L U N A T A L K with Eva Moon

Electrifying Heights

June 3, 2007 on 8:35 am | In General Musing |

This is an amazing video:

He says the only things he’s ever been afraid of are electricity and heights.There is great power in fear. If you can learn to trust fear you can use it to engage the creative process. Actor William Hurt once said:

“Those who function out of fear seek security. Those who function out of trust seek freedom.”

One of the first things I do when I decide to put together a new show is book it. When you begin a creative work of any type, the blank page can seem monumental. Where to start? What to write? Surely it will be pure crap and the world will discover what a fraud I am. But trusting fear forces you to concentrate on the creative task at hand. Letting go of that voice in your head that’s always telling you what you can’t do can be exhilarating and liberating.

Theatrical director Anne Bogart wrote:

“When I am lost in rehearsal, when I am stymied and have no idea what to do next or how to solve a problem, I know that this is the moment to make a leap. . . Right there, in that moment, in that rerhearsal, I have to say, “I know!” and start walking toward the stage. During the crisis of the walk, something must happen: some insight, some idea. The sensation of this walk to the stage, to the actors, feels like falling into a treacherous abyss. The walk creates a crisis in which innovation must happen, invention must transpire. I create the crisis in rehearsal to get out of my own way. I create the crisis despite myself and my limitations and my hesitancy. In unbalance and falling lie the potential of creation.”

When I watch that video and hear the words of that lineman, I feel both the unbalance and the potential. And the amazing gift that fear has brought to his life.

See more like that one:

• It all looked like junk
• Junuary
• Most Embarrassing Neuron
• Ass, Elbow. Elbow, Ass
• Stare Down