Good Habits

Having looked the past in the eye, having asked for forgiveness and having made amends, let us shut the door on the past - not in order to forget it but in order not to allow it to imprison us.

Desmond Tutu
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Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once write something about the mind being like a room and that one should put into it only the furniture and other things one wants and everything that doesn't belong there should be thrown out.

We all have regrets. The older you get the more of them you have. They accompany wrinkles and gray hair like an entourage, nasty folks who weren't invited to your party but came anyway. Recently I was talking with a woman who was feeling very down because she had been remembering her past mistakes and bad things that had been done to her. She said she kept going through her mind trying to imagine what she could have done to avoid them. I told her to stop it. I told her to look forward, not back. I said don't rehearse a show that's closed.

Earlier this year I wrote about the modern Kabbalist who likened the mind to a radio that only plays two stations. On one station you can hear only good news and on the other only bad news. When you aren't alert the radio will automatically switch over to the bad news station. One has to keep switching back to the first station or the mind will give bad news to you all the time. It takes mental discipline to keep focused on only what you want in your mental room.

The past is hard to forget. Regrets pop into the mind without warning. A word, an event, a picture, something triggers a memory and zap! there you are reliving some scene you wish hadn't happened. Something has imprisoned you, locked you up in the wrong room. But fortunately you've a choice, it's called Freedom of Thought. It isn't hard. It just has to be exercised and used. It's easier than losing weight and much easier than giving up cigarettes, take it from me.

As an actor I found it was vitally important in order to clearly and faithfully portray the character that I was always concentrating on what he was thinking. Thus I developed an alarm that would go off whenever my thoughts were wandering into erroneous paths. The silent alarm would go off in my head and a voice would say "What are you thinking about?" Now I find the same alarm in my daily life. It's a habit. A good one.

DB - The Vagabond
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SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)

Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?

Only 7 responses so far.

dbdacoba@aol.com

Thank you.
DB
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Dangerous Degradation 5/31/09

Mediocrity knows nothing higher than itself, but talent instantly recognizes genius.

Arthur Conan Doyle
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I beseech thee, join me.
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One of the worst forms of imprisonment, in my opinion, is to be stuck in surroundings that offer nothing but old, worn out, inane and recycled ways of thinking. We that live all deserve to be always in the presence of inspiration, curiosoty and appreciation of the best. Why aren't we?

The typhoons of life rock the boat so severely that the desperate wish is to be calm in the water. That's normal. And it's a great relief when the storm is over. That's when the trouble starts. Rather than risk another storm we put into a safe harbor and stay there, never venturing out to taste the joys of the journey. Not facing and surviving the storms of life we have no idea what we are capable of. Not using the opportunities we can be given we never express our own talents to ourselves. The talents get buried under the ground like pathetic seeds and what grows out is mediocrity.

One of my art teachers, Marshall Glazier, an inspiring and humorous old curmudgeon, came into class one day and said "What's the difference between talent and genius?" A few people offered various opinions and Glazier finally said "Alright I'll tell you so that you'll know. A man of talent does what he can. A genius does what he MUST." Someone said "That's very good." Glazier said "You think that's good? I got it out of a fortune cookie."

I'm no genius, but I am a man of talent (at least that's what they paid me for for 50 years). It's a dangerous and scary thing to live off of your talent, but it is much more dangerous not to. Because I was out there in the storm I did recognize genius when I saw it. I even had the chance to work close to it a few times. If you do that once or twice you begin to recognize the spider web of mediocrity that you can get tangled up in if you're not careful.

"How you gonna' keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paris?" goes the old song. Dig up your talent if you buried it somewhere, use it, even if it's just a simple gift for crafting something and as soon as you see that it pleases people and moves you, you will start thinking about how to do it better or what to do next, you will be noticing how the geniuses do it, and part time or full time, congratulations, you're an artist and there is nothing mediocre about you.

Even if your talents lie in other non-artistic directions, the same rules apply. Trade in the old safe but worn out ideas about yourself and go for some risky rewards.

DB
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Make it a happy day for somebody.
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