Reading Finite and Infinite Games by Carse.
Came across this reference to George Bernard Shaw…
“… that we are not to see this woman as Ophelia, but Ophelia as this woman.” I found that idea, of the self subsumed into the role, a marvelous analogy of so many of our live’s phases and experiences. So many times we are neophytes, novices, newby’s. Even when the procession or progression is completely natural, even compulsory, we still find ourselves outside of ourselves all the time. Outside of our known place, our known roles, our known scripts. Worse yet, it seems to me, is to stick to a role or script long after it has passed away in time or in function.
I went to speak w. Roxanne about her developing body of work – she calls it Mother – and questioned her on how she sees that statement from within her perspective … did she see herself as “Self as mother” or “Mother as self”? After a few moments of talking she came back with, “there are some things you can’t undo. Once you are a mother you will always be a mother.”
Of course. This is undeniably so. It is a strong statement, affirming the passage of life, the formation of identity, the weaving of the story which we call the self, the arrow of time.
Even while I might argue that you are not your story, there are things that reach within us deeper than stories. Biology being one of those things. The biological legacy of having offspring is irreversible. Come to speak of it – there are lots of irreversible thresholds that once passed cannot be undone. They become statements of fact. While there are many irreversible experiences, and while most of them do not necessarily have to define us as a person, especially if those definitions leave us lessened or harmed. This is the entry point for Byron Katie’s work, Loving What Is.
Her statement immediately sent me scurrying for a reference to one of Robert Heinecken‘s, He Said, She Said, works.
She: Do you like being referred to as an artist?
He: Yes.
She: Do you like having to be an artist all the time?
He: Less.
She: Is there such a thing as an ex-artist?
He: Unfortunately, no.
I went on to try to find the root of Carse’s quotation, or attribution to Shaw, and in that effort came upon an article by John A Mills, published 1970, titled Acting is Being: Bernard Shaw on the Art of the Actor. Mills traces Shaw’s thought on the art of actors through his voluminous correspondence and critic of theater performances.
I did not find a quote of Shaw referencing Ophelia, but much more and more lucidly stated, on the work of embodiment. Shaw writes of the necessity of the actor to integrate in themselves the persona being portrayed, and like Carse’s quote implies, allowing the self to be transfigured into the role. Shaw is quoted several times as decrying actors acting in their roles as “amateur”. Here is Mills quoting Shaw:
In the quote, Shaw dismisses the possibility that technical prowess alone is sufficient to render a forceful and moving performance. Wonderfully, Shaw states that once you have embodied the right frame of mind, that your truthful and authentic point of view will compel you to find the right tools as the vehicles of your expression, without contrivance, “as a bird finds worms”.
This quote struck me as deeply poetic, and true. To enter into something new with your heart bared, and your reservations left behind like so much baggage at the terminal of last departure, is the fastest way to transform into what your destination needs of you.
And what of that destination? What is it? Where is it? Where and what are you? May it not be true that a great deal of what you consider yourself to be is the baggage that you carry from place to place in the false belief that without it you won’t be seen, you won’t be recognized as having status, or having earned the right to perform in some function?
I am saying neither that all of our self is to be discarded like yesterday’s fashion (although, more may be so than we’d easily or willingly accept), nor that accreditation and earning your way is not a necessary function of certain roles. Would you accept a neurosurgeon as your barber, or vise versa?
I am humbled by the lesson, so clearly stated by Shaw. That in so many of life’s interminable transitions, as we move from there to here, from that to this, and as we shift in proportion between awareness of the physical and the metaphysical, that each of those transitions presents a problem of performance. That that problem is best encountered by surrendering to your prior self “being eaten” by the process, and gaining technical prowess.
While you may become what you are becoming by bringing yourself to life inside that new skin, if you lack the tools of the role, you are just a poor version of that thing: if a leader, you would be a poor leader, if a parent, you would be a poor parent, if a partner, a poor partner. These aren’t meant to be so much personal attacks on a person’s right to be any role they wish to take on, but rather the recognition that in each role there exists a body of knowledge that constitutes the wise and able expression of the techniques the role commands – and there are lesser executions as well. A carpenter that does not know various kinds of wood, or when to use screws versus nails, would not suit to build a home, no matter what she or he may call themselves.
Resistance to the inevitable changes in life, like resting on past roles and scripts, inevitably leads to crippling the person and leaving them unprepared to play the roles they are compelled to play by the passage of time and the requisite growth of being. Passage should be equal to maturation, if we can accept the lessons that we are given, if we have the courage to continuously fall forward into our roles and leave behind old skins. Ideally, this process goes on until finally, all the skins of a lifetime are shed.
At left, Robert Heinecken, “Residual Reality”, a salt shaker with the artist’s cremated remains.
Indeed, no such thing as an ‘ex-artist’. At least not for Heinecken.
Blessed are we, who can learn from those who’ve gone before having the grace and presence to leave markers in the sands of time for us to find our way.