Actors, Agents & Architects

Actors, Agents & Architects: Where do you see yourself?

This is an idea that’s been with me for a few years and is finally crystallising into a framework that might be helpful to see where you are and where you’d like to be in the general scheme of things.

A disclaimer: this is not the truth, this is just a helpful way of looking at things for me. If you find it helpful, please use it and pass it on. If not, well then don’t do anything.

1. Actors

Actors are at the first level of awareness. They spend most of their time in their scripts, following beliefs that they have learned either consciously or sub-consciously. They may have occasional moments of lucidity, for example when they go through a traumatic event, but in general, they operate at a level without genuine power.

They may have the illusion of power, but they are really just following their scripts and the choices they make are being made automatically. Most actors reach the end of their days before they realise that they could have become agents at any stage of their lives, without doing anything other than raising their awareness.

The imminence of death tends to bring great awareness to the magic of living.

As you may well have worked out by now, my favoured teaching approach is through analogy with something that is already well understood, and the vehicle metaphor is one that people usually find quite simple.

In the vehicle analogy, the actors are being driven. They are not the drivers of the vehicle, they are the passengers.

(Interestingly, one of society’s most prevalent scripts is the idea that being ‘driven’ is a good thing. This paradigm runs deep through the very fabric of today’s society, especially in the ‘developed’ world.)

Although most actors are not in general terms considered ‘successful’ by other actors in society, a few actors do indeed accomplish great things in life and are deemed to be a success.

However, actors’ success is often unrewarding since it usually fails to satisfy their scripts. Actors may acquire great wealth, run successful businesses, win fame and universal accolades, but usually, the great things they achieve within one domain come at the cost of success in other domains.

Since their journeys are mostly on the plane of competition, they operate from fear, from scarcity, from anxiety, from worry, from insecurity, and the great things they achieve are a product of chance and circumstance, rather than of universal design.

The adage ‘nice guys don’t win’ is at this level.

Let’s move on to agents.

2. Agents

Agents have been actors. They have since become aware of the scripts they’d previously been following and are now doing something about it.

Although they still spend a lot of time in their scripts, they have reasonable awareness of when they are in and out of them. They have the power of agency, which is defined as ‘the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices’. (Cf. actors who may just have the illusion of agency.)

I like to use the term ‘operational power’ to describe the level of awareness of agents. They have the power to do stuff, to make change, to achieve great personal success without cost to other domains of their lives.

Since they operate at the level of awareness, any change they make in one area increases their experience of life in all areas.

They operate in the plane of creation and bring great things into their lives, without taking anything away from anyone else. There is no fear, no anxiety, no worry at this level, since what they create for themselves brings more life to all.

They work at the level of the ‘WE’ not the ‘ME’, and believe that they deserve to achieve all their wildest dreams. They believe that they can best serve humanity by making the most of their natural talents, by fulfilling their unique potential.

Staying in the vehicle metaphor, the agents are the drivers. They are controlling the direction of the vehicle and the vehicle is subject to their desires, their power, their direction.

I call them agents, because they are agents of change of the most profound kind: the change in awareness.

3. Architects

Architects have been agents. They have created great personal change and, having ‘come through the minefield’, they have decided to do something about bringing other people with them.

They have feasted on the universal banquet and are now telling everyone about it, inviting them to feast for themselves.

They are no longer just creating change for themselves, they are designing change for others. They are teachers, inspiring actors to become agents and designing ways to do this more effectively. They are demonstrators rather than preachers, they are examples rather than precepts.

They operate at the level of creation, bringing more life to all through their demonstration of how to raise awareness. They operate in the ‘WE’ rather than the ‘ME’ and, critically, architects show people how to do the same.

Extending the vehicle metaphor, they are the designers of the vehicle, designers of the driving experience, designers of the road, designers of the journey.

I call them the architects because they are the architects of change: the Architects of Awareness.

What would you choose?

And that’s it. It’s as simple as that! Where do you see yourself? And where would you like to see yourself?

If you don’t see yourself where you’d like to see yourself, why not?

Remember, the truth of you is how you would CHOOSE to see yourself, not how you DO see yourself.

Everything else is your script…

For those of you who want to know more about the script, please check out my personal mentor’s website, Richard Wilkins.