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“I don’t sing because I am happy, I am happy because I sing.” -William James

An article in the science section of the New York Times several weeks ago counseled the newly unemployed to spend their days as if they were going to work even if they had nowhere to go.  The article suggested that these recent victims of the economic downturn should dress up, leave the house and spend time actively, even if this meant sitting in a local Starbucks searching for work online.  In order to move into the next phase of their lives, the key is not to act unemployed.  I am intrigued with this advice.  I am interested in our responsibility to choose both thought and action in challenging times.  This begins with inner choices and then follows towards outer choices.  The inner choice is what we choose to pay attention to.   The outer choice is about what to do, what action to take.

What we pay attention to creates our experience of the world and this experience, in turn, determines who we become.  You see what you look for. We are always surrounded by a myriad of stimuli and information.  Any given moment presents a great deal to chose from, multiple aspects of the world vying for our attention.  Using the tool of our attention, we hone in on what is useful in the present moment. We have to because we cannot take everything in.  Without limiting our attention, we would be afflicted by an overwhelming information overload.  This is why each person experiences the same situation in vastly different ways; we each pay attention to different aspects of the world around us.  Our attention can be habitual or scattered but it is possible to guide attention consciously via the brain’s executive function: the frontal cortex.  Without consciously guiding attention, we are victim to our habitual perceptions of the world.  Via habit, for example, we may zone in on the defeatist negative attractions around us, our sense of failure and ineptitude that multiplies and then becomes our reality. But, on the other hand, we can train ourselves to attend to the beautiful things waiting to be noticed. We can become curious and push the perceptions outward towards the surrounding world and society. We can see the miracle of life around us. We can be altered and saved by the situation in which we find ourselves.

And then, from the perception of our surroundings, we act.  We become ambulatory shapes in time and space.  We walk into a room with a particular posture and wearing certain clothes.  We make, as well as receive, impressions. We are all burdened by our upbringing, by the tragic events of our lives and even by the way it seems that people perceive us but nonetheless we can, to a certain extent, choose how we inhabit time and space.  We make an impression upon others as we walk into a room.  Our size, skin color and the timbre of our voice are all perhaps prescribed.  But on the other hand we choose the posture and tempo of our entrance as well as the clothes we wear.  We make an impression by what we are paying attention to and what we are attempting in the moment, what and to whom we are connecting.

SITI Company member Leon Ingulsrud told me recently how he succeeded in getting hired to direct a play in Ireland with actress Olwen Fouéré who chose him, she said, because during the interview he was already acting like the director of the production.

Act like the person you want to be.  Is it possible to begin to feel successful by acting successful?  When you relate to others in ways that you want to be treated, the physiological effect is chemical and real.  The nervous system interacts with the immune system and can benefit a great deal in terms of health and wellbeing. How we conceive of ourselves in the world helps to determine how others conceive of us.  This particular cultivated frame of reference influences how we relate to one another.

I would like to propose the verb “to model.”  Can we model, indeed can we be a model, can we “re-model” our conceptions and actions in the world?  To model, a conscious awareness of our habitual patterns and a conscious re-framing is necessary.  Modeling demands that we choose a way we want to be and then endeavor to act that way.