Solving a Time Problem

All of the time I have on my hands right now could be due to a lack of focus on my endeavors. But it is plain to see that I could easily commit to more than I could possibly accomplish, yet there are large gaps between deliveries. An example is acting, where I am currently in performances that go on each Saturday night for six more. Another is pool where I am in a league that plays on Wednesday night and our team is slated to play in the playoffs at the end of February. A third is riding where I am riding on Monday nights and can’t justify the acquisition of a horse, by purchase, lease, or arrangement other than per occasion. The fourth is golf and it is not the season; my club dues are paid for this year and I’m ready to play but won’t until at least the middle of next month. All of the others are likewise in progress but there is nothing pressing in/on any of them to keep me fully occupied. So what is my point?

My point is the utilization of the in-between times. I don’t want to get into other things because I want to stay focused on the four major endeavors and then the other fourteen, likewise important but less. Whenever I have or think of a task to do on any of them, I do it.

All of them could benefit from more attention and the one that could stand a lot of attention, and require me to get out and do it, would be sketching; I could do this without commitment to big chunks of time and in order to make it interesting I would go somewhere to make the sketch. I have the goal of a sketch diary and know that it will be crude in the beginning but will improve over time. I have a sketch book that I can carry with me and I will from tomorrow on.

There are some criteria for utilizing this discretionary time, which I haven’t articulated as yet; this will be an attempt to do so. The criteria for “forget-me-nots” are a good example/pattern/model to follow. There are two general criteria, Absolute and Desirable. The Absolute is that it has to be something that will support and make progress toward the accomplishment of the dream for an endeavor. The Desirable are: a) it not be a task listed in the palm pilot (b) it not require more time than is available at the moment, (c) that it not interfere with any item in the palm pilot, IOW not keep me from doing s.t. that is already planned, and (d) that it not preclude doing chores and duties.

This seems to be a brilliant plan for chinking the interstices in the wall of the day. Where I now puzzle, surf, or idle; I can refer to the "why would I" for the endeavors and do s.t. that will move me toward accomplishing those dreams. Just referring to the these, now in the palm pilot, will reinforce same and give them top of mind awareness. Although not a criteria, it should be kept in mind that whatever is done would be okay as it is, IOW perfection is not necessarily the goal.

This will certainly work for the four and all the other endeavors. It will immediately require me to get in touch with the dream of each of them; s.t. that has been articulated, recorded, and reviewed when plotting and scheming; and now carried with me for referral at the odd moment. So item number one on the agenda is to get the dreams for the year into the palm pilot for ad hoc review.

In order to keep it positive and constructive, i.e. moving towards accomplishment of a dream, it would require staying in the moment as it is done. It would be preferable that it not be “junk miles” either. Junk miles defined as a running or walking pace that doesn’t improve aerobic fitness. In this sense we would be referring to doing s.t., even in the endeavor, that is a waste of time and not moving towards the accomplishment of a dream, like (take your choice) shooting pool without paying attention to the shot. And yet to get things started, activities could be in this category as long as they progress toward meeting the specification of moving toward the accomplishment of the dream.

Yes, I think we’re there. This entry is short but more would be a waste of words. Once again the blog has brought me to a conclusion and from here on out I will be more effectively spending my time.

Safe Harbor

It’s been a long time since I sat here in the SAC and wrote in a notebook. Mme Day’s class was cut short today due to her not feeling well so I decided to come in here and drink a cup of coffee, eat a muffin, and write.

Now, I know there are a thousand other things I could be doing but this was my decision. I am not going to waste any more psychic energy than this on the choice; I am aware that I could be sketching for the diary

Of/on what subject shall I write? One of me is suggesting a game to play. It involves making overtures in my blog(s) to see if a certain one is reading, the question comes up; if so, then what?

Often in the past I have embarked on such ventures, not often into personal but more often a road to participating in some activity only to have it turn out to be s.t. not desired and then dropped. When the activity involved others it often turned messy, or at least the termination of it wasn’t handled very sensitively.

Where it involved an organization, it could be terminated without rancor and where it was a skill activity, it could be terminated with simple abandonment without regard to repercussions. Some value could be salvaged financially through the sale of the asset; some for more than paid, some for less.

The one being suggested is a slippery slope onto which I shall not venture.

I recall a time in C60 when I had put things right. It was 1975/6 and I had organized the division such that it was functioning without my direct intervention. There were periods of weeks, even months, when I had nil to do. I had designed an organization, assigned responsibilities, set goals in each of ten areas, interacted weekly, but not to interfere, with those who were in charge and reporting to me.

I had finished my work in C60; I could add nothing more to it. There were even times when I would go for walks in the vast shipyard, from one end to the other to get ideas. But I didn’t have a next move and I was only thirty-six years old. The move came out of left field, in the guise of NNI, a complete change of venue and type of people. Whatever went on behind the scenes to suggest this change, I was not in on any of it. It could have been an extensive analysis or a quick decision; I don’t know.

I am an organizational genius, a systems nerd, an innovator, a person who plays the hand dealt. While this sounds good, it is lacking in an important area. It is even difficult for me to express what that is. Is it a philosophy? Is it an over-arching goal? Is it a desire to fill a need? Is it a reluctance to make a change? Is it being overly sensitive to the feelings of those with whom I am now involved? Is it a fear at the bottom of all these questions—fear to do something else?

In a big way I am there/here again; and have been for almost ten years. The house, the life-style, the income, budget, and activities; all satisfying and the very picture of what anyone could want; then the family, the affection they show, the Acting, golf, riding, and pool, which are the core endeavors. And under that layer, 14 more endeavors and a performance evolution method that works for me. IOW, I have what I set out to get—now what? One answer is to develop the acting endeavor into a professional career, as an actor v. an agent, or director, or trainer, or techie.

I am, however, caught in a web of comfort. A good analogy is that of a sailor who, on a good boat, made it to port, through storm, tide, shifting winds, rain, and night and is now safely moored in a quiet harbor, riding calmly at a mooring with enough provisions to last indefinitely. What does he do now, just sit there?

If my past is prologue, he will weigh anchor, put up the sails and go forth without making a definite choice of destination; sail on to see what islet pops up. Perhaps a small one that allows for quickly exploring it then sailing on to somewhere else. A larger one may take more time but eventually, like now, would also be known/ explored/ understood and the same wanderlust would set in; sort of a Gulliver.

I sit here having attained an age of seventy-one, the result of all that has gone before, ready to set sail again. Perhaps acting is the destination. If it is a genuine desire, it will appear ever larger on the horizon until I anchor in the protected cove on its coast.

I don’t however feel that I have left the anchorage of where I am. I am visiting the harbor pubs, trading lies with the patrons, hearing the stories, building the desire but I haven’t shoved off as yet. An odd question, will it be a decision that is made or one that is recognized after the fact as having been made?

I realize I’ve said that I am now an actor; I could just as easily have said writer, consultant, trainer, or speaker; saying it doesn’t make it so. I’m working at the art of acting by studying, auditioning, learning lines, rehearsing, and performing; by putting myself out there to be recognized, by putting myself in target rich environments. It seems to be working, because I am working and getting paid for it, albeit little. In the longer run, I suppose we will have to revisit this whole thing in another year or so and see where is the boat.

With Whom?

An interesting observation: if I only do what is on my list and calendar, I have much unoccupied time. It is deep in the soul to be occupied, somehow. It is unsettling to sit idle and in order to avoid this feeling, one will find ways to occupy one’s time. I’m not going to list them all but they include work, hobbies of all sorts, reading, writing (such as I am doing right now), television, movies, looking out the window at traffic or just looking out the window. One of the secrets of success is to fill unoccupied time with activities that achieve s.t., things that are consistent with aim.

There is a quote in “New York, the Novel” that the author attributes to Gertrude Stein: “Give me three hours of uninterrupted time every day and I can accomplish more than the vast majority of people.” This rings true but only if one has identified what it is he/she wants to accomplish. This is the rub that I run into, and I am sure that I’m not alone. What is it that I want to accomplish right now? Aside: anyone privy to my notebooks and who’s read my blog to date knows that this question has been plaguing me for a long time. Not having clear focus on a desired end result leads to being distracted into an activity that is not focused on aim and, therefore, a waste of time.

But there is another dimension or aspect that has to be considered and that is desire. It is one thing to have a long list of things that one would accomplish if he wanted to but there is a feeling that the time right now is not right for any one of them. There may be something going on in here that keeps a persona out of the foreground and, therefore, unable to do.

There is the possibility that inertia is in play, or even momentum. These two phenomena are psychological as well as physical, as in when one gets involved in an activity and continues to pursue it well after it is appropriate to quit or when one procrastinates and doesn’t start. These are always possible diversions from working on aim. Inertia may be another word for laziness and could be caused by fatigue; but sometimes one naps and still doesn’t take the bull by the horns afterwards.

Diversion into television programs, news, weather, sports, internet searches, and puzzles for inordinate amounts of time waste lifetime. This is time lost that can never be recuperated and yet there are industries that have built up around giving people the opportunity for diversion. The key is, of course, to use diversion as a sort of recreation and not an end in itself but the purveyors of diversion will allow you to divert as much as you want. The more you divert the better their return on investment. As with the more serious addictive diversions, realization that the possibility exists for getting too deeply involved should be enough to break the pattern and replace diversion with working on aim.

My aims are along the lines of the eighteen endeavors that I have decided to follow and even these are ranked according to importance or desirability or degree of participation desired. Participation in the endeavors allows me to always have options of things to do that are in accordance with dreams, strategies, goals, and acts. The planning method I described earlier allows this homogeneity to exist and allows me to get back to work whenever I get side-tracked into areas that are not according to aim.

The selection and then association with others of like mind is an area of work that I continue to pursue. There are others, with whom I associate ad hoc, and this is good. I am wondering if there should be a place(s) where I could go to just associate in general with others. There are social networking sites that allow this but it is contrived and artificial. They tend to allow one to think he is associating when he is not. It is a virtual situation that doesn’t fulfill my needs. Others have places where they “hang out” and socialize with whoever enters. It takes time to develop such and even then it is only temporary as others drop in and out of circle.

This association thing is much bigger than occasional social contact. In a larger sense it encompasses neighborhoods, congregations, societies, even cities. When the ambience of the association is no longer desirable, people tend to disassociate and move on and attempt to find other associations that provide for their needs. On a grand scale this happens in cities and the one that comes to mind is the city of St. Louis where the population grew to more than 850 thousand people at its peak to less than 250 thousand now. It did this because the city became less than desirable to the citizens. Some, like me, moved away because there was no feeling of identity with the place, others moved to get more desirable housing, others for fear of their safety, others for fear of ever lower real estate values, others to get a feeling that they had it better in a new house and new neighborhood, others as a reaction to the general degradation of the infrastructure, and still others for reasons that are not listed here. The result is a void of more than 500 thousand people who used to live and interact socially within the city limits. The same is true of other cities, including Louisville, but astute politicians, in the true sense of the word, have moved boundaries around and taken steps to address some of the issues that cause people to relocate.

My conundrum remains, where are my non-specific social outlets, to where I can go, fit in, stay as long as I want, leave and return later without recrimination? Where there is always some familiar person, not always the same, with whom I can associate.

Who Dat?

The prospect of life after death has been invading my consciousness for the past few days. It is intriguing to say the least. When one considers that we are part and parcel with our bodies, our brains being part of the package, it is a stretch to envision existing after the body dies. And in order to give credit to the power of the brain, it will be “brain-body” in this entry.

The brain-body has capabilities that allow it to function on many levels simultaneously. For example, I ate a meal a little while ago and all the while I am doing whatever else since, my body is digesting that food and putting it to use wherever it is needed or storing it for later use, or not. More complex activities are going on as well, there is a scab knitting the skin back together over a scrape that occurred two weeks ago. It keeps getting smaller and the skin is closing over the injury, one molecule at a time. Answers to puzzles become apparent when the puzzle is re-addressed after being put down for a while. We go to a place for one reason only to encounter someone about whom we have been thinking. The list could go on infinitely.

Yet there is an entity that exists that uses the brain-body to fulfill his purpose. It may be a collection of entities but let’s not complicate this any more than it already is. This entity, for lack of a better name, can be called Master. If he exists, he could be from previous lifetimes because by our definition he exists above nature, in other words he is supernatural. (And I say he because I am a male, someone else could say she or it or whatever. I doubt if Master has a gender.)

If the purpose of Master is to eventually exist as an individual in a spiritual world, i.e. without a brain-body, then that process may take many lifetimes. During any lifetime, since the brain-body is mostly reacting to its environment, he may only have limited opportunities to pursue his purpose so he keeps coming back in new and different brain-bodies. The newly inhabited brain-body has no memory of previous lifetimes because memory is a brain-body function as is every other mental and physical process. Master, existing supernaturally, may have memory but the brain-body isn’t privy to it.

The horse and rider analogy works here. Just as a horse has memory for what he has been schooled to do and a rider knows how to put the horse through his paces to achieve an end, so too brain-body is trained to deal with his environment but Master has his own agenda and uses brain-body accordingly.

So what I decide to do today is a function of brain-body; Master allows it if it is even remotely consistent with his aim. It is like an employee who has a lot of general skills and is made a member of the organization. He is allowed to do whatever he wants within a certain set of parameters of which he may or may not be aware. As long as his actions promote the general welfare of the organization he is given scope and when they run afoul of same, he is reined in by a superior.

If and when the employee gets so far off track that he can’t be brought back, he is fired in the analogy. In the real world, when Master can no longer pursue his aim in this brain-body, he causes it to die and if he goes on with his development, at some point he inhabits a new brain-body. This habitation could take place at any time in the life of a brain-body, currently it is my opinion that it takes place at first inspiration, when the brain-body begins to function completely on its own.

The brain-body has no direct communication with Master; he is mute. Everything of which we are aware is a function of the brain-body; Master is here but not in any apparent way other than imagination. This function of the brain-body, imagination, is the bridge between the brain-body and Master; between the natural and the supernatural. The relationship is not reasonable, nor physical, nor emotional; the only clue we have to its existence is that we can imagine that it does. This could be the genesis of Faith.

The purpose of Master is mysterious; only he knows what actions taken by the brain-body will move him towards his aim. He is patient, he has eternity to achieve his aim and as long as the combination of the brain-body currently inhabited and he are making any inkling of progress, he patiently allows whatever else to go on.

There are features of the brain-body that enable it to achieve its own aims and perhaps concurrently the aim of Master. Those that come to mind now are memory, imagination, reasoning (both intuitive and logical), and decision making. Memory is the store of raw data, imagination draws upon that data and forms some possible conclusions, reasoning tests those for possible action, and decision making enable action. Experience shows us that the process is not perfect.

It must, however, be stressed that these are features of the brain-body. The memory is fed by experiences that come through the senses including observations made of circumstances and the results of actions taken from decisions made.

The features of Master are unknown; the aim of Master is unknown. A guess was made above but only a guess. There is no way that the brain-body can know the aim of Master. Glimpses can be made via imagination but there is no way of verifying them, only objective, long term observation of past actions and results there from. Even this is fraught with possible misinterpretation. The only one who knows the aim of Master is Master. If brain-body is allowed to continue its existence, Master may see hope for progress in the achievement of his aim.

Where

This may turn out to be a combination entry. There are several things on my mind: ennui—cause and effect, the disposable nature of location, change caused by focus, what choices are made and maybe a few more that I can’t think of right now.

We are staying inside most of the time, everything we need is here—food, water, exercise, access to the world, and a smidgeon of personal contact; Carola has been suffering from a bout with sinus infection and congestion but otherwise we are doing just fine. We could go out and I do whenever there is a good enough reason but on the whole I am reminded of space movies where the hero/s are self contained in a space ship and traveling through the void with all the same accouterments that we have here. The parallel is there, the space ship is this planet we are on.

Life goes on and there is a recurring theme for me; work to get somewhat good at whatever, then move on to s.t. else and start all over again from the beginning. There is a point where doing it again doesn’t increase the quality of the result enough to justify the expense of it so enthusiasm for the task is lost. This happens often and unless it is compensated by payment of some kind or another, mostly in the form of money but it can take other forms as well, such as appreciation from/by others or obligation as in meeting a responsibility, the endeavor is abandoned as ennui ensues.

I am seeing this now in “location.” We’ve been in Louisville now for 18 years and I have studied it for as long. There is history of which I am familiar, there has been a progression of improvement of which I am pleased, there are facets of it that make it a unique community and I am gaining an appreciation of them, there are personalities that make up the community, and there are factions that tend to protect personal interests instead of the common good.

This is as close to being part of a community as I have ever been. I am not a member of an organization that exists apart from the community, as I was in Newport News and Houston, or a foreigner as I was in France. As I recall Saint Louis and my time growing up there, I never considered myself a part of that community even though I very much was. It may be the transition that the population went through from close quarters in the city neighborhoods to the county in the 1960’s (and it happened again in the 1990’s to even farther out.)

I am vaguely becoming aware of the limitations of being here and can only wonder if these same limitations wouldn’t be in effect wherever I may be. Having never felt part of a community, it could be that I am just not able; comparing it to New York, Chicago, San Francisco, even Paris it could be that I want more than it can offer. I am not ready to move but the stirrings are there for an even more cosmopolitan, more sophisticated society.

The limitations may be personal v. community based and it harkens back to my seeming inability to work effectively along the second line, i.e. with others of like mind. I know this limitation exists, it is not unchangeable, and having recognized it and keeping myself aware of it, I am confident that I will make the necessary alterations to my method of operation and succeed.

There is only so much time left. If I lower my sights and become satisfied with being part of a scene here, then there is little more than attention to detail that needs doing. It is more quality of the surroundings than anything else and this may be a case of familiarity breeding discontent.

The people in charge seem to have the vision and resources to make it first class but there aren’t enough of them. Large private clubs, like Lake Forest CC, or Standard CC, and Louisville Boat Club, seem to have made the grade but they are the exception and not the rule. In NYC, Chi, SF, and Paris there are enough who have the vision to make it the rule rather than the exception.

 Aside, Lexington KY seems to have the vision for quality; I see it downtown, in the neighborhoods, in the farms, in the area in general but even with the University of Kentucky and wealthy individuals, they lack critical mass of population to make it truly cosmopolitan. This may be true of Louisville as well because the community is dissected into geographic classes and individually they too lack critical mass.

As I proceed with my acting career, I may at some point pick up and leave here and go to one of the big cities that lures me, such as Chicago, New York, or San Francisco. And you know what; I’ll be starting all over again there as a stranger to the place. It will take me four years or more there, just as it has here and Houston to get acclimated to the new environment; this can be good or not so good. I’ll keep this in mind as I go forward. Since there are only so many years left of this lifetime, I may opt to stay put and accept my surroundings, however aesthetically disappointing they may be. I quickly add that all of my needs are met here except the aesthetic.

It would seem that some of the other things on my mind will have to wait. While this doesn’t deal directly with the whole list, it points to a restlessness that seems to always be nearby; what am I doing, where am I, what could I be doing, where could I be, with whom? Once achieved, is it what I really wanted? The good call is the one that stops pursuit of the unworthy.

Welcome Back, Whither and Why

It’s been a while since I wrote an entry herein; there have been busy times in between, namely the holidays. I look back at the dates and see that after my last entry the play took a lot of time, we rehearsed or performed every night for about six weeks. That whole experience is worth an entry of its own; it was a 42nd Street-like experience.

The planning for 2011 took place during the month of December. It was allowed more time because I wanted to homogenize the dreams and truly use them for developing the strategy and goals for 2011. I now have a certain consistency in the progression of dreams from lifetime to age to present that hasn’t been evident in the past.

I also took the time to flesh out my history, adding three categories that help to describe what was going on at the time. One of these was the car(s) we had; the second was the money situation. These weren’t considered in the past because they’ve never been considered significant items and they still aren’t but they help set the stage for remembering the times past. Aside, there never seems to have been enough money to do everything in a first-class manner. The third memory jogger was the memory or highlight of the year. Granted that there may have been other, better choices made in selecting so I made the decision to go with what came to mind. I can always change it if I think it necessary.

Then with the history file brought up to par, I tackled “Dream for the Present” which became the Dream for the Present in the Performance Evolution tab entitled The Dreams. These came forward to the 2011 Planning tab, in the same workbook, and were used to determine the two main columns in the Endeavors tab, “During the Year 2011 I will_” (Strategy) and “At the End of the Year 2011 I will have_” (Plan.)

Thus I can look at where I am on each of the Endeavors every week throughout the year and be reminded of what I intended for each. This then becomes the determinant of what I will do this week to act consistently and not lose sight of the aim.

It is interesting to note that I have been doing this sort of thing since imagining it in Houston in 1985. I did it on paper and when I became proficient in Symphony, the first version of Office-type software, it was brought along and evolved into what I am using today.

An aspect of my planning efforts is work along the second line, of which I have realized the importance. Where I did it, the results came; where I didn’t the efforts fell short. One of the keys seems to be convinced enough of the efficacy of the desired goal that it can be openly discussed with the right people. Finding those people is another key. There are all sorts of people out there and all of them have motives of their own. You help me and I’ll help you.

When choosing people, I’ve often gone for the more interesting rather than the more sophisticated; the comfortable v. the challenging; those that were near v. seeking out those that would have been better.

There is another aspect that must be considered, it is what is going on in this complex being called me. We are comprised of many personae; each known in the 4th Way as “I”. It is apparent that a few of these are more prominent than others. There is one in this being, the observant I, that is prominent and active. He is an expert at after-the-fact observations of what should have/should not have been. Just like now as this blog entry is being written, he is quick to point out what was and what could be. So, he is an important influence on the shaping of the lifetime.

There are others who take action, who put the being in environments and situations where aim can be achieved; whatever that may be. Often they are cognizant enough to see where an opportunity may exist and then put the being in circumstances where he can take advantage of it. This happens a lot on minor aims as well as major. It is only after the fact that the observing one sees that it has taken place.

A pitfall is the timing of the observing one being in control. When he interferes with an acting one it leads to less than satisfactory results; often to mistakes, false steps, errors, wasted efforts, and disappointment. The challenge is to keep this one in his proper role and allow the others to achieve the aim for which they are striving. The elaborate planning method used/described here allows the observing one to articulate what is desired by the others and then stay out of the way as life goes on. The extant plan is the result of much iteration over time as each of the acting ones make their objectives known.

There is value in the process of articulating dreams, devising strategies, making plans, defining tasks, and accomplishing them. It maintains a certain focus that allows the observing one to step back and stay out of the way of the performers. If the dreams do not truthfully represent the desired results for this lifetime, the performers will still do what they must to achieve their particular aims. The observing one will wring his hands and fret over the lack of results but those results weren’t meant to be. Sort of like a body politic where the president/ leader doesn’t really speak for the people.

So there are two life strategies; one is to let it happen because it will anyway, and the other is to be involved on as many levels as possible as it happens. My choice, as the observing one in this being, is the second because it is more fun and there is a feeling of participation in the big picture.

Gettin' It Done

What does one do when everything is done? One has to go out and find some more to do. It is as easy as that and as difficult as that.

There are those who will go out and get overly committed only to bemoan the fact that they are too busy. There are those who will sit by and watch TV only to bemoan the fact that they are either bored or are suddenly aware that they have wasted a lot of time.

But then, isn’t it all a waste of time unless one is changing his or another’s state of being including fortune? If one gives it thought, it can be seen that if there isn’t a changed state of some kind then nothing has happened and time has been wasted or at least spent unproductively. Reading books, watching performances, observing others move about is not necessarily unproductive but ranks low on the productivity ladder. It’s been the subject of past writing that there is a big difference between talking a good game and playing a good game. There are actors and directors; writers and readers; performers and audiences; players and spectators; chefs and diners.

The amount of time that has to be invested in learning technique has been underestimated by me until now. I had the opinion that a little learning and then a little practice was all that was necessary—wrong. The holy grail of doing is confidence. Confidence can only be gained through acquiring the skill through research, practice, rehearsal, and reinforcement. Research of primary and secondary sources, practice of basic skills until perfected, rehearsal at ever increasing levels of exposure until, “There it is, Irvine Crane has completed a run of 150 in billiards.” A feat not repeated very often in history. At age 26 he set a record of 309 balls.

Some of the remarkable performances are due to natural ability, or abilities that were nurtured in the early youth. When one is seventy-one, becoming proficient at any technique is difficult.

I’ve been considering my plans for 2011 and keep going back to the model of articulating the dream and then adopting a strategy and setting goals for the year. All the while fully understanding that fulfillment of the dream could accelerate and that planning of the kind I do may even prevent recognizing that a breakthrough either has or could occur without a plan.

On the one hand I fear that my dreams aren’t big enough; on the other I fear that they are unrealistic expectations. The truth is somewhere in between. The secret is developing confidence to successfully perform the action. This is the aim of practice and rehearsal, developing confidence through repetition, confidence that allows one to reach levels of performance that were not anticipated during rehearsal.

One essential ingredient is discipline. The ability to take up the task, whatever it may be, and work for its completion. There is a creeping laziness that develops with a few extra minutes in the sack, another puzzle, or succumbing to TV, internet searches, or any other activity that is not endeavor oriented. And, I’m finding out, that going to bed at an appropriate time would allow one to get up in the morning. Getting up a little later leads to retiring later and the cycle continues to expand to later and later. It is so easy to let it happen. Just when I thought I was getting to discipline, I find that I’m not. So, once again the old horse has to be made to pay attention to trends and developments and get back on the ball.

This is an example of a 4th Way tenet; there is a tendency to do X but a need to do Y in order to accomplish aim. Only the detached “I” can see what is happening and make the decisions necessary to get the being back on track. He is like the trainer, coach, or manager who knows the desired end result and keeps the horse, team, or work group on track to accomplish same.

The ingredients are Dreams, defined and refined into things to do, and Discipline to do it/them. For me now it means getting up in the morning and performing the tasks necessary to push the dream forward. The Performance Evolution file keeps me on track from a what to do point of view but there is definitely a laziness that is creeping into the behavior of the being, known in the 4th Way as being in Tramp. The Good Householder or Steward will see that this is happening and take steps to rectify the situation. In this case the action step is to get to bed before midnight and get up before eight in the morning; then pick tasks and do them.

After getting up, inertia and momentum are getting in the way. Inertia is defined as the tendency for a body to remain at rest and momentum tendency it to remain in motion. The inertia is experienced in getting started on a task; momentum is when having started same, failing to stop when the task is sufficiently accomplished. All too often one will delay, defer, dally in the commencement of a task only to find that once started the task has taken over and continues after it is essentially finished.

This leads me to the next essential activity; working along the second line. This is always seems to be difficult for me. I am in an environment comprised of actors and creative people in the IAWL production rehearsals and I’m only now beginning to exploit that for information about how to expand my acting opportunities. I think I am only now getting over the feeling of inadequacy that I’ve experienced from the start of rehearsals. Well, I’m getting there but it is taking a long time.

Confidence is an elusive beast for me; it’s like getting on a horse that doesn’t want a rider. Once I’m up, he’s fine but he’ll dance around in circles before finally allowing me to get up.