– Gary Haugen (via allthingsvictorious)

What would happen if I took all that effort and actually put it into becoming the “compassionate, humanitarian, artist?”

I might stop talking about it and actually do it?
ah!
scary!
xo
a

I realize that spending time introspecting right now would be the best thing for me and yet this is also the most challenging. So, like a mother holding her baby’s hands as the baby takes her first steps, I will compassionately carry myself into the depths of me, nurturingly allow the fears of looking inside to fall away.

Alone in public.

OK, so I don’t have enough guts to sit physically alone in silence for a full day, but I can do it when I am in a pool of humanity. I sit in cafes and watch, compare, read, draw, and write. Thinking is in there as well.

Be gentle with ourselves. Enjoy this life time. We don’t know where we go from here. But I am sure I love what I have, I am blessed. So, I will show my gratitude through joy. Or at least I will try.
xo
allison

I must say I don’t think I have ever been more inspired than I am right now. I am sitting in an art studio owned by an amazing artist, Jay Senetcho, lived and worked in by Chad Krowchuk, Gideon Flit, and Darcy Belscher, watching a music video directed, produced and designed by Chad starring Mark Hildreth!
I am blown away by the creativity and joy I am surrouned by.

Getting off a 14-hour day of directing and acting, only to be met with a wonderful glass of scotch and love filled artists celebrating art, life and humanity. Ah joy.

How do you be creative!

You just be!

Express yourself and love the experience. What you don’t know is a gift and to embrace your questions will break the skin that surrounds your skin! Pay attention and laugh.

xo
allison

“Compassion is the emotional glue that keeps you rooted in the universality of the human experience, as it connects you to your essence and to the essence of those around you.  It is the act of opening your heart”

We sat for almost 3 hours going over idea after idea. His expertise in the field of visual storytelling was absolutely astonishing and his capacity to take the vision I was expressing and turn it into something tangible and practical was so inspiring. This medium is amazing!

My other mentor in this whole process is a man we all lovingly refer to as “Tucky”. Tucky is an epic story teller with amazing depth and authenticity. He has totally taken me under his wing and is whispering all the advice and encouragement I am longing for while I step out of my comfort zone and into the ring of the unfamiliar.

I throw an idea at Tucky or Glenn and like a sea monkey, it germinates! My idea is suddenly 100 times more that where it started! The idea of a team. The idea of compassionate encouragement and kind collaboration. If we could learn to relate to each other like this all the time, again, utopia.
xo
allison

In essence, the thing I have discovered is their capacity to think. Now, how does one deepen or build their capacity to think?

Well, you practice. You practice sitting and thinking. Jesus, what a novel concept. Funny thing is when I sit and think for more than 30 min at a time I seem to fall asleep. So building up the stamina of depth. Is this possible?

When I saw the Dalai Lama speak last spring he was talking about the need for emotional or compassion based education. An education that trains your heart the way we train our muscles.

Possible?

I think yes.

It feels like we are in need of an emotional evolution. We have come so far intellectually and physically, I think the emotions and the caring, the humanity of it all is truly the next step. That is my thought anyway.

And so I will get back to my daily blogging. I find I really missed the daily check ins with you, but mainly the daily check ins with myself.

This is such a good process for me to sit and think and write what is in this wild an wacky brain of mine.
Thanks for your patience with my rollar coaster antics and off the wall thoughts.

IM BACK!

xo

xoxo
allison

hey,

reading your blog entry. I need to admit I love the joker. He is the
un-doer of schemes, the troubler of schemers. And destruction is just
another form of creativity. The goddess Kali is the goddess of
creation AND destruction. I think I’ve been realizing that I can’t
believe in a universe of connections without concurrently and
contradictorily believing in a universe of chaos. So can we believe in
creation without also believing in destruction?

I can relate to the joker. He’s the part of me that will disagree with
the masses, because someone has to. He’s the part of me that
shit-disturbs when the shit needs disturbing. He’s the whole side of
me that believes the universe likes to kick us in the butt and
sometimes I’m part of that force. And he’s the one that reminds us
that there really isn’t much use to making plans, because our plans
will undo us. He lives for the moment. Total imp. Total chaos and
primal force.

He is, of course, your other half.

xo

R.

So that being read, what do you all think? Is is possible to believe in creation without also believing in destruction?
Do we have to taste bad to know good?

I must say that I am impressed and intimidated by the minds at work on this site. I read the entries posted and I am so blown away by some of the depth you all seem to express. I think it is incredible that we can come together and expand and elaborate our ideas and beliefs in such a friendly and civil manner.

The dialogue between Kevin and Amanda was respectful, honest, and intelligent. Well done team, well done.

I think that ultimately all the concepts we have been exploring as of late have no real answer, for me it is simply exciting to reach out and share ponderings and potentially stretch my own ideas and understandings through simply sharing and swapping ideas with other individuals who have an interested in thinking. It feels like most of the time we are on such a conveyer belt of life, essentially looking to get through our day as fast as we can so we can go home, veg out, and sleep only to begin it again the next day.

There is a 2 day reprieve called the weekend, which usually ends up flying by so quickly that before I feel as though I have blinked, it’s Monday and we begin again. And for what? Where is the life in that!

If nothing else, this blog has given me the reason to commit to myself for thirty minutes everyday. Thirty minutes every day to sit and think about what it’s all about and breathe. Just breathing, reading, thinking, and writing; all things I don’t do enough of. The effect of these thirty minutes results in a more deliberate me. My scenes at work are made up of more specific and precise moments because I have allowed myself the time to color inside the lines. To make sharper choices.

Not that the sloppiness of spontaneity is not important and wonderful, but again it goes back to balance. A little of this and a little of that creates a beautifully personal, well-thought-out, and wildly expressive portrait of how I want to be and who I am in the world.

Now onto the next topic…

Matthew… You said you wanted to discuss a belief. What about beliefs? Maybe we could look at human construct and how that relates to beliefs. I think now that the Olympics are on that could be a very intriguing and inspiring topic. So I’ll ask you all first and share my opinion on the matter tomorrow!

What do you think human construct is and how does it relate to beliefs? limiting and otherwise?

xoxo
allison

Matthew Says:
August 14th, 2008 at 12:10 am
.it would actually be nice is you did a dicussion on beliefs..oh well..enough of me

Jendi Says:
August 11th, 2008 at 1:58 am

I have a question for you…. what is the meaning of life, now before you roll your eyes let me finish. No matter where in the world you are, what your values/culture/beliefs/religion it is a question we have all I am sure asked ourselves or someone close to us

perhaps that is the answer, that the meaning of life is to ask these questions of our selves, to challenge ourselves to find our own meaning and direction…..

or then theres the concept of freewill????

A note to Allison; don’t take this the wrong way but I am a fan of your thought provoking blogs, have seen your show in glims but enjoy more your challenges and concepts and what I see lies ahead for your career…perhaps some strong historical figure???

I fuckin’ dig you and your fantastically challenging questions, Jendi! I also must say that it warms my heart to know you come to this site for the discussions and ideas.

Don’t get me wrong, I love what I do and I absolutely adore the show that I work on, but I do feel as though there is a lot more to me than the character I play. It has been my intention and my goal to utilize this site as a way to reach out beyond my “Chloe” profile and share a more “depthy” experience with people on the web.

I think I mentioned before that the one thing that moves me most in the world is being a part of a community of people who seek to inspire and create.

I immediately thought that this site could be a meeting ground for people to do just that. The Internet is such an incredible place because it is so intensely far reaching. The amount of people that can be involved in this friendship circle I have developed online can be millions and that is so exciting! So the fact that you have not seen the show, is totally cool, because to me that means that I am able to connect with people in a way that is more real and human, not just based in the fictional character I portray, but more focused on the community I am trying to build! So, thank you for that encouraging remark!

I appreciate it! I am actually looking for ways to reach even more diverse groups of people, so if you do in fact have other ideas of ways to get this site out there, or make it more exciting and interesting, do share share!!

Ok and now to speak to the 2 more philosophical quandaries. I do believe that the meaning of life, the purpose for our existence is to evolve and push our our limits. I love that you posed that the meaning of life is the search for the meaning of life. I think this is a wonderful point and something very significant and true. I also believe the way we effect each other while we are struggling to answer this question is a huge part of our purpose. We are these separate beings who are unable to recognize the direct effects we have on the entire world because of our incapacity to see outside of what is right in front of us.

So we live with very nihilistic viewpoints, because we are human and we can only know what we directly experience, in a world that is inarguably existential.

It’s a very exciting and interesting struggle. We are basically a bunch of self-centered creatures seeking to know and understanding so that we can feel “safe” and “comfortable” forgetting that every pillow I put under my ass is one less for my neighbor to lay his head on. Excuse the crass analogy, but I thought it was a good way to explain what I was getting at.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I love human beings. I think we are the most fascinating and incredible creature out there! But at times, I frustrate myself with my own lack of perspective. And then I focus so much on what I can do to fix whatever immediate problem that stems up in front of me that I forget to recognize that is the day to day interactions I have with my neighbor, my partner, the guy at the gas station, and the homeless man on the corner that really effect the world.

The Dalai Lama says that if you want to change the world you must first change yourself, then the way you relate to your family, your community, your state, your country, and finally the world. If I put as much attention into treating myself and the people I relate to on a daily basis the way I would treat a starving child in a developing nation, I think I would be so much more consistent in my kindness and compassion.

I imagine I would participate in much less violence.

And then if everyone in the world did this? And then on top of that we continue to produce these beautiful, charitable efforts to help people in crisis! Can you imagine the world we would live in? I mean, hypothesize THAT for a minute!

AWESOME!

It almost seems like in a matter of years we wouldn’t have people in crisis anymore, and all that time and energy we spent on putting out fires made by people and their violent behavior would be put towards inspiring and creating!!!!!!

Then the struggle would not be about, how do I save myself from my own species, but it would be about the over abundance of all the ideas and concepts we would have created! Oh to dream about utopia…

Free will can be the topic for tomorrow… hehehe…

xoxo
Allison