#1: The Change I Want To See
This has been a challenging project for me, but my initial work from previous projects had left me with a few threads to follow, these were; the ability of ritual to create meaning, the power of storytelling, and the importance of feeling ‘at home’ in the world. I also took my starting point from Richard Rohr’s book ‘The Wisdom Pattern’ in which he identifies that the world is currently suffering from a lack of meaning. This idea is also explored in Yuval Noah Harari’s ’21 Lessons For The 21st Century’, he explains that this ‘crisis of meaning’ goes some way to explain the rise of nationalism and nihilism that has swept the globe at the start of this century and left societies so divided in the west. I knew that one of my overarching aims was to help people find meaning, to connect with themselves and each other in order to lead more harmonious lives.
Faced with such a grand and ambiguous task I tried to boil it down to a fundamental area, I settled on mental health. It struck me that ‘meaning’ is something entirely subjective and needs to be defined personally for each individual. Mental health itself is still a very broad term and could be seen as synonymous with ‘having a mind’, in that, like our physical health, it is something that we all have a relationship with. But having suffered with my own mental health in the past I have experienced the debilitating effects when it deteriorates and I know it is an important area that is cumulative in a society; when many individuals are suffering, the society is suffering.
I researched into several studies on mental health and found some surprising statistics that underlined the importance of the area, most significantly that suicide is the leading killer for young adults between 20-34. I contacted a professional therapist to ask her some questions about the most common mental health complaints. I also looked into recent studies that have identified gratitude as an important quality that can bring people out of downward spirals in their mental health. This lead me to the use of ritual.
Looking back at Richard Rohr’s writings, I knew that the act of faith provides many people with the opportunity to express gratitude and find communion with a grand sense of meaning. But according to the office for national statistics, people in the most suicidally at risk age range of 20-34 are mostly non-religious (42%). I began to think that an effective solution to some of the problems around mental health would be to create a kind of secular church where people could go to feel gratitude, to commune with a sense of meaning and develop a deeper connection with themselves and each other.
My background being in theatre, I knew that it is a perfect tool to accompany much of these aims, it brings people together, quite literally and helps them to find meaning through the use of storytelling, also much of the process of going to the theatre is ritualistic. But my contention is that theatre has lost its way as an art form, it has become wrapped in elitism and has developed an inward focus that does little to benefit the community at large. So I contacted two professionals in the industry, a director of a theatre building and a director of a theatre company. They gave me some useful reflections on the problems facing theatre and spoke at length about elitism and the way that theatre can best be used to serve society.
There is still a great deal that is unknown about my project, I have yet to really define exactly what my idea is. I also have a lot of hesitancy about throwing around words like ‘church’, ‘faith’ and ‘ritual’ as these are very loaded and personal terms. I am nervous about stepping out into communities and trying to bring people together especially after so many months of lockdown. And finally I am not entirely certain who my stakeholders are exactly; I have identified the age range of 20-34, but I could also be targeting anyone who suffers with their mental health, or who lives alone and is in need of community support. But these groups could encompass a lot of people.
But despite uncertainty I plan to move forward into these unknowns, “living the questions themselves” as Rilke put it, hoping to make a change.
Bibliography
Books
Richard Rohr, 2020, The Wisdom Pattern, Franciscan Media.
Yuval Noah Harari, 2018, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century, Spiegel & Grau.
Claire Schrader, 2012, Ritual Theatre – The Power of Dramatic Ritual in Personal Development Groups and Clinical Practise, Jessica Kingsley Publishers.
M. Scott Peck, 1990, The Different Drum – The Creation of True Community – the First Step to World Peace, Arrow Books.
Journals
Scanlan, Robert. “A Wake in the Front Row: ‘The Social Function of the Theatre.’” Harvard Review, no. 2, 1992, pp. 93–96. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27559510.
Thompson, James, and Richard Schechner. “Why ‘Social Theatre’?” TDR (1988-), vol. 48, no. 3, 2004, pp. 11–16. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4488567.
Websites
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/sites/default/files/fundamental-facts-about-mental-health-2016.pdf
https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/blog/why-we-need-reboot-our-thinking-mental-health-2021
https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/virtually-alone-the-future-of-human-connection/
https://sites.google.com/view/sourcesloneliness/startseite
https://sites.google.com/view/sources-dissatisfaction/
https://positivepsychology.com/self-actualization/
https://positivepsychology.com/self-awareness-matters-how-you-can-be-more-self-aware/
https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/positive_psychology_in_practice
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/9025373/Theatre-losing-its-appeal.html