What is the Want?

WHAT IS THE WANT
1.1 Soon after taking a career course I started to take acting lessons to see if it was an option that I would like. Doing scene work, we were taught that in any scene we had to know what it was we were trying to do or trying to get. Rather than just saying words that we had memorized, we needed a reason to drive those words. The “Want,” and idea, drove the words and it drove the emotions, and then the acting became more like real life.
1.2 Practicing a scene with one partner she constantly questioned me about what my character wanted. Each time she asked me I got better at knowing. I began to learn the desire that was driving my lines. I got to the point where I no longer had to think about my lines or what it was that I wanted. The lines came out of my mouth like they would in real life driven by what I was trying to get. And the emotions, they were a result of my situation, trying to get what I wanted while my partner was trying to get what she wanted.
1.3 When it came time for us to perform in front of our classmates, I was so into my task, focused on what I wanted, that when I looked around the set that was “our living room” I was actually surprised to see people watching. I’d forgotten that I was acting.
1.4 I think that is when acting becomes believable, and that is when it is easier to take the audience away, when we know what we want as actors. And that’s what makes acting interesting, figuring out what is driving the character that we are playing. What do they want, how will they get it? Then we practice, and if it’s not quite right that’s alright, we adjust the desire, each time a little closer, a little more refined, until we are able to express the character.
1.5 It’s like life, trying to figure out what it is we are looking for and the more we live it the more we get to know what it is we want. Ah that’s not it, ah but that is it, a part of it. Each time a little bit closer to the truth, learning till what we have learned is a part of us. How do we know it’s a part of us, when we can express it freely, without doubt or thought, as if it’s a part of us and then we rest. Then we learn the next thing, continually learning, continually experiencing, continually expressing, continually growing. Dancing from scene to scene, from idea to idea, each of them ideas that we love. Eventually we get so into life the flow just takes us and all of a sudden there we are living the life we love, dancing with all the ideas that we love, helping to make them real.
1.6 And that’s a way of looking at life, part of it a practice, learning what we want. And then knowing what we want, knowing the idea we want to make real, we allow it to pull us towards it.
1.7 The closer to the idea we get, the clearer it gets. Like getting closer and closer to a planet we see more and more details. And the closer we get the stronger the idea pulls us towards it as if clarity and attraction are directly related.
1.8 Imagine that each of us is here to serve a purpose that only we can achieve. Like we are all part of a giant jigsaw, each one of us unique in coloring shape and size. The jigsaw may be constantly changing but so are we. It’s like each part of our life gives us a different view of ourselves, a different view of our truth.
1.9 By knowing what we like and seeing what is around us we can see how we can fit into the bigger picture. It’s like a heart realizing that it is designed to pump blood and then it finds a body to pump blood for so that it’s purpose is realized. And even as it is part of something bigger it is also still a heart.
1.10 “This is where I fit.”