The Art of Decision as Understood Through the Art of Acting

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“Acting is not being emotional, but being able to express emotion.” Kate Reid.


An interesting quote to say the least. Expression is defined as "communication of your beliefs or opinion through various sensory mediums". It is the single most important tool for us, the social animals. It is the way to define who we are, not only to others but to ourselves too. Most of the time our opinion about us is based on the external inputs we get from our parents, peers, friends etc. But we have always lacked the courage to sit down and define ourselves. For in defining ourselves we come across flaws we have so far ignored for our own mental benefit. But like a beautiful building the weakness lies not in the facade we see but in the dark corner of the basement where a beam is slowing rusting. It is the dark corners in ourselves we have always ignored but continuously worked on improving the facade. 


Laura Linney in describing a good actor's brains says the questions make a good actors brain. She further adds "when asking questions don't skip steps, ask whys until there are no more whys". A quality improvement technique used in Toyota Motor Corporation is called 5 Whys. It is used to explore the root cause for a related problem (to read more about it please search on internet). For example if a machine stopped suddenly; 1st Why: The power is out, 2nd Why: The power cord is burnt, and so on till you deduce the obvious cause was the burnt power cord but the root cause could be high voltage fluctuations caused by a faulty power unit! Coming back to the quote the expression of emotions is the art of acting. Expression requires precision and details which is obtained by asking questions, a whole lot of them! 


A similar approach in our lives for our tasks could help us make better choices. It could also help us to go through tough or crucial decisions with confidence of knowing the root cause of our actions. It is a human mentality to be comfortable if all the corners of room are well lit by the light. So to better understand the decisions or thoughts or emotions we may want to put ourselves through we can shed more light on the corners of our mind which are not lit by the light of knowledge.