More on the "Here and Now"

Today I’m trying to further develop the idea of “here and now” meaning being fully engaged in the moment… there’s only one aspect of our being that we are capable of controlling always, except for unusual circumstances, and that is our actions. I can decide and execute any action to take any actions under any circumstances even if that action doesn’t match what I feel or what I think or even my moral guidelines. I can just decide to do it and do it.

Conversely, we know that our thoughts and emotions are independent of our decisions. In other words, my thoughts don’t ask me permission to take a particular path. I could say to myself that I don’t want to have bad thoughts today – bad, sad, angry – but my thought would go there anyway. Yes I could stop myself thinking in any given moment if I don’t like it. And say to myself, “Stop, let’s think of something else.” And if I’m really good maybe I will be able to think about something else, but would the negative thoughts find a way to spring out again? You guess……

In other words we never fully control our thoughts and so it goes to our emotions, but our actions (including speech) are always under our control. There are rare exceptions such as moments caused by intoxication or severe trauma. Therefore our actions are the most reliable functioning that we have. Furthermore by controlling my actions I can navigate my emotions and in turn my thoughts.

The best example for this is the principle difference in philosophy between British and American stage acting. The American method, “The Method,” suggests that in order for an actor to have the appropriate feels for a particular scene he has to connect to something that made him feel similarly in the past. If it’s a sad emotion, he is to connect to something sad that happened to him in his life and he will (hopefully) display the emotion. The British acting method (which is much more reliable) suggests that you just have to display actions that are connected to this kind of feeling and by simply displaying the action the appropriate emotion will be conjured up.

In other words, the British philosophy is “just do it” if you need to be angry, just start screaming and cursing and the emotion will follow whereas the American method relies on a process for conjuring up the right emotion that is highly psychological and may not be dependable.

This reminds me of a well-known acting story concerning the filming of the movie, The Marathon Man, in which the two methods came to a clash. Sir Laurence Olivier, representing the British acting method, and young Dustin Hoffman, representing the American method, were in the same scene. Justin Hoffman (playing the Marathon Man) insisted on taking a couple of blocks jog before every time they were to shoot the scene to get into the point of huffing and puffing and sweating so he would show fear and despair. After a few rounds of the entire cast and crew was waiting for him to do his thing Sir Laurence Olivier commented to Dustin Hoffman, “Young lad, have you ever considered acting?”

If we are to understand it in terms of “acting in life” it is possible to “just do it” since we control our actions and “the doing” will conjure up the appropriate emotion and thinking. And vice versa, the inappropriate actions will conjure up more of the inappropriate emotions.

Our Sages tells us that we’re not allowed to be angry and we should always be happy. How dare they tell us how to feel! Isn’t that supposed to be a personal thing, how I feel?! The answer is yes it is personal, but could be under your control.

In other words positive actions and speech is likely to conjure up positive feelings and thoughts and vice versa… negative actions or actions that we take against our own morals will conjure up depressive and negative feelings and thoughts.