Why Outer Space is Right Here

Actors imagine.

They imagine places they are in – anything is possible. You have that ability…

Stanislavsky - the Russian actor, Director and friend of Anton Chekhov - ushered in naturalistic acting, and he did this by discovering something quite simple:

All truth in art lies in the circumstances.

And the trouble is – the circumstances of a Zoom session are totally out of the space you are in. You really are in outer space, a made up world constructed by pixals. There is a real world too, but it’s not that!

Appreciating these different circumstances can usher in all kinds of benefits:

- less eye fatigue (that a big complaint these days)
- more “zing” or “pep” in your communication (teachers teach better with ‘pep’)
- an ability to stay alert and attentive (less sagging down)
- ending the day a sense of fulfilling tiredness (not draining tiredness)

So how does it work?

First, notice how easily your eyes “lock-in” to the screen. 

Start by looking around the room then to the screen, then to the room, then to the screen etc. and you will gradually notice “something” extra happens in your eyes every time you look at the screen.

If you teach online, take your students through this process every time you begin a session. Once you notice this behaviour, you have many choices.

The primary choice – underlying every other plan – is to understand that there is no dimensionality on a computer screen.

Yesterday – as we were playing with this online – one of the participants started to laugh as I walked closer to the camera…

“What is it?” I asked.

She replied:

“I noticed my eyes trying to adjust their focus as you walked closer to the screen.”

Which of course, eyes will do in real life, but it is a dysfunctional behaviour on Zoom.

It reminds me of dogs I see on my morning run along Meguro River. 

They poke their bottoms down, then empty their business onto the concrete path. Then they try to put dirt over the top! There is no dirt. It’s concrete. But the dog
still goes through the motion. Pawing away at concrete, following an old evolutionary narrative.

Your eyes are behaving this way on Zoom, responding to a situation automatically.

You need to develop a new, constructive plan for using your whole Self and not just your eyes. 

Are you doing that?