Part Two: Integrity Loss and Recovery
sacrifice, the force of commitment, the good fight
© 2005 Antero Alli (updated 3/6/10)
We speak of “making real connection with others". How is this possible ? The experience of making real connections with others can elude us without an internal resonance with what is "real" for us. Without this internal resonance no real connection may be possible with others. When we are cut off from what makes life real for us, our thirst for reality can be so strong as to simulate its own mirages, delusions and fantasies of reality to sustain us and our links with others and with the world. To persist, these illusions of reality may require complicated internal justifications and nonstop external confirmations from those who buy into our delusions (also see Paratheatre and self-delusion) and from those who never disagree with us -- the ever-present Cheerleading Squad of Yes Men and Yes Women.
What is real ? To silently know what is real may not be enough if we can not commit to acting on what is real. Think of commitment as a force, an energy to be developed, applied, and directed. As with accessing and developing any innate force, the first step begins with the self. The force of self-commitment can be increased as we legitimatize our direct firsthand experience as a primary source of authority, integrity, autonomy -- how we come to know the nature and truth about anything. Self-commitment requires a kind of internal dependence on our own sources of discovery, experience, and knowledge to establish our integrity as individuals. Once this self-commitment has stabilized within us, we are more free to interact with others from a place of greater integrity and less self-betrayal.
SACRIFICE AND THE FORCE OF COMMITMENT
To sacrifice means to "make sacred", to give away and offer up something we have grown attached to, or has given us much comfort and/or has become near and dear to our hearts. Any act of real sacrifice accomplishes three things: 1) the creation and expansion of internal space 2) the molting of previous notions of the sacred and 3) the release of psychic forces (invested in what was previously cherished) towards a more direct sense of the sacred.
A culture's sacrifical rituals enact whatever must be released, offered and/or given away for that culture's traditions to persist and survive. What needs releasing for any tradition to survive ? Whatever is killing that tradition and/or devitalizing its originating culture. Without ongoing conscious enactments of ritual offerings and sacrifices, any culture can die a slow death where its once vital rituals calcify into dead routines. Bali, one of the world's oldest originating cultures, has kept its traditions alive for centuries by its deep and undying commitment to daily ritual offerings and sacrifices. On a more personal level, whatever diminishes our capacity for self-commitment may probably be the very thing that needs sacrificing. (Also read "A Human Sacrifice" by Matt Mitler, director of Theatre Dzieci).
Often times the so-called cherished thing released through sacrifice turns out to be the very thing holding us back and/or draining us of the power to grow and transform. Whether this is a cherished addiction to self-indulgent behavior (laziness, vanity, procrastination) or an emotional habit of engaging half-baked relationships, or the empirical skepticism that refuses to commit fully to anything except empirical skepticism...whatever decreases the force of our commitment results in integrity loss.
Any process that effectively increases the heat and force of commitment, posits integrity an absolute value. In other words, our integrity only exists where we are willing and able to commit 100 per cent. If there is any place in your life -- no matter how small or seemingly inconsequential -- where you can say, "I can stand behind this 100%", that place expresses your integrity. If this 100% notion seems extreme, consider the consequences of not knowing where you can hold your ground without wavering. In this way integrity-building becomes an all or nothing process that requires the full force of our commitment. Once we have discovered that area in our lives where we can stand behind 100% without wavering, that very force of commitment can be accessed and directed to other areas suffering from integrity loss.
Integrity loss is not entirely a personal issue; it is not entirely our fault that we lack the power of follow-through. We live in extreme times. Integrity loss also expresses a cultural casualty of anyone struggling to survive in a hyper-materialistic, consumer-driven, death-ignorant society suffering massive spiritual bankruptcy. The spiritual damage we endure can become a burden we carry for the culture. Though this is not a personal burden, some of us carry the culture's impersonal burden as a personal cause. Others reject this impersonal cultural burden of suffering. Those who drop the impersonal burden of cultural suffering do not become free of suffering. They become free of the impersonal culture of suffering that de-personalizes its populace. When you have accessed the honest burden of your own pain, it becomes unnecessary to take on the tragedy of the world. More to the point, the transformation of our own suffering can help us endure the tragedy of the world. The compassion earned for ourselves is the compassion we are able to show others.
Many of us have lost a sense of what is truly personal to ourselves. To restore this sense of the personal, a certain kind of suffering must be faced, lived through, and transformed. This particular suffering involves the exposure and acceptance of one's own existential circumstances -- the actual existing conditions of our lives. Not the life we wanted or believed we should or could have had, if only things were different. An important distinction must be made between meaningless suffering and meaningful suffering. Not all suffering is equal in value. Meaningless suffering begets more meaningless suffering that goes nowhere beyond the pit of self-pity and the morbid loathing of everything representing freedom, happiness, and creativity. Meaningful suffering exposes the ego to the frustrations of immediate gratification, our delusions of false entitlement, our hyped up superhero self-images, and too many impossible expectations for ourselves. This kind of exposure of oneself to oneself renders our suffering meaningful by delivering insight, revelation, and restoration of integrity.
"The purpose of life, and of Art, is to be defeated by greater and greater things."
Rainer Maria Rilke
We must look to where our integrity is already intact, that place -- no matter how small or seemingly insignificant -- where we can stand behind something one hundred per cent with our whole being -- no ambivalence, hesitation or wavering. What feeds the being ? The being is fed whenever and wherever you can hold this position of total commitment. The being does not care what you commit to as long you commit all the way. Integrity loss is like losing bits and pieces of your soul and since “soul“ eludes definition, we are wise not to delude ourselves into thinking we can just call it back like some obedient pet dog. It seems to me that soul is more like a wild bird that lights and leaves with the wind; we do not control it. We do not have a soul as much as a soul has us...
If you cannot find such a place in your life where you can stand 100% behind something -- whether it be an idea, or a person or a principle or a meaningful image or a cause -- keep searching. This search has a payoff -- not all searches end with payoffs. If you no longer care, neither does the emotional plague that feeds on any body/mind fissure. If you have lost heart, don’t be the last to know. There can be no real transformation without heart and no real life without the development of soul.
THE GOOD FIGHT
“Heart and soul” has nothing to do with anything hippy-dippy new age, or any other pretty passivism. The heart wants to know what it is fighting for. We are a warring species with deeply ingrained fighting instincts. Fighting is not stupid. Not knowing what you're fighting for is stupid. If you do not know what is worth fighting for you will end up fighting against anything that rubs your meaningless ego the wrong way. What is worth fighting for ? Are you secretly fighting for your family ? Your mother ? Are you fighting for your own survival ? Your sanity ? For God ? When you discover what is actually worth fighting for, you won't waste your time fighting against anything anymore. When the personal will aligns with a purpose worth fighting for, the heart is happy to follow and love reigns triumphant.
MANIFESTO LINKS
Part One: Orientation
culture, paratheatre, emotional plague
Part Three: The Performer/Audience Romance
talent and skill, the total act, the No-Form technique
Part Four: Part Four: Self-Observation and Ego
figuring out ego, from being to playing, 3 stages of paratheatre work
Part Five: Double Vision
on the first and second attentions
Part Six: Self-initiation
on the bridge between worlds, what drains the power of dreaming
Part Seven: A Cultural Overview
the war in heaven, a society gone mad, and a whole lot of heart
