Gruto wrote:Telling people "just be yourself", then style will come, is missing that being yourself is being among other people.
If you find yourself, you find everyone else, too - or a place for everyone else. As long as you are not yourself, you don't see others as they are. You assume things and act upon false assumptions about others' expectations, out of a need to be accepted and integrated; when in fact it is enough to be authentic (however that is for each of us) and you will integrate seamlessly, because people GO for authenticity, they FEEL when someone is authentic and RELATE to that, even if they don't share the same views or lifestyle or choices. They RESPECT authentic choices, even if they are not their own. But they equally reject (and sense) people who are not authentic, who build an image, a mask, who act instead of living. They like being seduced, but not by cold-blooded gigolos. They may even give in when they sense that natural charm benefits from the helping hand of a little guiltless artifice, but there has to be a natural basis; as with good perfumes
So I would say: be yourself and people among whom you live will start seeing Style.
Perhaps this is one of the best tests of authenticity: if you think you have a definite style, if you are conscious, aware of it, making choices based on predefined principles, then it is not (yet) authentic, it is (more or less) constructed, artificial; if you are aware of your individuality without making a conscious effort to be different, if you feel you couldn't be other than as you are, if you make your choices by instinct (letting go of intellect's interference is not an easy task...), then there is a chance you might have actually found Style within and started manifesting it naturally.
Finally, I believe it is impossible to have found Style and all the qualities and attributes that make it up, and be a misanthrope: so yes, Style certainly brings you closer to people, makes you relate to them better, more intimately, gives you more direct access to their hearts. So once you have found your Style, you will have amplified your social stage tenfold in an instant. But until confronting society, bringing Style to light is a work you need to do with yourself. Even Stanislavsky says it - and he is teaching actors how to act on stage! - in the title of his "actors' bible": "An Actor's Work on
Himself".
