Completing Gifts
As I’ve begun improv comedy courses, I’ve been “seeing” and “hearing” gifts everywhere. The beauty of improvizational acting and comedy is that a story is created in the moment and evolves organically, chaotically. The story moves along because each person is on the same page, in a sense “agreeing with” whatever direction the story is moving. A story is moved by the process of “giving gifts.” As it was described to me by the improv instructor, a gift is a “stated line that offers your partner an opportunity to move the story along.” It is any line that you can offer to the story that, in principle, someone can build upon and push the story along by saying: “Yes. And…”
I’m still struggling with offering gifts that are dense with potential. For instance, imagine someone offers a gift to begin a story: “Check out my new bike!” Now, when I take this gift I will “agree” with it AND push the story along. There are many different ways to make use of this gift. But there are, in my opinion, weaker uses and stronger uses. Here is an example of a weaker use, in my opinion. So, for instance, I could take that gift and say: “YES! It’s a new bike, AND I like it.”
Now, to see what I mean here by this being a “weaker” use of this gift, let me now give an example of a “stronger” use. Hopefully, you’ll be able to notice the difference in the density of the potential between these two.
A stronger use and acceptance of that gift would be saying: YES! It is a new bike, AND I’m glad you replaced it after that incident.” This second, stronger, use gives the other person more to “work with,” it offers the hint of a shared story in these character’s pasts, it hints at a relationship between them, and it even hints about a story plot about to develop. In short, they can thus push their story along with greater complexity or development.
Ok…so what is my point? To receive gifts, you must be able to appreciate those given. You can give only that which you are able to receive. Perhaps this is why I struggle giving stronger gifts right now in my improv courses.
I’m not appreciating, fully.
Check this out:
I’ve been writing about the ability of women in my life to accept my gifts, or the inability to accept my gifts. After some further reflection on how I feel, and how I felt in recent experiences I’ve had with some amazing women in some extraordinary situations, I realized that I was being a bit greedy and non appreciative.
Basically, what the hell might be the experience of my world if I can be in the presence of beautiful women, women willing to be open, vulnerable, willing to share their world, their shit, or women who, in their sheer style of life, are beautiful and radiant, and yet I can still feel like THEY are the ones who cannot accept my gifts???? Seriously?
Maybe I’m the one NOT ACCEPTING THEIRS!
The women who have entered into my life in the recent months are high quality women, attractive as hell. I desire them. I bask in their energy and excitement, their vibe, their power. This is THEIR GIFT. What MORE do I want? I’m a greedy bastard.
Why do I feel that just because they did not want to date me, or come home with me, or have dinner with me, I conclude they are NOT READY for my gifts? Can you see the hidden greediness in this view? This is a view that I have RE-VISIONED.
St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote: “Each receives according to their capacity.” How could I allow my capacity to shrink to the point where I could not simply be pleased with the gifts they offer in just being them? How could I not receive them and simply give a gift in return? How could I write of one girl:
“I literally threw myself out there saying in effect: THIS IS ME. If she did not want more of my fucking brilliance for that night, that’s on her. And it’s all good! As I’ve written recently, she is perhaps not able to accept my gifts or at a place in her life where she wants to accept my gifts.”
I still feel that “each receives according to their capacity,” and that each person can unpack another’s gifts with more play if they are on the same page at a core level. I still stand behind my view of “not ready to accepting gifts.”
But that is only half the story. I had my vision wrong, incomplete.
I was looking at this from the direction of how THEY are unable to accept my gifts, while I, unknowingly, was missing the fact that I was not simply accepting their gifts. I was wrong. My view was external and not internal. I concerned myself with how THEY are being rather then with my own actions, which of course is the only thing in my control.
So to “complete” the picture of this whole “accepting gifts” thing demands a kind of focus first and foremost on myself, on how well I return their gifts to me, of how well I appreciate the gift of their beauty, of the energy and nervousness of the joys of masculinity they arouse within me.
The only question is not how they accept my gifts, but how well I respond to theirs from within my truth…