Ambition

[Peter Howie]

Dear Adam, Grace and others (Esp Peter P - your harried email arrived Peter),

Your responses are very evocative for me. I've really enjoyed reading 
them and discovering your takes on what gets you going.

I'm at a point where I need to conclude a new 5 - 10 year plan for 
the psychodrama marketing work I am doing. I can earn a living in 
many ways so money is not the issue though recompense for efforts is 
important. I am aware that I like to start things I have a reasonable 
sense of finishing - bar death and disaster.

I think that there are many many people who would value psychodrama 
in many many different ways. I reckon there are probably 10,000 - 
20,000 people in Brisbane who would enjoy an experience of 
psychodrama on almost any day of the year. There are probably many 
more who would like to know about it so they can tell others - (like 
we do with a good film - I recommend Jindabyne to anyone when it 
comes to your area - very Aussie film and wonderfully 
disturbing).  Being tarred with the same brush as therapy means we 
are in a limited status pool from which we can rise no higher than 
the general status of "therapy" which in Australia has a dubious 
status. So I think some of you can see the complimentary nature of my 
discussion with yours.

I am also guessing that psychodrama at its core is quite 'anti' the 
cultural conserve of modesty, politeness, keeping things to yourself, 
being independent and such ideals. I'll dig up an old article I 
remember reading from the 1950's on this area.

Cheers for now

Peter Howie
Brisbane, Australia

ps Heading off for an Australian Trainers conference in Sydney for 4 
days and may not be able to post for a while.










At 11:45 AM 21/07/2006, you wrote:
>  Ambition-- connects to exuberance, passion, calling.
>         Also interestingly to sociometry, in some ways.
>               More tele for me with others with passion.
>                    But not necessarily for certain sub-tasks, 
> certain socio-telic activities.
>       How much ambition is required to go on the road, travel and 
> teach, with all the trials that involves?
>              I may be a bit lacking.
>         How much to spend money and priority of how one spends 
> one's remaining savings to attend national and international 
> conferences, or to present psychodrama?
>              I might be criticized for husbanding my resources.
>          In other ways, some might find me quite ambitious, in 
> writing and publishing, which I've been doing for many years and is 
> still a priority.
>            Yet I'm drifting somewhat away from focus on psychodrama 
> itself and therapy to more general challenges of consciousness 
> raising in culture, applications beyond clinical context, and 
> mixing it with or applications from other fields of drama and even 
> philosophy...
>
>            And toying with a lateral move to bringing my art into a 
> form of more widely accessible enjoyment (hint, look at some of the 
> cartoon-mandalas on my website)...
>
>            Then Peter said, how much time do I have? That's sure 
> true for me as I turn 69 in a couple weeks.
>   Another element in all this is how focused should one be? I have 
> failed to live up to my potential because I value spending time 
> with a soul-mate, my wife. I say-- whoa, you get one of these only 
> every 40-50 reincarnations--if you're very very good--- so treasure 
> it!  So I diversify my ambition to enjoy a role-distribution among 
> a variety of activities, caring for and about family, community, 
> participation in dancing, singing, fitness, participation in 
> lifelong learning, teaching and reading and discussing issues locally, etc.
>
>         So my response is not to value an abstraction, but rather 
> to discuss with Allee every time a friend sickens or dies, "Okay, 
> that's another opportunity to remind ourselves: Are we doing what 
> we want? What are our priorities?"
>
>Right now, I'm committed to bringing forth this anthology about 
>improvisational and interactive drama approaches; then moving up 
>from the back burners, a number of papers on consciousness 
>transformation, an expansion of my paper in Gershoni's book on 
>applying role playing in everyday life, and other things I've mentioned.
>
>       Do those thoughts evoke anything in you, Peter?  Or others?
>----- Original Message -----
>From: <mailto:peterhowie at macquariehouse.com.au>Peter Howie
>To: <mailto:list at grouptalkweb.org>list at grouptalkweb.org
>Sent: Thursday, July 20, 2006 6:46 PM
>Subject: Ambition
>
>Hi all,
>
>I've been thinking recently about what keeps me going at times, what 
>keeps others going and thing of this nature. Watching Frank Lowy in 
>a documentary, a multi-billionaire Aussie with 180 mega-shopping 
>complexes around the world, who funded the turn-around of Australian 
>soccer/football and helped get us to international status, when 
>asked what kept him going he said he was still full of ambition.
>
>I'm imagining that J L Moreno was also full of ambition, ambition to 
>do many things, one of which was to promote and teach his remarkable 
>method and to try and set up systems to support its ongoing 
>practice, teaching, methodological review and improvement and 
>philosophical development.
>
>I'm thinking on this and wondering about my own level of ambition. 
>Psychodramatists with ambition that I know of would be Kate with the 
>Spiral model work, Marcia Karp, Max Clayton - and there would be 
>heaps of others. I am not thinking about abilities or skills as a 
>trainer, educator or practitioner. More about their ambition to 
>relentlessly push forward in creating a world that they would like 
>to live in, surrounded by colleagues who support and challenge them 
>and keeping going despite their own human flaws and foibles.
>
>Anyway - this rises for me as I contemplate doing things a bit 
>differently around here with how I spend my time promoting 
>psychodrama and Morenian processes. How much do I have. Ho much do 
>those around me support or parallel me. Things like this.
>
>So how does this idea of ambition sit with some of you?
>
>Cheers for now
>
>Peter Howie
>Brisbane, Australia
>
>
>
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