EXCELLENCE -- WHY BOTHER?

EXCELLENCE – WHY BOTHER?

American film critic, Roger Ebert, once commented about Dustin Hoffman that from the very beginning of his career with such diverse characters as gormless Benjamin Braddock in “The Graduate”, street-creep Ratso Rizzo in “Midnight Cowboy”, nonagenarian Jack Crabb in “Little Big Man”, and the savant Raymond Babbitt in “Rain Man”, he managed to noodle out “exactly the right note and hold it”.

The right note.

Ebert's choice of words echoed a phrase I once heard from the man himself. Dustin Hoffman was telling a story about what happened for him one afternoon while he was watching TV in his hotel room, resting up before a round of engagements that night to promote the movie he'd just completed – his first -- “The Graduate”.

I was watching an interview being given by the Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, and the interviewer asked him to name the highlight of his career, and he suggested some of the grand openings and major awards he had won. Shostakovich conceded that they were all great moments, but “the highlights of my career are those when I am working in my study, I have a progression of notes and chords, but I cannot find the next note. I experiment, I play around until I find it; when I finally find the right note – that for me is the greatest moment of my work.”

Dustin Hoffman went on to say, “In that moment I realised that I had been working with a bunch of people – Mike Nicholls, Anne Bancroft, Murray Hamilton, Katherine Ross and Buck Henry, the writer – people who had all striven to find the right note. That's when I realised what I had in common with them, and why I belonged in that movie.”

The search for the right note, the quest for a moment of excellence has occupied most of my life, particularly since I began to practice and study acting. That hasn't been any great secret: a dear friend whom I'd met and worked with in an amateur theatre company said to me one day, “For God's sake. Barrie! Either give acting away or go professional; as an amateur you're a pain in the arse!”. I turned professional.

What drives this pursuit of excellence? What gives writers like Bryce Courtenay or Leon Uris the inescapable determination to research for years, and relentlessly pound the keyboards, drafting, discarding, revising and re-writing until they get it “just so”. What sustains athletes like Herb Elliot or Ian Thorpe, and dancers like Lucinda Dunn and Madeline Eastoe through years of gruelling discipline and pain? What drives people like Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman and Harry Belafonte to wait tables and move furniture and sell trinkets in Macy's for years on end while they work unnoticed for years on end in backstreet theatre groups, digging ever deeper to find that resonance? There is something much, much more than just a hankering to be recognised, or even bone-headed determination, that drives them to return to the threshing-floor of work, pain, study, research, classes and rehearsal day in, day out, reaching for that golden ring -- that one fleeting moment, not of fame, but of divine illumination and goosebumps when you suddenly, quite out of the blue, break free of your bounds and hit the “right note”. 

Well, it sounds trite when a say this, but the truth is there isn't another moment like it. It's better than the best sex you've ever had. That moment of resonance, of pure, sublime excellence is the greatest feeling available to human beings. It's worth all the grit, the focus, the sacrifices and the discipline to continuously improve upon yourself and break your own boundaries to “find IT”.

At a reception given for classical pianist Eileen Joyce after a recital in Melbourne, one of the invited guests, a blue-rinse lady from Toorak confided to Eileen, “I would give anything to be able to play like you.” Eileen summed her up quietly, then gently said to her, “No you wouldn't. You would have had to give up your social life, your desire to get married and have children. You would have had to give away your home life and live out of suitcases from one hotel to the next, and the next. You would have to be willing for every day of your life to be dominated by at least 6 hours of practicing, then resting up and preparing for the performance at night. Thank you for your kind compliment, but there's a bit more to give up than you imagine.”

One thing I do know: if you commit your life to pursue excellence in whatever you undertake, you're likely to spend a lot of your life on your own. Very few people will pay the price, opting instead to amble along with also-rans. And for some reason, they sometimes choose to feel and express their discomfort in the presence of your dedication. Don't get me wrong, I see nothing wrong with that life course, but I do say to you, if that's your choice – “Don't kid yourself and put it about that your life lacks lustre because you're an “undiscovered talent”.

So, what is the upside for Excellence? I've covered the trade-off; the price you have to pay. What's the first prize?

Simply this – and it's related as much to the hours you spend doing the imagining, the creating, the exercises, the scales, the rehearsals, as it is to the actual performance. 

Through the entire journey, as lonely, difficult and painful as it may be, pursuers of Excellence find out things about themselves that they never dreamed of or thought possible, and get to enjoy overwhelming experiences that will never be available to those who settle for just “getting along”. As with most worthy pursuits the major rewards reside in the journey. The destination is just a time to pause and enjoy that moment of weightlessness before they plunge into..... next!

There it is. Nothing about trophies, fanfares, dais ceremonies, fame, rave reviews, accolades and such. There's no guarantee ever that the pursuit of Excellence will ever get those things for you. Look at singer Eva Cassidy, for instance. Worked her arse off in clubs, doing her own bump-ins and -outs, her own mixing, negotiating with venue managers, writing and rehearsing, only to die almost unknown. Only after her death did someone notice “Hey, she's good”, and start searching her belongings for tapes.

Is it worth it? Well only you can answer that, only after you've tried it for a few years, and you can only answer it for yourself. But it would be worth remembering that you might not get medals, position, power or wealth for it. And for everything you really want there is always something you're going to have to be without.

In 1977, Herbert Ross made quite a gritty movie about precisely this life choice. It was called “The Turning Point” and starred Anne Bancroft, Shirley MacLaine, Tom Skerrit, Leslie Browne and Mikhail Baryshnikov. (Your husband will go with it just to see the all-out, eye-gouging cat fight between former friends played by Anne and Shirley.) 

If you choose to make your answer to “excellence?” “Yes”, you immediately have to start saying “Yes” to a whole raft of others things, and “No” to even more others. That's just the way it is when you choose to live your life deliberately.

Firstly, it helps to realise that ephemeral not-things like “success” and “excellence” require an extra-ordinary degree of Personal Integrity and of Grace. So it helps to give an unequivocal “yes” to the unknowns and apparent cruelties of life, with Gratitude. Lying hidden behind the mystery of greatness and gratitude for talent is a context of Mastery. If you're after Excellence, none of the short-games are going to work for you; you have to rise fully to the occasion. The much-vaunted goal of “Getting results” usually demands exercising manipulation, coercion, control and do-or-die competitiveness. Those econo-yogic short-cuts are polar opposites of Masterliness – the essential inclination you need every time you go for Excellence. 

When you're ready and intentionally willing to live a life more nourishing than what you're generally experiencing right now, let go of trying to understand life: risk it instead.

What you get in return is light-years above mere understanding (do you want to understand an orgasm, or have one?) Say “yes”, and that includes saying “yes” to the many “No's” you are going to have to say rather than settle for less. Excellence, and its opposites, are the consequences of conscious, deliberate choices that you make and renew, over and over, day in – day out.

Excellence is also the product of clear, conscious intention. As Yoda In "The Empire Strikes Back" retorts to Luke's “I'll try” – "Try not. Either do, or do not-do." Mastery is as simple as that. Let yourself be available in all your yes-ness. Life is for living, embracing the unknowable, playing with a vision, preferably without too-rigidly fixed agendas or expectations of outcome. Say “yes” to your experiences unconditionally, without judgments, classifications, separations or comparisons. It clears the decks of most inhibitors.

I cannot overestimate the importance of the role of Intention in achieving excellence – whatever you have now, whatever you have done – that was a result of your Intention. For most people, their real intentions remain hidden behind screens of self-delusion and downright ignorance of what's making them tick, which is why so many lives fizzle out into a pasty puddle of passivity, enlivened only by occasional outbursts of impotent frustration. Life, you'll find, has this habit of delivering what you put out for. 

At first it can be really challenging to take on this kind of accountability. The possibility that “I am the sole creator of my reality” flies in the face of all “common sense”, and you'll find it nigh impossible to get agreement on it around the tea trolley. But do some digging around in autobiographies of people who've actually achieved something worthwhile for humanity. Prepare to be bowled over by the growing realisation that no-one has ever attained excellence without a level of commitment to be response-able that is out of the ordinary. 

I got lucky. After a very unspectacular beginning to life, I washed up in Canberra as a lowly Grade-1 clerk at the CSIRO Admin, and a bed in Reid House, Commonwealth Hostel's entry-level accommodation for public service “untouchables”. But my new-found freedom away from home gave me the space to take acting classes at Canberra Repertory Theatre from Alton Harvey. I finally found something I was actually good at, started to get roles in productions by The Rep and the Children's Theatre at Riverside. My fellow actors and our audiences were mostly high-level public servants and staff of embassies, so I started to move socially in circles of high-achievers.

The first thing I noticed about Excellent people is that they do life deliberately. Whatever their current situation, they choose it to be exactly as it is, and they choose their next action and take it from where they actually are, not where they dream they'd like to be. It was a huge and serendipitous leap for me. And no-one seemed to mind that I was sorting octuplicate order forms for a living – I was a good actor, polite and respectful, and that was enough of an entrée in a town that was still so small that nearly everyone felt that, for the duration of most people's 2-year assignment, “we're all in this together in this artificial God-forsaken place planted in the middle of nowhere”. I'm so grateful that the combination of training in acting (accomplishing deliberate actions) and the example of true achievers landed in my lap at a time when I was ripe to try anything.

The first trick, if there is such s thing, is to find your magic. There is something worthy, some gift in you that the world needs and that your life to this point has developed. Find out what that is. You may have to experiment with a few things before you find it – that's OK. Grab every opportunity that comes your way to learn and develop you as a whole person. Some roads you explore may lead only a short way. Some may seem a bit pointless at the time. But trust this – if you apply yourself to whatever presents itself to you with awareness, intention and eagerness for real experience, nothing will ever be wasted.

Oddly enough, your life is designed to work. Mine is, too; I've actually had to work bloody hard to stuff it up. So do you. Drop your preconceptions for a while, get out of your own way, and see what shows up for you. It won't be a blue ribbon; it will show up as an opportunity to do something different, work clothes provided.

Whatever you do is important, but the way that you do it is even more so. A short story by way of illustration ---- During a lean period as a professional actor before I went to NIDA, I took a job for 6 weeks as driver, road manager and lighting tech. for a tour through Tasmania of a one-man show of the works of Dylan Thomas by John Llewellyn. Due to a last-minute strike by ship stewards, the ferry from Sydney to Hobart did not sail, so I drove all night and the next day to Melbourne in a station wagon loaded with all our gear and scenery on the roof rack. I caught the ferry from Williamstown to Devonport. There was a horrendous storm in Bass Strait that night, so I got little sleep. Disembarking in Devonport. I then had to drive straight to Hobart – the first performance was that night in the Theatre Royal. I was knackered.

Somewhere across the Central Plateau the roadside architecture changed. Small shrubs, spaced at even intervals appeared along the verge, and each shrub was “sculpted” into the shape of an animal or bird. I can't tell you what a lift the phenomenon gave my jaded, anxious spirit! I found myself looking for the next one; the kilometres flew by. I learned in Hobart that that particular stretch of road was the responsibility of one man who'd been a permanent member of the road gang for years. His job was to keep the spoon ditches clear and the aggregate swept up to the edge of the bitumen. But he had taken it upon himself to plant and nurture shrubs, clipping and training them into works of art. I learned that day that, no matter what you're given to do in life, you have the power to make it excellent and make a difference to people you probably will never meet. Whoever he is, or was, I've never forgotten him, and how he helped me feel that day. No matter what you do in life, make it memorable for its excellence.

When you can see the learning and tangible results that a creative attitude and deliberate actions lead to, you take a giant step into responsibility, mastery, reclaiming your life as your own, and a standard and style that marks you amongst the top 20% of Australians who are actually interesting and worth our while to be around. With more practice at delving deeper into your inherent capacity for excellence you will soon become a go-to person for collaboration. Eventually you'll become a source of inspiration for some, and maybe even empowering for a few.

Candidates for Excellence are practitioners of conscious choosing. Even if there's only one possible path, they choose that way. The act of choosing puts them in charge of the situation. I cannot overstress the importance of this first step.

If there's an alternative short cut or easier option, they take the path more overgrown, if for no other reason than it's less crowded. Excellers embrace challenge and live deliberately – they're hungry for inward adventure. In situations where there seems no choice, they CHOOSE the inevitable. They embrace it, because they know that it's the narrow gateway that leads to the King's treasure. That is the secret of Mastery.

Resistance to what-is marks a slide into Victimhood. Resistance or Acceptance is a simple matter of choosing. Simple. Not easy, maybe, but simple. And while the great majority choose the ways that look more popular, those “in the know” realise that the Great Experimenter, the Unmoved Mover is always hiding the real goodies where most don't go – along the road less travelled.

Even when you appear to have little choice you still have the freedom to either avoid the seemingly inevitable, or to creatively engage with it. Either way will get you to where you're going to. So perhaps the real question should be - ”Where are you headed? What is your true intention?”, and the answer will lie in your actions. Are you choosing or avoiding?

I've never discovered any chance of Excellence down any path of avoiding, resisting or denying. Never, in my own living or in anyone else's. 

Acknowledging the is-ness of what's going on opens up possibilities of other choices that you cannot see when and while you're saying “No”. While you resist, you stay blind and stuck. Resistance locks you onto what you DON'T want and shuts you out of the infinite library of possibilities. And it's not very pleasant either for you, or those who feel they have to tolerate you, usually out of some misplaced sense of duty.

Accepting is, at first, more daunting and challenging. But before long you'll find it opens up opportunities to excel, and that you've selected the much more enjoyable – even exhilarating – and less debilitating journey.

Create moments of right notes: you'll look back each day upon a succession  of excellent mini-lives.

Is that worth the extra bother?