Edwin Booth — What Makes Us Truly Important?
Speaking about my own life, and the life and work of America's loved 19th century actor, Edwin Booth. First presented in a public seminar at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, New York City.

In his definitive lecture, "Mind and Importance," Eli Siegel said:

If you are important because you feel that what's real
is important, that other people can be important...then
your importance is good...Every time we make ourselves truly important, we are making something besides ourselves important, whether we know it or not.

This is utterly different from what I once thought. Real importance arises from being true to our deepest desire—to like the world different from us. Yet every person, I learned, is in a debate between "making something besides ourselves important" and making other things less, which is contempt. In "Mind and Importance" Mr. Siegel describes this state of mind:

You are the only important thing in sight and you are going to get your importance even if other people are made unimportant.

Growing up, I had no idea I had two completely different ways of trying to be important. For instance, when I was seven I planted seeds to grow zinnias by the side of our house. I read about how far apart to put the seeds and how much to water them, and I was so excited when the sprouts first burst through, out into the light. I tended them and soon there were many tall colorful flowers, and I felt proud.

But mainly I thought I would be important if I made a lot of money and was "in" with the right people. I wanted to be "the most important thing in sight" and I was scheming. In seventh grade I ran for president of my homeroom class, and on election morning I passed out candy to everyone so they would vote for me.

Then in college I sold vacuum cleaners. I remember pushing the Jenkins family to buy this expensive vacuum cleaner. They were poor and lived in terrible conditions, and the vacuum cleaner was the last thing they needed to buy. But I didn't care—I just wanted that signature on the contract, and my commission. I will always feel ashamed of this; it stands for what I learned is like math: every time we go for importance based on contempt we are cruel to other people and we cannot like ourselves.

Aesthetic Realism is great because it educates people to choose the one basis of importance that has us respect ourselves—to like the world. Eli Siegel, Aesthetic Realism and Ellen Reiss have done that for me and I love them for it. I had led a selfish, constricted life and I felt more empty every year. Is my life different now!—happy, rich and useful, and I love the work I am honored to have as an Aesthetic Realism consultant.

To show what true importance is and what interferes, I will speak about my own life and aspects of the life of the great 19th century American actor, Edwin Booth. Edwin Booth is truly important because in a large, beautiful way he saw importance in what was not himself, particularly the plays of Shakespeare. Booth was best known for his portrayal of Hamlet—pictured at right—acting this role with a quiet fervor that had a tremendous effect.

Eli Siegel, who I believe was the most important critic of the drama, comprehended the meaning and beauty of the works of William Shakespeare. In his critical masterpiece, Shakespeare's Hamlet: Revisited, Mr. Siegel explained this play and its immortal hero. Mr. Siegel loved Hamlet and knew the history of how actors had performed the role. So it has great importance that he wrote in The Right of Aesthetic Realism to Be Known #212: "Edwin Booth is our most meditative Hamlet, and, everything considered, our most successful."

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