exploring the third space

There is nothing There is nothing There is nothing Then there is something For a brief moment Then there is nothing again

The suffering produced by attachment not only consumes energy, but also limits my ability to respond to what is happening. To be compassionate, I need to be sensitive to everything and everyone. Such sensitivity is not possible when I am profoundly attached because my attention and actions will be concentrated on satisfying my desires, fleeing from my aversions, and confirming my beliefs.

Compassionate action requires that I be fully present and responsive to what is happening, while also maintaining the distance that allows me to remain free of attachment. There is no escaping the paradoxical nature of compassion, and perhaps the most challenging problem of awareness is to see that this paradox is livable and that I can adopt this seemingly contradictory position.

DIRECTOR'S NOTE • Nov. 2023

You can't go home. This play has a particular care for and interest in its victims. The resident

inciting event is endless. tragedy is much more concerned with footnotes than it is with gods.

well acquainted with what happens afterward, storytellers claim they can't diverge from what's

written: resist. rage against what must be. tell a story about war without talking

about love. survive its aftermath. fail to find resolution. make this suffering

a home. There's no breaking this chain— fate, as always, gets its way.

Tektronix // Cathode Ray Oscilloscopes //  built on the Island of Guernsey (!!) 1960s

Realizing this, we might worry that a similar fate will befall our own greatest achievements. If even the most significant masterpieces are likely to be relegated to the dustbin of history, what point could there possibly be to our own creative efforts?

But to be surpassed is no failure. We will not have failed even if the collective output of our era becomes nothing more than a pile of dirt our successors climb to greater heights. For to contribute to the project of humanity in any way is a great accomplishment, and to create art that might one day become the tools and materials that help future artists make something even better is an enormous success.