At 10 o’clock I was lying in bed reading a book and laughing out loud. Six hours later I was awake, blinking in the darkness, feeling anxious about some professional and personal matters. What happened in between was a mystery. Happily for me the anxiety passed rather quickly. I suddenly became more interested in how I could go from laughter to anxiety in such a short time, when nothing, but nothing, had circumstantially changed. Ironically, this shift of focus away from anxiety towards curiosity was the root of the matter, but there’s that forest-for-the-trees phenomenon that seems to get us with nearly the same frequency as the Charlie Brown-Lucy-football phenomenon. (Sigh.) Read more…
I would like to get every job I meet for. In point of fact, I would like to get everything I want, and I would like it handed to me on some kind of ceremonial serving dish, preferably delivered by beautiful people, all of whom tell me how great I am. This is not possible. Not during waking hours, anyway. But as I remind myself, the Buddha taught us that suffering exists, and my profession has more than its share. (He didn’t actually mention acting in the Four Noble Truths or the Eightfold Path, but please read on…) Read more…
If “The Popeye Syndrome” hasn’t been coined as a phrase yet, it should be. At very least it could be a terrible title for a film that nobody would know what it’s about. But that’s something else entirely. Anyway, I’ve been surrounded by the Popeye Syndrome lately, and it goes something like this: people resign themselves to their behavior using the logic, “I am what I am” (or as Popeye would say, “I yam what I yam.”). I’ve fallen into the trappings of the Popeye Syndrome many times. It’s seductive. All you have to do is what you already know how to do. No learning required. Just sit back, eats you spinach, punch out Bluto, save Olive Oil, rinse and repeat. And voila! You is what you is. I think Popeye got his catch phrase from Aristotle’s treatise on the nature of things but he skipped a few pages towards the end. Probably exhausted from all that brawling, poor guy. Yes, it is the nature of an acorn to become an oak, and for fire to burn upwards, but the acorn-to-oak and fire are, in point of fact, in a constant state of change. They isn’t what they is. If you don’t believe that change is happening, I suggest you take an apple, leave it out for three weeks, then eat it. Read more…