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Real Life Acting Tip #5: Dress The Part
This one is easy and it is strictly a matter of recognizing what the script calls for. If you’re sharing the script, then you should be all set. If the script describes a scene called “Fancy Job Interview”, then you’d know you need to put together a costume that includes possibly a suit coat, or at the very least a tie. Easy, right?
What’s this all boil down to, though? Presentation. Action requires acting. To present is to perform. Everything is an act, a conspiracy. To give someone a present is to perform a presentation.
Easier way to describe this: don’t dress like a slob if you don’t want people to treat you like one. Why do you go around expecting people to treat you differently than you are asking them to by the way you present yourself? Problems in this area tend to indicate self-image problems and an inability or unwillingness to see yourself as you really are. Taking charge of how you look and directing it in such a way that it harmonizes with your intentions is an easy way to begin overcoming this.
More on this to follow in subsequent re-education broadcasts. Stay tuned!
September 27th, 2007 at 6:47 am
It boils down to this for me:
Action requires acting… but action consisting only of acting is incomplete.
I’ve met (indeed, I used to attract them) a number of powerful actors, movers and shakers in business, who were just empty shells. Their actions caused change but were entirely devoid of truth or goodness. This, I think, is what I’ve been worried about: acting isn’t everything.
*
But there is a lot of truth in this post: clothing can frame a debate. If you want to have a sober reasoned discussion, pure 100% Mr. Spock, wear that smart yet fashionable grey suit. If you want people to believe that you’re creative, jazz it up a bit. If you know for sure that the audience want it completely off the wall, from the heart of your childlike enquiring mind, heck, wear what you like. (Check out what the current Doctor Who is wearing for an excellent example.)
September 27th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Okay, but I don’t think I’ve been saying that acting IS everything… but I do think everything is acting!
September 27th, 2007 at 7:55 pm
I totally get what Speedbird is worried about. We know where you’re coming from because we’ve been here for a while and we know the context, the act the play is in. If I were to come upon this site having never been here before I’d see the scene that reads ” ‘enlightened’ man gives advice, starts bank, asks for money (and other things) “.
From my perspective (working w/ Federal prisoners) and I’m guessing Speedbird’s too this is a recipe for disaster. He’s just poking around trying to make sure there’s no room for the disaster ingredents.
You’re advice is execellent and because you’re speaking from experience it’s sincere and helpful. But, some people have come to the point in their lives where they reflexively kick the tires of advice givers and the more sincere the harder we kick. It’s because we care that we accuse you stuff you never even thought about.
September 27th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
And so what if that *is* the case? Why would that be “wrong” specifically? Whose perceptions are we talking about and whose actions are limited or expanded by it?
Not to pick on you guys, but one of the things I have noticed from four+ years of working on this site: every time I undertake a big change in my life and make its effects public, people *always* resist me on it. Every single time. The best explanation I can come up with for it is that when you change, you upset other people’s perceptions of who and what you are. And for most people, our images of ourselves are supported by the perceptions and/or illusions which we maintain about other people. So when other people change, we feel threatened by it because it makes us feel like we have to change and we don’t want to or we’re not ready to, and we resent the person changing for putting us back into the position of having to face ourselves and our own illusions.
Not to put all of that on you guys, though. I certainly value you as people, but I always have to temper what other people give me as feedback with that knowledge, gained from much experience in publicly communicating as well as changing.
Hopefully that clarifies my own perspective a little bit!
September 27th, 2007 at 8:30 pm
It’s not wrong but most people who start off conversations this way are con men and the make up of groups they create consists of victims and other victimizers. I know you aren’t it that category but I know you from your writing. I admit to being limited to my perceptions of the world and the people in it by my experiences. I got worried for you when I read some of what you wrote in your previous phase and I get worried now. Your sincerity and energy is what could be used against you.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:22 pm
No offense, but it sounds like you worry too much. It sounds like you equate worrying with caring. You can care for people without worrying! You can love without suffering! These things are not prerequesites.
When you worry for someone, you’re trying to control what is happening to them on some level. It may be in their best interests, sure… but it’s still attempting to control things which Epictetus would say are outside the sphere of your moral purpose.
That’s not a remotely productive or positive world-view to hold. There is literally no reason other than your own perceptions and emotional habits that you couldn’t turn that exact sentiment around and say:
“Your sincerity and energy will be what sets you apart.”
See how much better that is? I’m not just talking platitudes here either. This isn’t just so you can sit around and re-phrase things and pretend like everything feels better. I am demonstrating techniques by which you can literally reformulate your experience of your life, which is governed by perceptions and self-destructive or inefficient habits.
That’s what the “Real Life Acting Tips” series is really all about!
September 27th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
Yeah, you’re right about that.
That’s why I’m here. I kind of assume that goes without saying. I hope you don’t feel like I’m trying to dim your light here. From my point of view I’m trying to do something I do pretty often, if not always well, which is worry about monsters in people’s closets.
You’re right but I never see it that way when I’m doing it. I usually see it when other people do it to me though. My mental programming goes; not worried=don’t care=drop dead=enemy? or worried=cares=live long + prosper=my army/brothers in arms!
I never go through this process consciously but it’s there.
September 27th, 2007 at 9:50 pm
Well, now you just went through it consciously! And now that you have created that program, try running it the next time you worry about something.
May also pay to write this down on a card and keep it in a wallet: your WORRY TRUTH DECODER equation thingy. Then you can see it in action! Try it at WORK especially!
September 27th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
Try saying it like a tongue twister:
Why won’t worry work?
September 27th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
After going through the process to write my comment I realized that a couple of the things that had been worrying me the most at work lately were worrying me because I wanted those things to be different than they actually were. I might be able to stop tormenting my coworker/e-mail buddy now.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:10 pm
Happy to help.
You know what I should get? I should get one of those “LIVE HELP IS NOW ON” buttons for my site.
September 27th, 2007 at 10:35 pm
Like Lucy’s booth from Peanuts. “Psychiatric advice 5 cents.”
September 27th, 2007 at 10:51 pm
It’s not even psychiatric though. It’s just looking at what people are saying, trying to understand what they mean and then trying to clarify your communication!
September 29th, 2007 at 8:05 pm
[…] It’s the acknowledgement that self-image and public perception matter (they aren’t everything, but they matter!), and an acceptance of our inherent inclination towards the theatrical, the dramatic. I think we underestimate the importance of playing dress-up and play-acting in real life as one of the keys to happiness. We’re fascinated by celebrities — and make them into celebrities — because they totally ‘get’ this, and are living it, making money doing it. We’re all too repressed (not of necessity, though) so we live vicariously through them and at the same time hate them for it. I know I don’t necessarily speak for everyone on that, but I think I speak for enough of us. There’s something important in giving that shit up, though. You’re the star of your own show, why not act like it? (I hope you guys realize I’m mostly talking to myself here). If nothing else, it’s just smart. It’s just branding taken to a higher level. It makes sense on a number of levels to encapsulate your ‘character’ somehow in visual, iconic form. Not only will this make you more interesting and memorable to others, it will also act as a ‘power symbol’ for you. It goes right along with the character sketch and the skillz inventory in that regard. As part of a shared value community, I want to relate to my fellow value-sharers visually, as real people, with like, faces and bodies and a personal ’styles’ and stuff — and, also, I want to know them as the selves they are striving to become. I want to lend my energy to that effort by holding that image of you in my mind. I want you to do that for me. Psychic mutual hype alliances. […]