Becoming

So what's the connection between theatre arts and diplomacy? This question has been sitting unanswered in an old email from a friend for well over a year. A note of appreciation I received the other day finally gets me to blog a public response.

I've done graduate studies (Masters) in both Theatre Arts and Diplomacy, and found that my knowledge of one discipline thoroughly enhanced my understanding of the other. They are two sides of the same coin. Both are scripts performed on a stage with actors playing different roles. In Diplomacy Studies, the stage is the World Affairs, the actors are States and non-State entities, and the script is driven by the players' interests.

With both Theatre and Diplomacy, every character/player's entrance and exit comes with a motive, and the drama erupts during the struggle to achieve this motive. It is no surprise that the greatest playwright had his greatest dramas woven around politics; or that some of the most influential statesmen were also performing artists (Ronald Reagan the actor, Vaclav Havel - my favorite - the playwright/director).

It's not always a smooth connection between things one knows how to do. Sometimes, there's a brick wall of exclusiveness around things you want to become. For example, getting into that institution of diplomatic corps can be as difficult as getting the password to an Eyes Wide Shut masked ball. I don't have the password either. Just don't kill for it.

A lot about what we do so well is multi-sided and can be interwoven or competently done on parallel tracks. Society punishes you for not having a title to your name, yet most people secretly despise the confines of singular-profession definitions. There’s an imaginary Million Humans March against the question “What do you do?” It’s a pigeonholing question that makes a whole lot of us squirm, as if one can only be one thing that’s disconnected from everything else.

There’s something true to Karl Marx’s view that a world where “each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape,” is superficial. I agree with him in toto that one should be able to “hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, and rear cattle in the evening.” We’re constantly, and covertly, trying to tear away from the rigidity of our forced mono-occupational existence. We just want the fluidity of becoming.

In the process of "becoming", the path of possibilities multiplies, especially when the mind is not stifled. This is why it's so important to live in and fight for a free society in which anyone’s desire to become is unencumbered. In my years of self-discovery, I've found that I can teach very well; that I could even make a great priest; heck, I could become President. But alas, I'm 3 lifetimes too short. Right now, being a theatre artist, a writer, a teacher, a documentarist and a diplomacy wonk is about all I can squeeze in.

How to avoid becoming a Jane of All Trades? Establish a connectedness between the things you do so well so that you have opportunity to excel. If the things you do so well remain disconnected, you run the risk of having scattered bits of unnoticed achievements, like little lamps shinning under the table all by their lonely selves, and you feel frustrated. The world is an eager audience, and it awaits an outstanding act so it can applaud. Being appreciated is priceless. Take your bow. Exit stage left.

Sere