All posts by Analyn Revilla

Evolution of Change

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Imagine the seed of change, perhaps, carelessly dropped into the earth of your consciousness by a casual comment, or a persistent voice that calls you to ‘look into this”.  But you carry on with your days:  working to maintain life. 

 One day, you’re in a place surrounded by people and situations that are beyond the normal realms of your day-to-day activities.  There are moments when you pause and consider the purpose of it all, all this running around and keeping the fire burning till you feel burnt out.

You start to inquire what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.  How did I get here?

 ~*~

 Saturday morning, I did my 3 pages of Morning Page (Artist’s Way) at 6 o’clock which is very early for a weekend.  However, I am determined to develop the habit of getting out of bed and staying up rather than allowing for the temptation of “lingering a little longer” in bed which often ends up to be another one to two hours of combined half-sleep and strange dream states.  It’s my 6th day of my new practice.  I am so sleepy, almost “stupid tired” that words are trailing up or down on the pages.  Incoherently drunk from lack of sleep I forge forward to the last 3rd page.

 I do everything within my power to hang in there in my awakened state: coffee, shower, sweep the floors – just mindless activities to keep me moving.  Eventually I maintain an awareness of being “awake”.  I quote “awake” because I begin to experience the state of change beginning.  The tough shell of the spore holding the golden fluid of life, begins to soften, and allowing for stretch of tiny tendrils reaching towards light.

 By 9 am, I am eating toast and coffee for breakfast as I stare at the oleander bush beyond the iron bars keeping them out and locking me in.  I feel restless in my confinement, because I’m at a halt in play, feeling stuck in the mud because I can’t get to the gold I’m digging for. 

 “Why am I writing this?”  “Why would anyone read this?”  “What if I’m wrong?”.  The self-sabotaging question formulate my worst fear about the journey I’ve embarked upon.  My worst fear is I have nothing to say. 

 I swallow and gulp down the rest of my breakfast to run away from myself.  The reflection in the mirror is distorted, and I don’t like what I see.  Picking up the dog leash I coax my dog, “Walkies?”. She and I wander towards the thrift store near my apartment.  When I’m at loose ends I go there to play.  In this store of possibilities I can play pretend without denting my wallet.  I browse through the books and found –  “Six Plays by Henrik Ibsen” and “The Theatre of Revolt” in the heap of other peoples’ refuse.  

 I sink into “The Theatre of Revolt”, and found a blade of thought to maim and banish the sword of doubts my mind had raised. 

 “The revolt of the dramatist, it is important to add, is more imaginative than practical – imaginative, absolute, and pure.  In the earlier phases of the theatre of revolt – in some of the works of Ibsen, for example, and of Shaw – the drama sometimes begins to look like an act of utility; and in the plays of Brecht, it is designed to lead to political revolution… Dramatic art is not identical with reality for any practical application, but rather proceeds along a parallel plane; and dramatic revolt therefore, is always much more total than the program of political agitators or social reformers.  The modern dramatist is essentially a metaphysical rebel, not a practical revolutionary; whatever his personal convictions, his art is the expression of a spiritual condition.”

 –  by Robert Brustein from “The Theatre of Revolt”

 I got to this place because I asked for it – I wanted to take the journey into the unstable and unknown.  As a self-declared playwright in a family of “practical” jobs and careers, I’m alone.  This journey asks my fingers and toes to stretch beyond my comfort zone, and be prepared to be surprised and astonished.  It’s no longer the product that I’m obsessed with, but the process of change and expanding my consciousness through my writing.  The byproduct is inconsequential to what I’ve learned along the way.

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Eminence Front – The Who

I chose to preview the blog with this song by the Who, because I think Pete Townshend is an artist who’s embraces these … Work – Play – Authenticity

It’s work. We’ve all heard at one point someone refer to work as “another four letter word”.  Good.

Surprise. Work is good. Work is good for the soul. It’s the vehicle of expression of our essence. I think there’s a general negative attitude about the word in itself – “Work”.  I imagine the chain gang in “Cool Hand Luke”.  And do you remember Jack Nicholson as Jack Torrance in “The Shining”?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1O0ZfZGF8l8

The scene:  Wendy discovers what Jack had been toiling over  –  pages and pages inscribed with a single phrase written into paragraphs and dialogue of “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” This is the product of 4 to 5 months of work.  He comes upon her discovery, and she is the one freaked for being found out. Brilliant irony. He moves towards her with that Nicholsonesque menace (the eyes, the grin, the rage) and she backs away sobbing and weakly wielding a bat between them.  He tears into her with his guilt, “Have you ever thought about a single solitary moment about my responsibilities to my employers… Does it matter to you at all the owner have placed their complete confidence and trust in me?… do you have slightest idea of what the moral and ethical principle is, do you? Has it ever occurred to you what would happen to my future if I failed to live up to my responsibility?”

Whoa Jack. You’re taking all this too seriously. You’re identifying yourself a little too deeply with the man.

Fast backward to yesterday. Twilight. I am sitting at an outdoor cafe finishing the last few chapters of a book. I am enjoying the weather, the quiet idle of the day and watching people between the lines. A man in a t-shirt emblazoned, “Eat, Sleep, Play”. I didn’t pay much attention to it till this morning after I spoke with a fellow writer. I called to check up on him, because he missed class yesterday which was unusual. I wanted to find out if he was okay. And he wasn’t and I heard why. He was agonizing about not writing for two weeks.  He’s feeling the pressure of not having finished the memoir, and is disappointed that he doesn’t have a product when we are so close to the end of our workshop. I felt his anxiety, but I wasn’t prepared to indulge in a conversation that seemed inane of self-mutiliation. That wasn’t going to help this person get past the self pity and moving on with the work at hand.

I told him it’s okay to hit some bumps, but work through it. Stop beating yourself up over the past. Writing is visceral and cathartic and writers have to be good to themselves and realize when they need to stop channeling for a little while, or at least be aware when they’re not well (spiritually, physically and mentally) for the job at hand.  Do what’s necessary to be well again. Plus everything he’s doing outside of writing will also feed his writing.  Relax.

If we can change our belief that the work is play then maybe there wouldn’t be so much agonizing over the result and looking for a product. Play is not about product. Play is about being in presence of the moment. Is what I’m doing fun, inventive, new, authentic? Play is many things and right now the strongest association I have with play is authenticity. I ask myself for what purpose am I creating this. If it’s anything near close to the truth – the essence of me – it’s fun and it becomes play. But ‘working for man’ is not my essence. I do work for the man 5 days a week, and thank goodness I work at a place where the people are real. They have a passion for what they are doing and it shows in how they work and the byproduct of the process. I dream for the moment to see my play come alive on stage, but overall I am joyful and thankful when I’m writing, because my spirit demands it.

I leave you with thoughtful words from Roy Orbison’s song who’s gotta a plan to stop working for the man.

Hey, now, you better listen to me everyone of you
We got a lotta, lotta, lotta, lotta work to do
Forget about your women and that water can
Today were working for the man

Well, pick up your feet, we’ve got a deadline to meet
I’m gonna see you make it on time
Oh, don’t relax, I want elbows and backs
I wanna see everybody from behind

Cause your working for the man, a’working for the man
You gotta make him a hand when you’re working for the man

Oh, well, I’m picking em up and I’m laying em down
I believe he’s gonna work me into the ground
I pull to the left, I heave to the right
I oughta kill him but it wouldn’t be right

Cause Im working for the man, working for the man
Gotta make him a hand, a’working for the man

Well, the boss man’s daughter sneaks me water
Everytime her daddy’s down the line
She says, meet me tonight, love a’me right
And everything is gonna be fine
So I slave all day without much pay
Cause I’m just abiding my time
Cause the company and the daughter you see
Their both gonna be all mine

Yeah, I’m gonna be the man, I’m gonna be the man
Gotta make him a hand if I’m gonna be the man

Working for the man, a’working for the man
Gotta make him a hand a’working for the man

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At work, my first cup of tea had the teabag wisdom words from Goethe

“Choose well, your choice is brief and yet endless.”

Teabag wisdom comes from the little square piece of paper at the tip of the string holding together the tea leaves found with most Celestial Seasoning brand.  I thought the quote profound.  The theme had been cropping up these past months in different aspects of my life… Well, life abounds with choices, so maybe not so profound afterall.

Onwards with my day.  I bring up the news and use the headlines to poke my imagination awake. What’s happening in my world? Further along I plant the question how some stories fit into the theme and layers of my play.

The creative sources are abundant:

• the headlines of your favourite online or printed news cast
• a snippet of a conversation you couldn’t help overhear
• a momentary image you witnessed on your way to someplace or while sitting somewhere suspended in time
• an incident with someone close to you that incites something deeply buried in your nerves

BP’s “Deepwater Horizon” blowout from 5 weeks ago has been prominent in the headlines.  Today the company is attempting a Top Kill to choke off the oil spill.  Other headliners today included Hillary Clinton’s reaction to another provocation by North Korea accused of sinking a South Korean submarine.  And there was a short piece about  a US Activist, Lori Benson, who was released on parole after spending 14 years in a Peruvian jail.

What is important to me?

There are months, weeks, days and moments when I don’t want my world to be so vast. I can imagine myself to be content to be in my living room, drinking wine and listening to my favorite music and nothing more, except for the simple companionship of my dog.   It’s not easy to be removed from the outside world for very long.

A walk one block from my apartment and there is a homeless guy resting on the side of the church building. He’s invisible to the people attending the gatherings there.  My mind moves on, and wander to asking why it’s only the US government wagging its finger at BP for the oil spill.  Are my news sources limited?  Where is the real source of good objective news reporting? This oil spill is a global mess. We share this big ocean and shouldn’t we all do something, a little something?  A sense of powerlessness tinges my outlook.

I’ve got things to do, and it’s a goddamn long list:   a functional design spec due, meeting with users and the developers; a status update to my manager… It’s almost lunch.  I hanker for sushi… haven’t had it in a while.  The Gulf of Mexico is a spawning ground for the critically endangered bluefin tuna. I’m going to New Orleans in mid June, and I’m looking forward to the seafood feast.  Meanwhile, the shrimp farmers have already noticed the effects of the spill in their industry. I should go for a walk during lunch; get fresh air and exercise. Or I can hole up in the non-descript cafe down the street and bury my head in a book.

My mind, cluttered with thoughts fighting for a slice of time and attention, distracts me from a purpose (which is now a blur) , and I feel exhausted.  My precious time and energy had bee dissipated away into churning thoughts and worry.  I have 10 minutes left of my lunch so I pick up my book:  The 2nd section in on Love.  The topic is: “Love is Disciplined”. (Source: The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978)

“Because genuine love involves an extension of oneself, vast amounts of energy is as limited as the hours of our day. We simply cannot love everyone. True, we may have a feeling of love for mankind, and this feeling may also be useful in providing us with enough energy to manifest genuine love for a few specific individuals. But genuine love for a relatively few individuals is all that is within our power. To attempt to exceed the limits of our energy to offer more than we can deliver, and there is a point of no return beyond which an attempt to love all comers become fraudulent and harmful to the very ones we desire to assists. Consequently if we are fortunate enough to be in a position in which many people ask for our attention, we must choose those among them whom we are actually to love. This choice is not easy; it maybe excruciatingly painful, as the assumption of godlike power so often is. But it must be made. Many factors need to be considered, primarily the capacity of the prospective recipient of our love to respond to that love with spiritual growth.”

Every story is about love is what my writing mentor tells his students.

I am curious about the choices of my protagonist and the antagonist of my story in their blind quest to get what they want in the face of adversities. The dangers they face in their journeys faced with the choices with their limited and unlimited capacities for love.

Choices galore. I think I understand what “choice is brief” means.  I am walking on this planet in blip of time, and my characters have an even shorter lifetime – less than 2 hours.  I’m sure someone, one day, will write into their story about the Deepwater Horizon Blowout and how it affected somebody – maybe somebody who asked “What’s a bluefin tuna?”

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Attitude is Altitude.

Give this some thought before you continue.

These words sprung up at a time when I encountered a moving incident that shook me through my core and tore me away from my good intentions of being conscious and aware of my thoughts, words and actions. An anonymous neighbor had tampered with my motorcycle to send a message that they wanted me to stop parking at a spot that the building manager had designated as my parking spot.

This anonymous person refused to identify their name after a series of notes exchanged. He/she was engaged vigorously to their idea that they are right to ask me to move or make arrangements to move. When I didn’t follow their bidding they resorted to passive violence by tampering with the motorcycle.

One morning I got on the bike and rode to work and found the side mirrors were loosened. I couldn’t repair it without stopping and without a tool. The side mirror dangled loosely and uselessly when I sped up, and my emotions rose higher as I revved the engine louder. In my anger and pain the words “Attitude is Altitude” came to me while sitting at a stoplight. They were a salve to my emotions.

When I got to my computer I e-mailed to my friends the words only, the responses were:

“It means that your attitude can be a conscious or unconscious decision. Preferably conscious. If you are aware enough, even if you are in a negative mood you can choose to have a positive attitude. Then eventually through self fulling phophecy your mood will change to positive. But if you are not aware your mood & attitude will just stay negative. It’s sounds simple, but not always easy to do. The first step is being aware.”
– Steve (Technical Consultant)

“This lovely quote that you’ve sent me, I’ve heard it a couple of times. And it is a quote that has made me think. I do agree with it…and can mean something different to everyone. To me attitude plays a big role on how far we get in everything. Whether it is on your goals in life or just getting through the day… Attitude is a choice. A choice between proscrastinating or not. A choice between being thankful about everything that comes our way or not. A choice between taking action or not. So it is a choice, and only when we make the right choices than we grow and reach a great altitude in our souls, which is the most important thing, and also in our goals and our “success”.

I can see this quote in different ways. But ultimately our attitude is definetely the place where we should begin in order to reach the altitude we have in mind.”

-Evelyn (Actress/Film Student)

“That’s awesome, our belief is what breaks down our limitations.”
– Terry (Business Analyst)

“am not sure about the meaning of this…From the point where Altitude means elevation I agree, the energy required for the elevation of ourselves implies attitude (i guess)…Now, if Altitude refers to something related with a high rank , superiority , I disagree”
– Diego (Musician)

The Beauty of Mathematics – a powerpoint presentation
– Michael IT Consultant (See the attachment.)

Beauty-of-Mathematics-Jan02-1

I had decided, after cooling down, I don’t have to be right. If this person can resort to indirectly trying to hurt me by putting a stranger’s life in jeopardy then I will concede and look for a different parking spot. Still, I felt indignant. Another neighbor recommended legal action. I weighed the gravity of that action, and decided it’s not worth anymore of my time and effort to pursue being “right”. My final action towards the anonymous neighbor was a note. I said “Thank you for being my teacher in the nature of humanity.”  A distant observer of the events told me I was also being passive aggressive by writing those words, and I explained that I didn’t want to raise the stakes higher that could lead to further violence which would be a no-win situation for either side.

Sometimes I find in my writing that I have an agenda and I am forcing my idea onto the page rather than letting the nature of the dilemna rise up from the rich earth of the subconscious. In writing my first draft, my subconscious created the scene with the characters and the circumstances. Now in my rewrite I am scrutinizing closely what they are saying and doing. And for me, the writer, it’s often that I am in the way and have to remind myself to get out of the way. Get my idea of what it is the characters are saying to each other out of the way, and allow them to talk,  like human beings, in a situation.

“Attitude is Altitude” in my writing means – get my ego out of the way.  I don’t want to be right. I want to express rather than impress.

Going the Distance

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I am Analyn Revilla. I’ve been working on my first play for two years. I asked my writing mentor, “How long does it take to finish?” The question was posed among a group of students of varying backgrounds and writing experiences. The melange was: a lawyer and a published poet writing her first novel; a chef working on her memoir that begins with finding herself in a homeless state; an elementary teacher creating her first screenplay; an accomplished journalist reveling in her third novel; a busy actress expressing her story of an 8 year old boy in her first novel; a retired legal secretary exploring the story of an orphan seeking her birth mother in post WWI Germany; and then there’s me, an IT Specialist who has been “dabbling” in writing since I was eleven, and recently started my first play.

My co-writers and I have been gathering for the past 5 months at 9 am on Saturdays for 3 hours sharing our work and our experiences in the process of our “rewrite” of the first draft.

The question was an impulse to get the class started. It seemed thoughtless and absurd, after I blurted out the words. Then I realized it may not be as thoughtless as I felt, because I noticed the others look on with piqued interest at the mentor in front of class. As he started to speak people began jotting notes into their notepads or their laptops. He responded that he can’t answer the question in directly, but the first thing he wanted to emphasize was “There are no rules.”

As he continued to speak my mind was still resisting the idea of “there are no rules”. I can’t go on imagining the life of this story, because I could go on forever. The characters evolve and they all have their arcs and shifts in perceptions (small and big), and maybe none at all. Then he said that he’s not interested in the product. What? my mind screamed. He doesn’t care about my play? I heard his words – I am here to help you through the rewrite process and teach you to be curious and to ask the right questions about the nature of the dilemma of your protagonist.

Finally he said that it’s not any easier for a professional writer. It’s hard work. When he concluded my brain took a tangent to the idea of how marathon runners train. I followed up with a comment: When you said it isn’t any easier for a professional writer I thought about the rigorous training of the marathon runner. The first draft and the rewrite is like it is for an amateur runner learning to run a race. The expert just has more experience in the process and knows how to train to be able to complete a race regardless of whether or not they win the race. And there are varying beliefs in what “winning” is.

One of my classmates spoke up: I’ve run marathons, and it’s all about the distance.

When I got home I dug up a book I had lying around: “The Triathlete’s Guide to Mental Training” by Jim Taylor and Terri Schneider (published by VeloPress.)

The first chapter on Introduction to “Prime Triathlon” talks about the philosophy of “Prime Triathlon”: Before you can begin the process of developing Prime Triathlon, you want to create a foundation of beliefs about triathlon on which you can build your mental skills. This foundation involves your attitude in three areas: (1) your perspective on competition; (2) your view of yourself as a competitor – how you perform in training and races; and (3) your attitude toward success and failure – how you define success and failure and whether you know the essential roles that both success and failure play in becoming the best triathlete you can be. Clarify your view in these three areas will make it easier to win the mental race and to achieve Prime Triathlon. (source: “The Triathlete’s Guide to Mental Training.)

I replace the triathlon parts with writing:

My views on competition is that there are merits in healthy competition with others when it’s about improving the writing. For instance, I saw a couple of good plays last weekend, and was delighted with seeing the techniques the playwright had used in conveying the idea and the feeling. I thought, ‘Wow.’ then “How can I do that in my own unique way,’ or ‘hey, I can use something like that’. But the real competition is within myself. This answers both (1) and (2). The struggle of the balancing act to schedule the time and the energy into the writing, and being dedicated to dig deeper and deeper to unearth the subtexts, and having the endurance to rewrite and rewrite until the gem has been cut and polished to show it off at its best.

My attitude toward success and failure. Right now (and I say right now because it may change because “There are no rules”) is I will be successful as a long as I don’t give up. I may have a shift in my perception as to what success is. But only I can measure this and not allow other forces to shape my vision of success. As I heard one musician tell it to another musician as they waved good-bye after another unpaid gig, “Keep fighting the good fight.”

Going back to my mentor’s initial response that “There are no rules” is applicable in what I’ve learned from meditating on the three questions from the book on “The Triathlete’s Guide to Mental Training”. There are not any rules that can be applied universally to specific situations i.e. the writer. We have varying attitudes about competition, ourselves and what we define as success and failures.

Everyday as I go down this path deeper and deeper into the woods I can never ask the question if I can find my way back, because there is no turning back. That’s probably one universal rule that can apply, because I can’t undo what I’ve learned along the journey to evolve in exploring my impulse to write. I expand my heart with each step walking in the shoes of my characters as I witness their choices under the circumstances they are in. It’s that journey, though sometimes sorrowful and sometimes joyful, that has enriched my humanity.