Spontaneity is King

As I do every Sunday, it's my day of reflection, I pull up my Performance Evolution workbook and start through the process of advancing my work on various endeavors.  There is one sheet that I have entitled Major Bugaboos.  On this sheet I list the things that get in my way; they are usually psychological.

On/in one of these I discovered that one can waste a lot of psychic energy on endeavors that compete for the attention of the same personae.  One must, I concluded, limit his participation in these, even abandoning those that cause him to be distracted from his major objectives.

This morning I discovered another Bugaboo with which I must deal.  It is complex, in that it is difficult to put into words without getting very personal; but then that's what this blog is all about, me.

It started with reading about the "Observing I" and it became clear to me that this observing one must be dealt with realistically.  One doesn't use "Observing I" to monitor and direct his performance as it is happening.

Life is a spontaneous response to the circumstances that are presented to the individual as he goes about his day; not a performance, not even an audition, to be rehearsed and then performed.  And this is where it gets a little difficult.

In life, I want to be someone who is liked, with whom people want to be, to talk with, to be around. Professionally I am an actor, as such I want to perform a la mode of my character to the delight of the audience; I am a voice, I want to sound good so that I get work; I am an instructor, I want to present my material in a positive way that creates a desire for the trainee to take up the methods.

The belief that I am not very good at any of these is that under which I have been laboring.  The adage that "no one is perfect" couldn't be more appropriate when applied to me.  So there is a gap between desired performance and actual.

This struggle is the purpose of this little essay and it isn't going to take 1000 words to do it.  The answer is the realization that there is a difference between the ideal and the actual and that difference is not to be examined but ignored as it is happening.  Later, it can be examined and studied for improvement.

For daily life, the day to day encounters and interactions are best allowed to take place spontaneously.  For Acting the roles are to be performed as rehearsed.  For Voicing the scripts performed as practiced.  For Training the material presented as planned.

All  the while the ideal is to be studied to be understood; practiced in controlled instances, and allowed to be assimilated into the fabric of one's being.  "Forming good habits and becoming their slave, I am inovlved."  Then over time, the actual performance will improve to approach the ideal.

The study and practice of ideal technique takes place at another time and place, another realm, away from the public eye, i.e. aside, and is allowed to become part of the spontaneous response in a seemingly natural and easy way.