We have to believe in free will, we have no choice.
Isaac Singer
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A few of my journal buddies are telling me I should maintain a positive attitude. A positive attitude is something I equate with a sense of humor, something I'm grateful I have even though it is sometimes aggressively tested as it has been over the past few days.
A positive attitude is also akin to enthusiasm, a constant consciousness of what is beautiful, good and true; a spirit.
My basic philosophy of life, in its simplest form, is "Never give up." But the truth is I do give up. I give up at least once a day. But I know what I'm doing. During my career I used to say that I give up acting about once a week. I said that for 45 years' worth of weeks.
In the acting craft there is a thing which has been called "opposites." It's the moment when the pursuit of the character's objective becomes so difficult he says "Aw, to hell with it" and gives up. It's a momentary lapse in the forward action, a regrouping, an "advance to the rear" in order to get some perspective, think about things and try a different tactic. The character doesn't know it's a temporary maneuver, the actor does.
I have vowed that I will write an entry in this journal every day as long as I have at least one visitor. And I will. Today I vow that if the day ever comes when my StatCounter registers 0 for one whole day, that's the day I will abandon Vagabond Journeys. Does that mean I will stop writing? Hell, no. Instinct, passion and natural law won't let me. I will just take my words somewhere else.
I may publish some day and if I do my book may show up in someone's home or on a library shelf somewhere. Once at the Drama Book Store in New York I was going through the shelves looking for a project to work on. I pulled out a collection of plays by various authors. As I thumbed through it I was amazed to find my own name in a list of actors who had performed in one of them. We were the original cast. I had forgotten that I had originated that role. The play is never done any more, as far as I know. It's an obscure play by an even more obscure playwright. But somehow it got published.
Another time in New York, and I will never forget this, I was waiting for the A Train in a remote subway station at about 2 a. m. Way at the other end of the station was a man with an Alto Saxophone playing blues and playing it well, with his heart. We were the only two people there. His music filled that station. I listened. I'm not sure he even knew I was there. He would have played it even if I wasn't there to hear.
Somewhere in your town there is a small museum. Perhaps the home of some important person of the past has been converted into a commemoration of his or her life. And somewhere, in a far corner, there is a modest work of art no one ever sees. Give it your attention. You will be glad you did. The artist is talking to you, you, with his heart and mind. And before you leave the museum be sure to sign the book.
DB - The Vagabond
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Weekend Contest
I'm getting a lot of interesting mangled cliches so I'm leaving this quiz up for another weekend.
"A stitch in time is worth two in the bush."
Your assignment is to take two or more grand old sayings, cliches, sage saws or famous quotes and cobble (clobber) them together to make a new and wiser adage or utter nonsense as in the above.
Enter as often as you wish. The decision of the ornery, biased judge is final. Althoug he may need help with this one.
13 entries so far.
Good luck.
DB
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Showing posts with label Isaac Bashevis Singer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Isaac Bashevis Singer. Show all posts
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Monday, March 23, 2009
Nurtured Nonsense 3/23/09
Woe to the thinker who is not the gardener but only the soil of the plants that grow in him.
Nietzsche
***************
Good spring day to you.
-------------------------
Check below for the answers to the WINTER QUIZ. You'll find them fascinating.
____________________________________________________________
A former colleague of mine, Gregg, used to refer to some people as vacuum cleaner brains, going around sucking up all the scrappy, dusty thinking that is lying around and not paying any attention to right, wrong or value.
It is indeed a woeful state of affairs for the human race that so many people are willing to take what comes along as truth without really thinking about it. Furthermore, it often happens, too often in fact, that the same people will convince themselves that the garbage that exists in their minds are they're own thoughts and ideas. But worst of all, and a product of that kind of lazy mentality, is the fact that those same people won't do any mental planting of their own. Mental mimicry is the rule.
Along with life we have been given the wonderful gift of human consciousness, the matchless ability to observe, ponder, compare, evaluate, reason and imagine. Why do people refuse to use it? Who turned out the lights?
We are faced daily with so many images, expressions, beliefs and contradictions it is very perplexing for people to sift through everything and find something to believe in, so they would rather have some simplistic doctrine to hold onto like a stick of wood in a flood and not bother their busy little heads about figuring anything our for themselves. Ask the doctor, ask the pastor, ask the mechanic. Or find out what everyone else is thinking. A school of fish is a very interesting thing to see as it swims and turns like one creature. Until it swims into a net. A flock of birds is a fascinating thing also until it flies into an airplane.
One of my favorite wise cracks comes from Isaac Bashevis Singer who, when asked if he believed in free will, said "We have to believe in free will, we have no choice." We have no choice because we have been given the ability and right to it. Furthermore, I think we have the obligation.
A good philosopher doesn't tell me what to think. He tells me what he thinks and then asks me to think for myself, So does a good teacher, a good pastor and a good politician.
You wouldn't want people to move their excess, dirty furniture into your home, so don't let someone plant their ideas in your mental soil. Exercise your natural right to pull up the weeds of nonsense and plant only what you want to see blossom.
Vagabond Journeys
--------------------
Today's assignment:
Watch spring come,
**************************
Nietzsche
***************
Good spring day to you.
-------------------------
Check below for the answers to the WINTER QUIZ. You'll find them fascinating.
____________________________________________________________
A former colleague of mine, Gregg, used to refer to some people as vacuum cleaner brains, going around sucking up all the scrappy, dusty thinking that is lying around and not paying any attention to right, wrong or value.
It is indeed a woeful state of affairs for the human race that so many people are willing to take what comes along as truth without really thinking about it. Furthermore, it often happens, too often in fact, that the same people will convince themselves that the garbage that exists in their minds are they're own thoughts and ideas. But worst of all, and a product of that kind of lazy mentality, is the fact that those same people won't do any mental planting of their own. Mental mimicry is the rule.
Along with life we have been given the wonderful gift of human consciousness, the matchless ability to observe, ponder, compare, evaluate, reason and imagine. Why do people refuse to use it? Who turned out the lights?
We are faced daily with so many images, expressions, beliefs and contradictions it is very perplexing for people to sift through everything and find something to believe in, so they would rather have some simplistic doctrine to hold onto like a stick of wood in a flood and not bother their busy little heads about figuring anything our for themselves. Ask the doctor, ask the pastor, ask the mechanic. Or find out what everyone else is thinking. A school of fish is a very interesting thing to see as it swims and turns like one creature. Until it swims into a net. A flock of birds is a fascinating thing also until it flies into an airplane.
One of my favorite wise cracks comes from Isaac Bashevis Singer who, when asked if he believed in free will, said "We have to believe in free will, we have no choice." We have no choice because we have been given the ability and right to it. Furthermore, I think we have the obligation.
A good philosopher doesn't tell me what to think. He tells me what he thinks and then asks me to think for myself, So does a good teacher, a good pastor and a good politician.
You wouldn't want people to move their excess, dirty furniture into your home, so don't let someone plant their ideas in your mental soil. Exercise your natural right to pull up the weeds of nonsense and plant only what you want to see blossom.
Vagabond Journeys
--------------------
Today's assignment:
Watch spring come,
**************************
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