in light

Before all these acting classes, I had always thought of myself as a pretty moderate person when it came to emotions. I tried to keep them under control, for better or worse. I thought I was different from those who lash out, those who say “I’m in love” two weeks into a relationship, those who need to lean heavily and often on others because they can’t handle life on their own.

I am not different.

I have to admit, it’s hard going to class every day and hearing “Where are you today? Tell us how you’re feeling. How do you as the character want to respond to that?” We become so self-aware, it can become hindering in every day life. We’re taught to be hyper-aware of what’s going on in our bodies and emotions so that, hopefully, we’ll be able to give convincing, unpredictable performances. But in life it’s important to turn that awareness off sometimes, even if it’s just to get homework done.

Moderation in passions must be a good thing. To know what to be passionate about, and to allow it to fly full blown into the world, I say that is good. But to be randomly passionate, to respond to every tickling of my spirit with a cry, can not be good for myself, as I will lose a sense of self-control and priorities, and because one of the heart’s deepest cries is to be understood, and how can anyone attempt to – and why would anyone care to - understand a heart full of meaningless passions? Which certainly must be a contradiction; I’ve always thought of a passion as something of a noble thing, so to have one or many that are meaningless must mean they are no longer passions. They must have become self-indulgent. The kind of passion I want is focused on the outside world, toward an art or a person or idea. The wild emotion I speak of is focused entirely on self. And it can not be good for the world around me, for how can anything that’s in the habit of imploding possibly be of any use to anything outside itself?

But aside from all that thought, it is so beautiful outside, the air must be porcelain, and the trees made of fine glass and woven silk… I wish you could see it.