21 Nov Pain Body

This summer I read Eckhart Tolle’s book, “A New Earth”. The writing helped me get a better understanding of ego and empathy. Now I understand the idea; the thinker that is observing our thoughts is our consciousness, and that the thinker of the thoughts is the ego. Tolle uses the term pain body to reference the way in which identifying with the ego, and not the consciousness that observes it, causes us pain, and keeps us stuck there.

These are some of the themes Prince EA deals with so eloquently in his 60 second clip about stress. I flew to St. Lous to speak with him for All The Rage. When I got there, I had difficulty reaching him and we hadn’t set a time or place, so despite knowing in my heart that it was going to happen, I began to get a little bit stressed out as my available time clicked away. I had almost rented a car to make sure that I could get to him, but ended up forgoing it because I didn’t want the added stress and disconnection that it would entail. In addition to the shoot, I came because our film, “Who Took Johnny,” was playing at the St. Louis Film Festvial, so I relied on the fest to pick me up. The driver, Sarah, was my lucky star. Not only did she agree to take me to the shoot, she was excited to do sound. Then when I couldn’t reach him, she acted like a producer and found mutual friends who had contact with him. Finally, I got a text from him explaining that his car was in the shop and he’d have to pass. I explained that I had traveled to St. Louis and that I could come to him.

About an hour went by and I got no response. I sent a note to my partners and then told Sarah, “I’m not upset. I’ve been working really hard to just let things go, and I can say that it is what it is…” The phone was ringing. As soon as I truly let it go, he called. Sarah and I jumped in the car to go meet him. On the way there, we passed this abandoned auto body shop. Of course we brought him back there to shoot.