Acting and Writing: It and Not It

In his book Being Peace, Thich Nhat Hanh explains how a thing is not so much what it is but what it isn't. Take a piece of paper. It is made up of a tree, and rain that fed the tree, the clouds the rain fell from, the logger who cut down the tree, the food the logger ate, and on and on. When we look at a sheet of paper, we see everything. But none of it is the piece of paper, but without all that the paper is not, there would be no piece of paper.

This Buddhist way of looking at reality informs my teaching of writing. I try to help my students see that what they do when they are not writing is what makes them writers. Do they read? Are they awake to the world around them? Do they get good sleep? Are they curious? On and on. None of these things is actually writing, but without reading and being awake and getting good sleep and curiosity, there would be no writing.

Similarly, the non-acting elements of acting are what make actors.

In my involvement with the theater, I've seen actors' performances suffer because they treat acting as only what they do when on the stage. They don't understand that whatever they are doing when not acting affects their acting.

The examples are obvious. Sleep affects acting. Getting drunk affects acting. Actors need to be sharp and sleep deprivation and intoxication dull an actors' sensibilities and their gestures and movements. I wish I could see one performance of the plays I've been in when each actor came to perform and had not been drunk the night before or had not stayed up late partying or even playing video games.

This came to mind because a very troubled man was playing a role in the Sixth Street Melodrama's production of "Nightmare at Dream Gulch...or Wake Me When It's Over". Now, while technically he did good work in his role, I watched him, not knowing the trouble in his life, and could tell his performance had a bitterness to it; I experienced him as a dark cloud or even a black hole in the cast.

A couple of weekends ago, he ran afoul with the law and was put in jail and had to be replaced in the play.

I saw the play today with the new actor playing his role. The whole performance was better, despite the fact that the new person didn't have the talent the troubled actor did. The cast's energy was freer. The show had a lighter feel and the cast seemed much more relaxed. They seemed more trusting of each other. The new actor did not bring the brooding elements of her non-acting self to her acting or to the play.

It wasn't the troubled actor's acting that was hurting the play. It was the non-acting elements of his life, which, ultimately can't be separated from his acting.

Often the Buddhist idea of everything is connected is scoffed at as a weird idea that teaches a kind of false and dreamy harmony.

It doesn't teach that at all. It teaches, in fact, that one of the most difficult and demanding elements of life is our connectedness with each other and with the world of nature and with inanimate things.

It's a philosophy of consequences. We just cannot do what we do and expect it to be isolated from others. Everything affects everything else.

Studying and learning more about the it/not it reality of life has heightened my moral sense. It's also sharpened my writing and my acting. It has helped me understand myself as a steward of my life as a teacher. What I do when I'm not teaching deeply informs my work as a teacher.

I'm always writing. I'm always acting. I'm always teaching.

Even when I'm not.