This month is Step 4 of the “Actors Anonymous” program, and it’s all about community. The famous “Rat Park” experiments of the 1970s are currently circling social media, and they’ve got me thinking about their application in our journey. If you aren’t familiar with “Rat Park,” it was a laboratory rat experiment that led to the theory that addictions aren’t caused by chemical dependencies but by loneliness. Though controversial (and not conclusive), I do think there is a valuable lesson in it for us.
It’s safe to say that the life of an actor is misunderstood. Though we’re often immersed within a pool of seeming extroverts utterly connected to one another, the truth is we feel mostly alone. This is especially true when we aren’t working (which, unfortunately, is the majority of the time). We tend to isolate ourselves from both one another and the outside world. We don’t want to face other actors and be reminded of how we aren’t measuring up, and we don’t know how to explain to nonactors that our lives are mostly a waiting game. Without realizing it, we’ve allowed our value as humans to be measured by our résumé. Things don’t seem to change much on the other side of the spectrum, either: Even with dream jobs, finally doing the work we’re proud of, we’re still all alone. We’re either too overworked to leave the house or feel ashamed to share our success for fear of sounding self-absorbed and insensitive.
One of the biggest ways to manage our addiction to this lonely profession is to agree as a whole that we need each other. I myself am so prone to isolating myself that I’ve had to pencil in plans months in advance (sometimes just for coffee), vowing to keep them come hell or high water because I need people. I need people even if the price is that first 10 minutes of hurdle-jumping past my current résumé credits. Also, people need me. If I allow myself to be that flaky friend (you know the one), then I rob someone else of the joy of my friendship. That’s right, I said it.
Inevitably, the need for connection is why we became actors in the first place. The best way to make sure you’re having it with your audience is to practice it in your personal life. No amount of rest can ever compare with that perfect dinner party full of laughs and music. No amount of saving face will touch a 20-minute-turned-two-hour coffee meetup where you got deep with that old college friend. It’s been too long letting the dreaded “What’ve you been up to?” question rule out the rest of the conversation. If the first step is admitting we have the problem, then let’s make that the jumping-off point. Believe that we’re all united in the struggle, no matter where on the ladder we currently sit. That’s the beautiful truth of our journey: We are all in it together.
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