted time. Sit still as long as you can. But when you begin fidgeting, then move. Trust the motion itself. I know this kind of trust, or faith, requires the suspension of what makes you feel safe and strong: the thinking out of it. The thinking out of it has reached its limit. The thinking out of it has exhausted you. So sit until you are quiet inside and ready to move, and then move without thinking.

Let the same force that has brought you to this point continue to guide you. Suspend judgment. Go into the next moment with this thought in your head: “I wonder what will happen next.”

Continue.

There is nothing more of importance to say about it. That is all you have to do. Yet I do want to try to express one idea that may be helpful to you, if I can, and I’m not sure I can. The idea is that even in your “inaction” you are acting. The idea is to shift your thinking from the either/or categories of acting or not acting to a broader range of qualitatively observed phenomena in which stillness is a kind of action and inaction is a kind of action and error is a kind of action and thinking over the many possibilities is a kind of action. Then you see that you are acting already. Your hesitation is action. Your routine is action. It is all action. You are free to act in many different ways. You may make judgments about these actions but they are all actions and they all have a purpose. This may be a gestation period; you may be waiting for conditions to ripen; you may be resting an overused part of your soul; something may be about to be born; you may be feeding some inchoate plot yet to be hatched; it may be taking your blood and breath below your awareness so it can grow; you may be acting as host to the birth of your own fervent desire.

is to sail the ship of purpose.

*

(If I were an installation artist, I would totally hire a bunch of models/dancers/circus performers/Pilobolus to create a ship out of naked bodies and then blow up huge photos of them for a gallery…oh my god, I could make a huge series of them with different types of boats…but alas I am not James Franco, with a huge bank balance to fund my multi-platform artistry.  I suppose I just have to write about it/versify it for now.  But seriously, one day…)

Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
there is one elementary truth
the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans:
that the moment one definitely commits oneself,
then providence moves too.

A whole stream of events issues from the decision,
raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents,
meetings and material assistance,
which no man could have dreamt would have come his way.

I learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:

Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it.

Boldness has genius, power and magic in it!

– W. H. Murray, Scottish mountaineer and writer

tbc…

scratch, scratch,
scratch,
he goes.

the whole orchestra
scrapes with sound.

they’re getting ready
for rapture

so they’ve got to be clean.

In my seat
I open up my chest,
ready to go with them.

My arms spread,
I prime myself for the music -

but as the music pierces my chest
I feel no elevation;
I feel no communion;

no grace with god

just the pounding
of my heartbeat
against my chest

and then it hits me:

you’ve got to have
the itch
before you can
scratch.

alone

*

on the tram to ikea:
vietnamese bakeries
the soft cluck of korean