by Daniel Bradford
‘Being In the Moment’
Most actors began their journey by getting high – not in the pharmaceutical sense but in the raw, natural experience of ‘flow’ and ‘self-transcendence’. It’s the kind of natural high that comes from the confluence of certain conditions, allowing one to completely let go of one’s ego and sail into the void of effortless being. One could even say that many modern drugs seek to trigger this same kind of experience artificially. A loss of self, an alteration in consciousness, a letting go of the doing mind into the being mind, the allowing mind.
You might not know it or even remember it consciously, but chances are there was a time in your past, early on in your creative journey, when you experienced this kind of high. And you’ve been chasing it ever since. Of course, there are other reasons people start acting – fame, validation, love – and indeed those egoic tendencies are likely worming their way into your intentions too. But, those who really love the art began their journey in a moment of real self-transcendence. We call this experience being ‘in the moment’.
During this experience, we had no trouble concentrating or focusing on what was most important. In fact, the very possibility of not focusing would seem like a distant possibility. One feels both completely in control yet at the same time that control itself seems completely irrelevant. Everything is simply happening on its own as if we were merely a conduit for something greater to work through. Yet try as we might, we rarely find our way back to this state of being truly in the moment.
From Self-Obsession to Self-Transcendence
Like many things being in the moment isn’t necessarily a black and white issue. The journey to full self-transcendence could be seen as a spectrum. With one being more or less present and engaged with the conditions that eventually lead to the full peak experience itself. That being said, there is a clear experiential difference once one does tick over into the various degrees of the ‘self-less’ world.