Journaling vs. Impro

These are days when no one should rely unduly on his competence. Strength lies in improvisation. All the decisive blows are struck left-handed.
Walter Benjamin

Thanks to a brilliant blog post by Sonia Simone, I’ve been inspired to expand my journaling habit from just writing a diary every evening.

For the past few days, I’ve taken a few moments after my usual Shiva Nata-yoga-meditation practice (referring to it as “practice” rather than “kind of a thingy” makes me feel incredibly cool and aware ) to journal about anything and everything that comes to mind.

I’ll take a sheet of paper, fold it in half so the page size doesn’t scare me out, and start writing. Writing without stopping, without planning, without blocking myself  in any way, until I hit the bottom of the final page. Then I take the paper and rip and cut it into little shreds without reading it.

The first time I did it, I noticed some interesting parallels with theatrical improvisation. I wanted to call them suprising parallels, but when you think about it, it’s not really surprising as it is blatantly obvious that the two processes should share features.

After all, in both journaling and impro you’re dealing with the first thought that your subconscious mind throws at you. No wonder there’s similarity. They’re also different in some fundamental ways, though.

Gutter minds

For most people, the thought of impro is scary. Especially the first times you’re doing something that taps into your subconscious and drags it out, you might feel surprised or downright disgusted of what comes up.

To be able to function in the everyday world, we’ve gotten pretty good at blocking a lot of taboo topics from our conversation or even our conscious thinking. Everyone has their own set of taboos that just aren’t talked about – death, money, sex, hatred, failure, greed, you name it.

Since those things are a part of the human existence, though, they lurk somewhere in the background all the time. Impro and journaling share the feature of posing a challenge to the conscious mind, mostly with the need for rapid production, so that the unconscious can get a word in here and there.

The two major processes that people use to control their subconscious in impro contexts are blocking and planning. I noticed I did both during my first shot at journaling.

Planning keeps your higher consciousness in control, so you can monitor whether the stuff that comes out is appropriate. As I was looking for a paper and a pen, I kept crafting the first few sentences in my mind. I felt the need to introduce the context – “here I am, journaling for the first time.”

As I started writing, though, the planning idea stepped aside. It did come up once or twice, when I got wonderful ideas mid-sentence and decided I’d write about that next.

When I’d finished the sentence, though, I’d have a lot of other ideas on my mind as well, and I chose to go with whatever was topmost in my mind at that moment. This is a skill impro had definitely reinforced in me.

The more interesting phenomenon was the blocking one, though. Blocking basically means either trumping your fellow improviser’s ideas (“Here you go, sir, the magic sword.” “What? Where’s the sword? Your hands are empty!”) or discarding your own ideas before you say them out loud.

Another form of control right there – trying guide the impro in a specific direction and blocking all other options.

While writing, I noticed I started to write “it’s awful that”, noticed I’m being very negative, and changed it into “it’s awfully difficult to”. I did make a note about that, too. About being judgmental of what I write before I write it even though no-one will ever see it, not even me. Major blocks.

Meta-ing

The benefit of journaling in these cases is that you’re not trying to maintain a fictional world, and you’re only communicating with yourself. This means you can make an actual written note of the phenomenon as soon as you notice it.

In impro, you’d have to wait until the scene is over and you’re offstage to reflect on your experiences, either alone or with a fellow improviser. Try doing that onstage and you lose focus.

I remember having one or two “I know I should be able to, there I go with the should again, I know I want to” -explications in my journaling.

This, to me, was probably the most fascinating part of the entire process.

Not only do I find out stuff from my subconscious mind, I can observe the processes and patterns I have about relating to that stuff and becoming aware of those as well.

It’s like having a multi-level reflection awareness going on, since the writing process makes you notice the shoulds and the awfuls and the complaints and the oh shucks I shouldn’t complains. In a way, it lets you listen to your own internal stuff and keeps you busy so you don’t need to focus on not thinking so much.

I really hope to establish this as a daily habit as well – not least because it’s a wonderful way to spot connections between things. Which is incidentally what insightings are all about. A brilliant way to insight, if you will.

Thanks for stopping by, and until we meet again – keep catching your own insightings!

Love,

Sari