Author: Ashutosh Kumar
If you ever watched a great play, you know the feeling of been totally immersed in that experience.
The lights costumes, music and the Stage all Designed to capture and hold your attention.
Every actor knows the role inside out, And appropriately familiar with role of everyone in the Cast.
A cast is a collection of individual actors and Stage is a physical medium that unites them this makes a show an emergent result of combining actors in the stage in a well-executed play there is a beautiful harmony within the actors between the actors and between the actors on the stage. This harmonious set of interaction which captures our attention.
William Shakespeare wrote these famous words in his play “as you like it”
“All the world is the stage and all the men and women are merely players. They have their exits and entrances and one man in his lifetime plays many parts”
I hope this metaphor not only powerful but perhaps even true. By using it as a framework to understand our capacity to focus. You (and Me) are an actor, the world is a stage. And the perfect show is a result of highly focused attention. Therefore, we should not strive to be attentive but rather strive to put on a perfect show. It is a paramount then that we know our roles and seek the right show and set the stage appropriately. An actor without a role will not a Star on a show. An actor who doesn’t know role well is doomed to put on a terrible show therefore it is important that, the actor know the roles before an actor can find the right show to be part of, they need to understand themselves.
Everyone is born with a set of intrinsic desires and talents which are unique to them when they act on these desires, they built up a fountain of knowledge which helps them to obtain what is pleasure able and avoid what causes suffering. As a result, everything in the world becomes imbued with meaning and this meaning need not have a cosmic significance. When you look at a cup, we do not see it in terms of material structure, in other words you do not say it is cylindrical glass object rather you see in terms of its function. A carrier of liquid pleasure. If you are enjoying a cocktail in a bar and someone throws you to fight. Your role changes from a customer to that of fighter. As your role changes the meaning you assigned to world changes, and glass goes from a carrier of liquid pleasure to a weapon to avoid suffering.
In a very real sense the roles we select, Structures how we perceive the world we imagine. If I put a box of crayons in front of you and told you to find one which is red, if you choose to accept this task, the way you perceive your environment literally changes. You start to ignore more sensory data to ignore more sensory data and Selectivity Discard information that doesn’t align with your goal. Finding a Red pencil crayon. I ask you to take part in the show to find a crayon pencil red and for you to play a protagonist to takes on this action. This new found rule imbues your role with instantaneous meaning, which helps you mentally structure your environment, so you knew what can be ignored and what cannot.
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