Conversations For Transformation: Essays Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

Conversations For Transformation

Essays By Laurence Platt

Inspired By The Ideas Of Werner Erhard

And More

An Actor Playing The Lead Role In A Play Called "My Life" II

Muir Beach, California, USA

August 10, 2012

"I want you to shift your perspective from living your life, to being an actor playing the lead role in a play called 'Your Life'." ...

This essay, An Actor Playing The Lead Role In A Play Called "My Life" II, is the companion piece to

in that order.

It is also the tenth in an open group inspired by Landmark Programs:

It was conceived at the same time as An Actor Playing The Lead Role In A Play Called "My Life".

Conversations For Transformation receives its six hundred and fifty thousandth view with the publishing of An Actor Playing The Lead Role In A Play Called "My Life" II.

I am indebted to Sanford "Sandy" Robbins who inspired this conversation, and to Werner Erhard and Sanford "Sandy" Robbins who created and lead The World Is Your Stage workshop in which they first originated, distinguished, and articulated the ideas drawn on by An Actor Playing The Lead Role In A Play Called "My Life" II.

The World Is Your Stage workshop is presented by Landmark Worldwide.

Being with, watching, listening, and interacting and participating with Werner Erhard and Sanford "Sandy" Robbins and the other coaches on their team delivering The World Is Your Stage workshop is, quite literally, an eye opening, life altering experience, a contextual shift.

Like any course Werner delivers (in this case, co-delivers), this workshop doesn't focus on imparting new knowledge of the world as my stage. Of course, it invariably does impart some new knowledge. But that's not its raison d'etre. Neither does it impart new understanding of the world as my stage. Of course, it also invariably does impart some new understanding. But that's not its raison d'etre either.

<aside>

In any case, isn't it obvious by now understanding is the booby prize?

<un-aside>

Rather, this workshop leaves me experiencing the world as my stage. Another way of saying this is this workshop leaves me being "the world is my stage".

Secondarily this workshop delivers tools, potent tools, for acting. It is, after all, touted as "the workshop where being meets acting". Primarily it leaves me with (which is to say, it gives me) the experience of being an actor playing the lead role in a play called "My Life".

In this conversation I'd like to explore fuller and further what this is ie what opens up for me being an actor playing the lead role in a play called "My Life", a theme I started fleshing out in an earlier essay in this Conversations For Transformation internet series titled An Actor Playing The Lead Role In A Play Called "My Life", the companion piece to this essay.

The Role Of "Laurence" In A Play Called "My Life"

There are various relationships I can have with my life. Each of these possible relationships I can have with my life are a result of the way I am about my life - in particular, a result of the way I regard my life. Soon I'll say "recontextualize my life", rather than "regard my life". But for now, to say the possible relationships I can have with my life are a result of the way I "regard" my life, is good enough for jazz.

I have one kind of relationship with my life when I regard my life as simply to be lived. By this I mean when I'm only surviving, when I'm merely existing, when I'm just getting by, when I'm generating very little.

I have a completely different relationship with my life when I regard my life as a play.

<aside>

For this analogy of my life as a play, it's actually immaterial who wrote the script for the play of my life.

In another conversation, to make a point, yes I would assert I wrote the script for the play of my life. But that's not the point in this essay. In this essay the point is simply that, should I choose to do so, I can regard my life as a play in which I can take on playing the lead role.

<un-aside>

And I have yet another relationship with my life when I become an actor in the play, particularly when I become an actor in the play about my life (and let's call this play about my life - appropriately - "My Life"). Specifically, when I become an actor in the play about my life called "My Life", I play myself ie I play the role of "Laurence", the lead role. It's when I'm an actor in the play called "My Life" and I play the lead role of "Laurence", that a rich, new perspective becomes available - in fact, a whole new possibility for being becomes available, which is this:

An actor creates the role he's playing. Creativity's the essence of what an actor does. When I'm merely surviving, when I'm merely existing, when I'm just getting by, when I'm generating very little, there's no creativity. And the thing is, for the most part, when there's no creativity in my life, then there's no fulfillment in it and there's no satisfaction in it.

<aside>

I don't have a reason, I don't have an answer to why there's no fulfillment in my life and there's no satisfaction in it either when there's no creativity in it. This just seems to be the way it is.

<un-aside>

The mere act of shifting living my life from surviving, from existing, from getting by, from generating very little, to recontextualizing (I love that word) living my life as playing the role of "Laurence" in a play called "My Life" (in other words, to being an actor playing the lead role in a play called "My Life"), is the access to living my life creatively in fulfillment and satisfaction.

It's more than that actually. It's the word "play" in "being an actor play-ing the lead role in a play called 'My Life'" clearly carries a dramatic association. I'd also like to consider an association even more immediate - if not less obvious. It's this: the word "play" in "being an actor play-ing the lead role in a play called 'My Life'" also carries a playful association. Being an actor playing the lead role in a play called "My Life" is playful. When my life, along with everything in it and everything it's about, gets playful, when it lightens up, who doesn't want that? I certainty do ...

Living my life like surviving, is one thing. And if I don't stay awake to my life, surviving it can become significant and heavy ... at least some of the time. Playing the role of "Laurence" in a play called "My Life", on the other hand, is creative. It's playful. It's light. It's fulfilling and satisfying ... all the time.

Curtain Call ... And Encore

Wherever and whenever there's a contextual shift, there's transformation. So where's the contextual shift in being an actor playing the lead role in a play called "My Life"?

Living my life as an actor playing the lead role in a play called "My Life" recontextualizes what it is to live my life: from only surviving, from merely existing, from just getting by, from generating very little, to living my life as a creation, as a play - both dramatic as well as playful.

The thing here is it's not only that this hones my acting skills. It's that when I'm an an actor playing the lead role in a play called "My Life", then of necessity I must bring who I really am forth into the world - indeed, of necessity I must bring who I really am forth for the world. When I bring who I really am forth for the world on the world's front and center stage so I'm fully present as I act the role of "Laurence", the lead role in the play called "My Life", then my life is fulfilling and satisfying.

And why is acting / living this way fulfilling and satisfying? Simply because such is the nature of being human, yes?

<aside>

There! I finally figured it out! ...

<un-aside>

Being an actor playing the lead role in a play called "My Life" is Werner Erhard and Sanford "Sandy" Robbins brilliantly distinguished and clearly articulated access to this.

Communication Promise

E-Mail | Home

Permission