Why it's called what it is

Why is this blog called In The Moment?


Well, I'll tell you.


As actors, we often talk about being 'in the moment.' All good things in theatre happen 'in the moment.'  A director might say, 'yeah, Shawn, it didn't really feel like you were in the moment that time--I could feel you anticipate that.' We 're constantly trying to create moments, in theatre, right? We talk about them afterwards: 'Oh my God, that moment? At the end? When's she's all alone? I loved that moment...' Good theatre is really all about the creation, the orchestration of moments. Moments happen in theatre when the actors together with the audience co-create significant events that everyone is participating in fully, with their thoughts and their emotions.


In Buddhism, for example, the practice is all about bringing yourself into the moment. Focus on your breath and bring your awareness to the now. All meditation practice is geared toward full participation in the moment, the here and now, the moment.


So this expression really compels me and reflects two areas of my life that I am interested in, so that's why I called it that.


I guess it also points to the fact that theatre for me is a kind of spiritual practice. That is it ephemeral and immediate, that it is something you participate in, that you are a part of, that it is something co-created with others.

From where I'm sitting

So.

Not sure why, not sure how, but this morning I just decided that it's time for me to start blogging (dare I say again? Previous efforts were so scattered and... well, lame). But I'm looking for something to shake up my routine--I usually get up, front-load coffee for an hour and aimlessly poke around cyberspace, obsessively check my Facebook pages and Twitter accounts for retweets--and I want to express a bit more and legitimize myself and a writer.


What you'll read here are blog posts that I'm thinking will be related to my work as a theatre artist, but I'm guessing they'll cross over into musings (ugh, that word!) on stuff that can be categorized as spiritual. I'm into thinking, Big Ideas, and the nature of things. To me, meaning seems to explode from all things. Ideas have power and burst from our minds, from consciousness, into the world, into reality. I'm so blown away by creativity, not just in art, but in every aspect of our lives. The world is constantly being created, it's constantly evolving into a more perfect, more beautiful, more completely realized version of itself. I'm interested in that. I'm interested in the way that ideas take form and out-picture as things in our world.


This morning I took this picture from the window seat on the floating home I live in. The year is almost over and I'm feeling it, along with the birth of a new year--the infamous 2012. I don't know why but I'm excited.