Advice for Donald Trump . . . and the voting public.



"Much has been given to us, and much will rightfully be expected from us. We have duties to others and duties to ourselves; and we can shirk neither. We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with other nations of the earth; and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities. Toward all other nations, large and small, our attitude must be one of cordial and sincere friendship. We must show not only in our words but in our deeds that we are earnestly desirous of securing their good will by acting toward them in a spirit of just and generous recognition of all their rights. . . No weak nation that acts manfully and justly should ever have cause to fear us, and no strong power should ever be able to single us out as a subject for insolent aggression."

Theodore Roosevelt

Acting Lessons - How it all started

A Landlubber's Lament

Every Head's a World

How is leadership like a box of matches?

Fearful Power

by

Mike Landrum

Our fears shape the world for us.

For centuries the European world ended at a certain place on the coast of Morocco called Cape Bojador (Bo-zha-door).  The ancient mariners were forced to hug the coast by their fear of the open ocean.  This Cape, so inconsequential we need a magnifying glass to find it on a modern map of Africa, was a place where the currents and shoals were treacherous, shallow water and dangerous rocks ran far out into the open Atlantic. Sailors were convinced a ship crossing there could never return.

Along came a Portugese Prince —  Henry the Navigator in the early 1400's.  This man had the vision to see beyond that fearsome cape.  He knew if he could send ships around Africa, they could bring back the wealth of the orient.  He founded what was, in effect, the first modern research institute at Sagres in southern Portugal.  From there he sent fourteen expeditions to try to force a passage around Cape Bojador, and they all came back with the same story — failure.  As the chronicle of the time put it: “They were threatened not only by fear but by its shadow.”

When the fifteenth Caravel approached Bojador her Captain grasped the sailors oldest, deepest fear by the throat.  Amid his crew’s shouts of protest and threats of rebellion, he steered west, into the unknown perils of the open ocean.  The end of the world was mastered at last.  The fear evaporated like a bogey-man when the lights are turned on.  Africa was explored, the Indies were exploited and Portugal grew rich.  

Fear is the great stopper in all of our lives, is it not?  While we may not have the shores of continents to trace, we do suffer from the shadows of our own fears and anxieties.  I myself have been afraid of countless people, things and events.  Everything from solid geometry to pretty girls to the Viet Cong have at one time or another caused me to pause and tremble, fear in my throat and doubt in my belly.  

Yes, fear can stop us cold.  Or it can prod us on.

Look at the monuments the human race has built out of fear: the Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, the Pentagon, these are obvious — but consider — is not civilization itself a direct result of the overwhelming fears felt by a primitive race of primates three million years ago?  In their tender vulnerability, with completely helpless infants, they had only just begun to stand erect and look out over the wide savannas of East Africa.  And what were they afraid of?  Everything.  Most of the animal world was their superior in strength and speed and tooth and claw.  Fight or flight was the only law.  Fear was the spur that has brought us from eating raw snails in the rift valley to eating escargot at the Four Seasons.  

What to learn here?  Only this.  Respect your fear. Do not wish it away.  It is primal and essential.  It is the mother of necessity and so the grandmother of invention.  It is a source of power that we carry with us always.  Even into our dreams.  

Some years ago, I was deep in a conflict with my therapist.  A transference battle.  One night I had a nightmare.  I dreamed I was being chased by a killer with a gun.  Have you ever had such a nightmare?  This was one of those awful chases in which you feel as though you’re wading through molasses while the killer comes toward you inexorably.  Cornered at last, I was about to play my last hope for escape — I knew I was dreaming and I could wake up and be out of this awful terror.  But something told me that if I did that, if I woke up, the killer would return more powerful than before.  I knew I must turn and face him.  Quaking all over, I watched the hideous ogre approach, weapon raised.  I held my breath. . . and he put the gun in my hand and began to show me how to use it.  

It turns out that my greatest fear is a fear of my own power.  I am afraid to succeed, to surpass my father, to become who I really am.  That has been the Cape Bojador in my life.  

What is keeping you from the unexplored continents of your life?  Face your fears.  Sail on.  The riches of the east await you.

- 30 -

No Time Like The Present

"You are not the voice in your head – you are the hearer of that voice." – Unknown

* * *

The harshest critic most people will hear comes from the voice in their own heads. It’s certainly true for actors. I could be on stage, in the midst of a performance, everything going smoothly, the audience caught up in the play, but in the back of my mind the reviews are not good. Self-judgment is sabotage. That darn voice is pointing out every tiny imperfection in my work and creating self-consciousness – which is the very definition of bad acting. “Don’t think so much,” an acting teacher once told me, “just be.” I had no idea how to do that.

This is a problem for speakers as well as actors. Actors are the canaries in the psychological coal mine. By parsing the emotional grammar of life, they can illuminate behavior in ways that might not occur otherwise. Dealing with inner demons is a case in point.

I remember when I first became aware of the split in my mind. I was young and green and needy and ambitious and neurotic. I was floundering to make my life work, every failure a cue to despair, every success containing a fatal flaw. I felt unfulfilled and frustrated, driven by the inner voice’s demands for perfection, like a dog chasing its own tail. Fulfillment was an ever-receding horizon. Success be damned, that inner critic was never satisfied.

Then, one beautiful summer morning, I was driving down the Palisades Parkway with the sunroof open, a Mozart piano concerto on the radio, and it suddenly struck me that the only thing the universe actually required of me at that moment, was that I drive along listening to the music and enjoying the sun on my face. The voice was gone. I was supremely in touch with the moment, and the experience was overwhelming. Tears streamed down my face and I realized that I could be free of the inner critic. The voice was not me, or God, or life’s imperative laying on a guilt trip – it turns out the problem was my mind.

I’ve been reading a great book called The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. He says that in order to get into the present moment, you have to be out of your mind. That is, as long as you are living in your mind, thinking, you are out of touch with the now. If you think about it, you’ll see it makes sense. Thoughts are “time-bound,” always else-when, caught up in the past or fantasizing about the future – the present moment is that infinitesimally thin space between the two. ‘The Now’ is the absence of time, therefore the experience of NOW is thoughtless. We in this culture have very few experiences of the present moment because the constant yammering of our thoughts fill every nook and cranny of our consciousness.

When we are living in the present moment, thoughtless and simply being, we are as close to enlightenment as it’s possible to be this side of the grave, says Eckhart Tolle. The “egoic” mind exists in time, and time is the enemy of the now. Joseph Campbell referred to the present moment as our only experience of the eternal. Tolle calls it the absence of time, the end of suffering and the real definition of enlightenment. In the now is where we are able to feel the experience of being.

For speakers, being is the purest communication. Emerson said “who you are being speaks so loudly, I cannot hear what you’re saying.” ‘Being’ communicates by itself. Imagine the impact of Phidippides, having run from the battlefield of Marathon to deliver news of victory and peril before dying on the steps of the Parthenon. Or remember Lou Gehrig, “the luckiest man on the face of the earth” delivering a statement of grace and courage. It was his being that gave the words such depth and meaning. You don’t even have to get the words right. Neil Armstrong botched his line as he stepped onto the lunar surface, but who cares?

No matter what the particular circumstances, there is always one thing that a speaker shares with his or her audience – the present moment. The experience of being human beings sharing the now creates in us the sense of unity with each other that is the purest definition of communication.

A Thought to Ponder

"The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are." - Joseph Campbell

©2001-2003 Michael F. Landrum