Renunciation Beyond Creation
Manifest your authority in the fight with yourself, focusing on the opposition between the apparent simplicity of producing a distinct creation and its ulterior complexity.
In a letter from Mexico, the director Sergei Eisenstein wrote to a friend: "You know very well that the spirit, the heart and… my fate are melodramatic." They are lines written on the 28th of December, 1931. His fate, however, becomes deeply tragic and, in a letter from after only four months, written on the 27th of January, 1932, after Sinclair gives the categorical disposal to stop filming, we read these disturbing lines:
"I give up everything. Everything, everything, everything – only to be given the opportunity to finish what, under the conditions of the most unimaginable hardship, I am not working on, but am fighting for… This is about, as we are all surely convinced, our best film. Something such as this cannot be destroyed… Terrible it is that people do not understand that the film is not a sausage that you can eat in full or just as well only three-quarters of its length…
Maybe a miracle happens though and I will be able to film the episode for which I’d give my heart’s blood (and I don’t say this ironically – you know my character very well). Help us… Such letters are not often written… In my situation man puts a bullet through his head. I’m surprised I’m not doing it actually ! Who knows – this could still happen ! All the possibilities exist and I could give up everything ! " *
How do you perceive yourself in the face of the supreme court called "renunciation", in the limits of what you can experience and obtain through the act of creation which puts to the test your patience and ambition?
Deep down within the being that constantly refreshes its wounds caused by efforts that most often only produce a terrible fatigue; a flaccidity is manifested that remains hanging from some passing illusion. This is a syndrome of strong personalities, even if it seems hard to believe. In front of the act of creation, there is always a wall, called renunciation, a terrible struggle with the very possibility of being part of the story to which you gave an absolutely fantastic form, because few succeed in translating a story into a celebration of the authentic spirit of sacrifice, of loyalty to an ideal, manifested in the struggle for the victory of a dream, a vision, or a passion.
The very act of creation is a definition of the dedication, the involvement of the ambitious man in a project called “A chance of dignity”. In the leavened thoughts in deployment polyhedron of the existence that prevents you from materializing a vision, as a weakness brought about by the blows of fate of your own powers, i.e. in the thoughts that strive to explain that psycho-emotional state that cries out that you have reached a place where nothing awaits you, we can distinguish two orientations.
One, represented by the sensation of opposition between the apparent simplicity of producing a distinct creation and its ulterior complexity, manifesting a relative independence from its content, which approximates you to a sort of barrier or border, marking the boundary between value and non-value. The other, represented through what happens to you when you feel you’re stuck and cannot advance further, the ineffable existing here in its purest state, leads to a sort of accelerated degradation of self-image, of our own being, instead of discovering and developing it.
Can you highlight the image of a destiny addressed as a consequence of a search that involves effort and uncertainty in the direction of a “self-consciousness” called to remind you that anything that tests you has an evolutionary purpose?
The power to know and understand yourself cannot be complete if in the discovery of alternatives from which effect states come from you don’t, at the same time, follow these two orientations. Remember, the first characteristic of leadership – and for this we call it an integral part of a powerful style of combining the nuances of life with the efforts of creation – is that of accepting this "renunciation" in its essence as an annex of your personality.
And the confession "All the possibilities exist and I could give up everything", detached from the pain of not being able to reach the fulfillment of the "great work", cannot direct leadership towards the transformation established through the authority of engaging in effective decisions (not illusory ones) relating to matters of personal and professional life.
For despair, linked to the creation to which you cannot give a certain form, to which you cannot set a certain dimension and value, affects your style of thinking, of acting, of expressing yourself and exposing your ideas. In leadership, this is called reaching the resistance point from which you don’t want to take an extra step. It means you being to immerse yourself in the area of personal obscurity.
Self-consciousness, which includes a set of other structures such as: knowledge, passion, will, imagination, is that deep-seated affection defined by the imperative of “I do not give up on what I have set out to do” only assumed by the artist who knows how turn the most difficult of attempts into a characteristic of spiritual maturity.
Renunciation Beyond Creation highlights that characteristic of the creator of living in a state of tension, anxiety and mistrust, resulting from the efforts of demonstrating his talent and value.
Few recognize as object of study this obscure area – that of renunciation. It being a form of manifesting yourself as an active factor in the process of redrawing the boundaries of your own world, offering new interpretations to your own being.
Susceptible to a truly relevant study in leadership, is the art of knowing yourself in the position of being defeated by your own efforts, later manifested in a form of being a winner – integrated in the consciousness of other people.
You can be a role model for other people if you manage to manifest your authority in the fight against yourself.
* Note: Ion Barna - Eisenstein, Youth Publishing House, 1966.
