On Individuation & Acting

Like the business itself, breaking into showbiz requires a good deal of smoke and mirrors--things are never really what they seem. To be candid, there are times that I question why and what I am doing. I got into Improv simply for the "psychological" benefit of getting out of my head and allowing the extrovert to come out and play. The notion that I should allow the more dominant Jeff Goldblum, scientist side of myself ride in the passenger's seat isn't one I wish to encourage.

I believe it is rewarding, short term and long term, to invoke our darker, less conscious side. Many a famous film has given us a fictitious account of this in the form of a vampire, an alter ego or even an animal. That said, and I iterate, the conscious person that I have become must maintain control during the day, figuratively and literally. Integration and individuation is key...but it is a hard and uncertain business in which there are no templates, blueprints or recipes.

I will leave you with a long but useful analogy to this concept by the master, June Singer:

...[Individuation is] something like being in a sailing boat on the lake and utilizing the wind, understanding that the wind is something that you don't make and you can't control. But you need to understand how to live your life in the same way that you understand how you would sail a boat, taking the power of the wind and going with it and allowing your own knowledge of it and your understanding of it to help you go in the direction that you need to be headed. And so in Jungian analysis you learn how to deal with your own power, or rather the power that comes through you, and live your life in such a way that it's harmonious with that power which is above and beyond and all around.