The Vs. Studio Blog

“I am your teacher and you are learning in my school. My aim is to bring you to completion, unhindered, free from compulsive behavior, unrestrained, without shame, free, flourishing, and happy…Your aim is to learn and diligently practice all these things. Why then don’t you complete the work, if you have the right aim and I have both the right aim and right preparation? What is missing? . . . The work is quite feasible, and is the only thing in our power. . . . Let go of the past. We must only begin. Believe me and you will see.” -Epictetus, Discourses

It’s not about you. It’s about the work.

The work. The work. The work.

When you think this way, you are truly free. Free from ego. Free from judgment. Free from prior concepts. Free to do whatever it takes to make the work the absolute best it can be. So that it fully serves those you intend to serve.

That includes seeking out valuable and constructive criticism from those you trust. Because again, it’s not about you. It’s about the work.

Whatever WORKs, you’ll take it.

“The tragedy of an attachment is that if its object is not attained it causes unhappiness. But if it is attained, it does not cause happiness – it merely causes a flash of pleasure followed by weariness, and it is always accompanied, of course, by the anxiety that you may lose the object of your attachment.” -Anthony de Mello

If the sun refused to shine
I would still be loving you
When mountains crumble to the sea
There will still be you and me -song, “Thank You” by Led Zeppelin

A unifying theme across almost all the great spiritual traditions is the idea of detachment. Or not being attached “to the things of this world.” (John 2:15)

But detachment doesn’t come from going off into the woods and living like a hermit. Denying everything and everyone. (Although if that’s your jam, go for it.)

Detachment comes from being aware that nothing lasts. All fades away. Memento Mori.

Love it all while you still can.

“Most people are not just comfortable in their ignorance, but hostile to anyone who points it out.” -Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

“Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eyes are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light” -Plato, The Allegory of the Cave

Men are born soft and supple;
dead, they are stiff and hard.
Plants are born tender and pliant;
dead, they are brittle and dry.

Thus whoever is stiff and inflexible
is a disciple of death.
Whoever is soft and yielding
is a disciple of life.

The hard and stiff will be broken.
The soft and supple will prevail. -Verse 76, Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu (Stephen Mitchell translation)

When I step into the light
My arms are open wide
When I step into the light
My eyes searching wildly -song, “Lie In Our Graves” by Dave Matthews Band

What do we do when confronted with incontrovertible facts and evidence that run contrary to our prior assertions and beliefs? Or when we’re shown a new and more effective way of doing something? A way that makes things better for ourselves and the people we seek to serve.

Do we double down on our ego and ignorance? Stick with what we’ve always done? Remain in the cave.

Or are we grateful to learn something new? To be shown the light and then move towards it.

If you want to remain soft and supple and alive, then you must constantly embrace beginner’s mind.

“I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn’t quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn’t make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.” -Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Just make a choice. Commit to something.

Otherwise, someday you’ll no longer have a choice to make.

P.S. – While you’re at it, be grateful that you’re even in a position to choose from many options.

If someone reaches out to you–particularly someone you’re close to and whose taste you trust–says “this was one of the best pieces of theatre I’ve ever seen”, then you should go see said show. Pronto. No questions asked. Just go.

Realize that when someone reaches out and urges you to see something, that person is taking a risk. They’re putting their taste on the line. Reward their vulnerability by going.

Such was the case last week when a good friend reached out about a show called Iphigenia In Splott and said it one of the best things she’d ever seen.

So, I went last Friday.

I’m so glad I did (and that she reached out).

It’s a dynamite passion project. The acting (a one person show), writing and production elements are uniformly excellent. Here’s a link for tix/info. Some of the best ten bucks you can spend. Enjoy!

Give a little bit
Oh, give a little bit of your love to me
I’ll give a little bit
I’ll give a little bit of my love to you
There’s so much that we need to share
So send a smile and show you care
(Alright) -song “Give A Little Bit” by Supertramp

We can always do a little bit more.

Thinking this way prevents complacency and makes room for humility. No matter how satisfied we are, we can always do a little bit more to make things better.

It also prevents us from feeling overwhelmed and not starting on the path to change.

We don’t need to a whole lot more. Just a little bit more. Day by day. Drip by drip. Bit by bit. That’s how anything worth doing, gets done

“I used to tell students…the difference between poetry and you is you look in the mirror and say, “I am getting old,” but Shakespeare looks in the mirror and says, “Devouring Time, blunt thou thy lion’s paws.” -Jim Harrison, book Search For The Genuine

Lee: “…Just a sweet kinda suburban silence.”

Austin: “What kind of place was it?”

Lee: “Kinda’ place that sorta’ kills ya’ inside. Warm yellow lights. Mexican tile all around. Copper pots hangin’ over the stove. Ya’ know like they got in the magazines. Blonde people movin’ in and outa’ the rooms, talkin’ to each other. (pause) Kinda’ place you wished you sorta’ grew up in, ya’ know.” –True West by Sam Shepard

Einstein and Shakespeare
Sitting having a beer
Einstein trying to figure out the number that adds up to this
Shakespeare said, “Man it all starts with a kiss”

Einstein is scratching
Numbers on his napkin
Shakespeare said, “Man, it’s just one and one make three
Ah, that’s why it’s poetry” -Bruce Springsteen, song “Frankie Fell In Love”

The best writers really see and really feel. Especially the daily, everyday quotidian moments.

Then, they transmit what they see and feel into words that make us see things we never saw (or took for granted) and made us feel things in ways we didn’t think possible.

Speaking of great writers, read this excerpt from Pablo Neruda’s memoirs (hat tip to the wonderful Poetic Outlaws substack for providing)…

Under the volcanoes, beside the snow-capped mountains, among the huge lakes, the fragrant, the silent, the tangled Chilean forest…

My feet sink down into the dead leaves, a fragile twig crackles, the giant rauli trees rise in all their bristling height, a bird from the cold jungle passes over, flaps its wings, and stops in the sunless branches. And then, from its hideaway, it sings like an oboe…

The wild scent of the laurel, the dark scent of the boldo herb, enter my nostrils and flood my whole being… The cypress of the Guaitecas blocks my way…

This is a vertical world: a nation of birds, a plenitude of leaves…

I stumble over a rock, dig up the uncovered hollow, an enormous spider covered with red hair stares up at me, motionless, as huge as a crab… A golden carabus beetle blows its mephitic breath at me, as its brilliant rainbow disappears like lightning…

Going on, I pass through a forest of ferns much taller than I am: from their cold green eyes sixty tears splash down on my face and, behind me, their fans go on quivering for a long time… A decaying tree trunk: what a treasure!…

Black and blue mushrooms have given it ears, red parasite plants have covered it with rubies, other lazy plants have let it borrow their beards, and a snake springs out of the rotted body like a sudden breath, as if the spirit of the dead trunk were slipping away from it… Farther along, each tree stands away from its fellows…

They soar up over the carpet of the secretive forest, and the foliage of each has its own style, linear, bristling, ramulose, lanceolate, as if cut by shears moving in infinite ways…

A gorge; below, the crystal water slides over granite and jasper… A butterfly goes past, bright as a lemon, dancing between the water and the sunlight… Close by, innumerable calceolarias nod their little yellow heads in greeting…

High up, red copihues (Lapageria rosea) dangle like drops from the magic forest’s arteries…

A fox cuts through the silence like a flash, sending a shiver through the leaves, but silence is the law of the plant kingdom…

The barely audible cry of some bewildered animal far off… The piercing interruption of a hidden bird… The vegetable world keeps up its low rustle until a storm chums up all the music of the earth.

Anyone who hasn’t been in the Chilean forest doesn’t know this planet.

I have come out of that landscape, that mud, that silence, to roam, to go singing through the world.

“That was one of the best things I’ve ever seen in my life.”

It’s what we hope to feel every time we step into the theatre and see your production.

You have the opportunity to give us that. Don’t take it for granted.

Do it solely because you love it. Put your whole heart and soul into every single detail. Strive for excellence and generosity at every turn.

Go make your art.

“A brand is not a logo. A brand is a promise, a story and a shorthand. A brand tells us what to expect the next time we engage with you.” -Seth Godin

“The mission is critical. Once you lose sight of it, everything gets lost. You start doing side projects to satisfy a funder, a customer, an audience member, a board member, a town/city, or a host of other people with other missions…If you think you have a mission, and you are facing some big changes, then ignore everyone’s advice unless it’s mission critical. Unless the advice, or the potential change somehow fits your core mission, don’t do it. But, as you face those decisions remember that mission is independent of a lot of other things -you can change leadership, locations, mediums and formats – hell, what was IRL can be virtual or handled by a bot, perhaps. It might even mean painful changes, but if that is better for your mission, those are the changes you need to make.” -Brian Newman

Your mission statement is what you tell people you’re all about. (Most are too wordy, too vague or too boilerplate. Which is why no one remembers them.)

Your brand is what people actually believe you’re all about.

Hopefully the two are in alignment.

If not, go back and adjust one or both if need be.

P.S. – This excellent Seth Godin post and this newsletter from Brian Newman’s always superb and on-point, Sub-Genre.

“Attention is the most basic form of love.” -Tara Brach

“In the West there is a loneliness, which I call the leprosy of the West. In many ways, it is worse than our poor in Calcutta…We can cure physical diseases with medicine, but the only cure for loneliness, despair, and hopelessness is love. There are many in the world who are dying for a piece of bread but there are many more dying for a little love.” -Mother Teresa

“A Rabbit Noticed My Condition” by St. John of the Cross

I was sad one day and went for a walk;
I sat in a field.

A rabbit noticed my condition and
came near.

It often does not take more than that to help at times-

to just be close to creatures who
are so full of knowing,
so full of love
that they don’t
-chat,

they just gaze with
their
marvelous understanding.

Anywhere and everywhere you can, help people feel a little less lonely.

It’s not that hard. Start by noticing them. Give them your full, undivided attention. This is love.