The Perfect Improv Solo
June 25, 2001
Summary = None
Condensed News = See below
News Item Gallery = None
Transcript = None
Key Words = Artists, talent, painter, actor
Jan’s Posted Daily Fresh Real News
June 25, 2001.
Two items have popped up separately in the Daily News
here of late which have a connection that could be profitable to consider by those wanting to get things settled in their minds:
the increasing respect given to actors, and the expanding role of
aural communication in human life.
(Let any new readers be advised that nothing ever appearing here
is a criticism of man, nor a notation of him having, gone astray,
and now living an unnatural & improper life.
The activities highlighted are done so for the purpose of giving those struggling to see beyond the reportable news
something to chew on besides gum on their journey.)
At the ordinary level, until recent times,
actors were held in low regard,
and restrained speech was considered the sign of a superior man,
but now those in the acting profession are the worlds role models,
and most envied,
and taciturnity is suspect, and oft thought a sign of mental distress.
Historically, the poor reputation of actors has been attributed to them living in unstable conditions outside the mainstream of their society at the time;
un landed, un titled, and always subject to uncertain employment,
(in that they provided mere entertainment —
not an essential service).
Once men left their individual, pre verbal I, garden-of-eden,
and began to speak and live in groups,
drifters, lacking the standard tethers to the community
have suffered a bad reputation,
and this covers not just actors, but all whose efforts offer but distractions from the routine world of survival rather than
contributions thereto: (painters, poets, musicians, prophets,
[although in a stroke of genius. the last made their form of entertainment seem more meaningful than the others
by claiming it would teach you how to avoid death]).
Until contemporary times, actors were viewed by the collective herd as ner-do-well’,
now ordinary people proclaim them their heroes;
why the shift?
And as is always the case:
changes in conditions alone explain it not,
for, man-&-conditions are in fact a unified singularity.
The change has come about through life now calling on
all men to be actors,
and requiring them to increasingly pretend that the affairs that
fill much of their lives, have significance.
As more & more of mens activities
have less & less to do with survival
there is an expanding pressure for them to say otherwise,
for it is only via words that this pretension functions.
In the privacy of his own head, an ordinary man has a lurking,
low intensity awareness that the interests that take up most of his
attention today are without any real importance,
(in the sense of being essential to survival),
but so little of his time now is directly taken up by the
physical demands of survival
that the center of his everyday existence resides in the distractions,
and an integral part of them is
his running commentary — asserting the contrary.
For instance: ordinary men-&-minds
cannot enjoy art without talking about it,
(same with politics, and religion);
all hobbies require that they be talked about as much or more than
they are actually engaged in;
(discussions regarding the art, science,
history & philosophy of philately
are as necessary to its pursuit as are stamps);
Vishnu, Lucifer, Darth Vader, and Life-After-Death
survive solely by grace of ceaseless gossip.
The matter extends further:
men are not only increasingly urged by life to constantly:
talk about, praise & promote
their meaningless, (though harmless & necessary) pastimes,
and in so doing they also subtly and simultaneously offer support to
the increasingly meaningless persona life urges on which is
understandably necessary for them to continually
engage in activities which are meaningless.
The only way that the insane can bear to be insane is by:
going crazy;
no one could tolerate living under the illusionary threat of,
The-wrath-of-God
without pretending to believe that there is a God,
and no man could stand being the thing he seems to be
without pretending to accept the thing as actually
being what he is.
The situation is closed-ended;
a sewn-up burlap bag;
a most beautifully balanced fraud,
(from that certain minority view of the independently minded few).
So, the instant survey reads like this:
presently, things are so arranged that life increasingly nudges men into activities that have less & less direct connection to
anything necessary for physical survival on this planet;
larger & larger sections of his daily existence are given over to
affairs about which he must incessantly speak
so as to keep up his enforced, pretend interest therein — and
the mirage of what he mentally seems to be,
being the most outstanding, but unacknowledged, example thereof.
The son of a certain father said he wanted to be a painter,
(well call it that as a symbol for what is really being referred to),
and insisted that to be one at a level of competence that met
his requirements was all that mattered,
and eventually his elder addressed the matter:
If you could have one or the other,
which of these would you choose:
to be able to finally paint in such a way that each and every time you did so, your efforts gave you complete, private satisfaction — or to have the way you now paint
suddenly receive world wide acclamation?
The voice of your ordinary thoughts will immediately give a
predictable reply, but our family’s experience long ago revealed it for the empty shell that it is, (germane our particular interest ).
All frivolous endeavors must be liberally dowsed in words;
everything from a man’s explanation of his religious persuasion,
to the identification of his favorite team, type of music,
fashion & food, but in so doing,
a man is also offering constant, camouflaged support for
the major hobby of all ordinary people, (which is):
Let-me-tell-you-the-kind-of-guy-I-am — a fact which
life does not program people to notice,
nor to recognize that their tongues are being urged to such activity to help distract them from the vacuousness of the subject matter,
(to wit): the, ‘I’ about which they seem to be speaking.
Assuming readers realize the symbolism of what is being said:
ask, ponder & pursue for yourself, this:
if you had one wish to be granted, and were a musician
with the hunger to play with complete freedom from
anything preconceived or tied to the past,
but whose efforts never gave total satisfaction,
would you choose to gain the ability to so improvise
to your complete satisfaction — but only in your private playing,
or instead have your present playing publicly recognized,
acclaimed & envied by everyone with any interest in such activity?
The brain of every person, part of this invisible, secret family,
is faced with this ongoing choice, whether they realize it or not,
and you miss the whole point and potential profit of the question
if you listen to your automatic thought-voices
which will offer a ready reply thereto;
there is no reply to the question —
the mere fact that such a choice is
crawling all over the desire to achieve a new state of mind
is itself what is to be realized & understood —
not some verbalized reaction to the question.
At some family reunions:
a failure of pretension is an indication of superior comprehension,
and a lack of reference to oneself, the sign of a man who knows.
J
To himself, a man seems to have many selves,
and thus, much to say about himself;
but this is a room made entirely of mirrors —
— until you see it for yourself,
then you realize that it is a room made of imaginary mirrors,
and after that,
you are no longer capable of being fooled by anything.
For you distant cousins, new to the get-together, here it is plain:
If you have the answer to any thing — you don’t understand it.
(Code named: fiat luxurio goobers.)