Today I spent several hours writing a piece about facing the future without regrets. When I went to post it the screen went blank. Back on again the entire piece was gone. The computer took all my work away with one click. It's too late to write it over. But I will live to write another day.
In the meantime here is a reprint from the summer of 2009.
Daring Do
Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown.
Charles de Gaulle
**********************
Star Trek
"The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see."
-----------------------------------------
Those who are given the opportunity and freedom to follow a line of study as far as it can take them are blessed with the possibility of discovering areas of unrevealed knowledge and understanding, what no one has ever encountered before, where no one has ever been. Mathematicians, astronomers, physicists, anthropologists, those practicing on the esoteric edges of science, architects, composers of music and, yes, also poets, when engaged to their utmost, may reach the end of the traveled path, step into an unknown territory of discovery, put down a marker for the future and try to describe what they find.
I don't know much about science, but I know something about art. The first and every time I see "The Piano Lesson" by Matisse I am taken gently by the hand and led into a world of painting I know little about yet.
I have heard Beethoven's "Grosse Fugue" for string quartet many times and it is still a mystery to me. What was it that Beethoven saw in his deafness and what was he trying to tell us about it?
On what obscure mountain top was Shakespeare when he wrote "The mightiest space in fortune nature brings to join like likes and kiss like native things."? And what was he saying when he wrote to lead us there "Impossible be strange attempts to those who weigh their pains in sense and do suppose what hath been cannot be."?
The challenge has been made, the door has been left open for others to follow, for you and I to approach the mystery, to go one step beyond, to find another treasure, another magic stone on which is written a new name no one knows.
The air is thin and hard to breathe, the way is treacherous and the terrain frustratingly difficult to describe, but, though we may be standing on the shoulders of the great ones who went before us, the experience of our own genius can only be won by moving off of the shoulders and placing a foot carefully but steadily down onto a step we cannot see.
DB - Vagabond Journeys
Never give up.
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SUMMER QUESTION
Summer is moving along, people.
It's a long, hot, sticky summer, so here's a hot, sticky question for you. Don't let the recent New York State decision rob you of your thunder.
Same sex marriage. Should it be legal or not? If so, why? If not, why not?
dbdacoba@aol.com
Only 14 answers so far.
You have until the last day of summer, but don't dally.
I eagerly await your answer.
DB
************************
Showing posts with label Last Supper. Shakespeare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Last Supper. Shakespeare. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Sunday, December 19, 2010
A Knock At The Door
Individualism is the fountain that all can drink from, and for each and everyone, hopefully the taste is different.
Ken Riches
*******************
Being an artist is many things, it is like being an indentured servant, it is a blessing, it is a process of discovery that seemingly never ends, it is being an alchemist, it is being an explorer, it is being astonished, it is providing wisdom and joy, it is knocking at doors which have never been opened, it is an overcoming of limits, it is humbling, it is sharing life with an unknown deity.
As an actor I spent as much time and mental energy trying to understand what I was actually doing as I did on preparing and performing a role. In the grandest sense my work was a journey into myself, into the dark cave and gentle grotto of my own being and reason for living.
As a pillow underneath and soft light surrounding the weary head of my life as an artist with all the difficulties and hardships inherent in that life, I consider myself fortunate to have lived long enough and to have worked enough to begin to understand the practical destiny of my life in terms of the actor's obligations and experience.
There is a place where words and actions stop. Beyond it is pure thought and experience. The words and actions are steps leading up to that mysterious place.
An actor begins with a story, usually a script, with a character defined by the author in terms of words and behavior. After penetrating deeply enough into the story the actor will know certain fundamental things about the character he is portraying. Those things are all threads of an overall fabric of the character's life. Within the given circumstances of the story he plays out the parts of his character's individuality. And all of those parts are tied together by an objective, a wish, a desire, a search.
As the actor reaches into his own well of experience to fashion the movement of his character through the story, he comes upon another objective, that of the play itself. Then questions arise. Why do this play? What is important about it? What does it say?
The answers to those questions have to do with the authors' own objectives, his search for answers to his own practical destiny. And if he is a prolific writer each play is another thread in the tapestry of his own life. Each is a search for an answer to life's fundamental questions. Is Shakespeare's "Hamlet" a search for the source and dimensions of being? Is "Othello" a search for the evil that causes doubt, suspicion and loss of faith? Is "Merry Wives of Windsor" about the loss of artificial and foolishly assumed dignity? Is "The Tempest" a search for the moaning of the loss and regaining of power and place? Most of his plays have to do with loss of some kind.
Even though I don't perform it any more I read Shakespeare all the time because there was a genius who proceeded bravely into the necessary objective of his own life. It was a super objective that ordered him, like an indentured servant, to write. I want to know what it was.
Which makes me approach the last door in my own journey, or at least the latest one. What is it that made me become and actor and do it in spite of the difficulties and hardships? Behind all the roles I've played, the wigs and make up, the costumes and scenery, the speeches and actions, the lifetime of being an entertainer there is a super objective of my life to which all the other parts are related like threads in the tapestry of my very being. It is only and specifically mine and I need to know what it is. It is the fountain I want to drink from and to taste my reason for being.
I perceive myself now as a novice, a neophyte at the temple, knocking at a door that has never been opened. Other philosophers who have reached a similar door write more deeply and more eloquently than I, but I believe that at the other side of that door words and action cease and pure thought and pure experience begin.
DB
Vagabond Journeys
*****************************
Weekend quiz, answer the following clues. It's easy
Comet's driver (5)
Headless egos are helpers (5)
Precipitation sound to gentle creatures prancing (8)
Sooty entrance for bag man (7)
Herb's digit up above (9)
Receptacle for feet hanging (8)
Charles' festival song (1, 9, 5)
DB
***************
Ken Riches
*******************
Being an artist is many things, it is like being an indentured servant, it is a blessing, it is a process of discovery that seemingly never ends, it is being an alchemist, it is being an explorer, it is being astonished, it is providing wisdom and joy, it is knocking at doors which have never been opened, it is an overcoming of limits, it is humbling, it is sharing life with an unknown deity.
As an actor I spent as much time and mental energy trying to understand what I was actually doing as I did on preparing and performing a role. In the grandest sense my work was a journey into myself, into the dark cave and gentle grotto of my own being and reason for living.
As a pillow underneath and soft light surrounding the weary head of my life as an artist with all the difficulties and hardships inherent in that life, I consider myself fortunate to have lived long enough and to have worked enough to begin to understand the practical destiny of my life in terms of the actor's obligations and experience.
There is a place where words and actions stop. Beyond it is pure thought and experience. The words and actions are steps leading up to that mysterious place.
An actor begins with a story, usually a script, with a character defined by the author in terms of words and behavior. After penetrating deeply enough into the story the actor will know certain fundamental things about the character he is portraying. Those things are all threads of an overall fabric of the character's life. Within the given circumstances of the story he plays out the parts of his character's individuality. And all of those parts are tied together by an objective, a wish, a desire, a search.
As the actor reaches into his own well of experience to fashion the movement of his character through the story, he comes upon another objective, that of the play itself. Then questions arise. Why do this play? What is important about it? What does it say?
The answers to those questions have to do with the authors' own objectives, his search for answers to his own practical destiny. And if he is a prolific writer each play is another thread in the tapestry of his own life. Each is a search for an answer to life's fundamental questions. Is Shakespeare's "Hamlet" a search for the source and dimensions of being? Is "Othello" a search for the evil that causes doubt, suspicion and loss of faith? Is "Merry Wives of Windsor" about the loss of artificial and foolishly assumed dignity? Is "The Tempest" a search for the moaning of the loss and regaining of power and place? Most of his plays have to do with loss of some kind.
Even though I don't perform it any more I read Shakespeare all the time because there was a genius who proceeded bravely into the necessary objective of his own life. It was a super objective that ordered him, like an indentured servant, to write. I want to know what it was.
Which makes me approach the last door in my own journey, or at least the latest one. What is it that made me become and actor and do it in spite of the difficulties and hardships? Behind all the roles I've played, the wigs and make up, the costumes and scenery, the speeches and actions, the lifetime of being an entertainer there is a super objective of my life to which all the other parts are related like threads in the tapestry of my very being. It is only and specifically mine and I need to know what it is. It is the fountain I want to drink from and to taste my reason for being.
I perceive myself now as a novice, a neophyte at the temple, knocking at a door that has never been opened. Other philosophers who have reached a similar door write more deeply and more eloquently than I, but I believe that at the other side of that door words and action cease and pure thought and pure experience begin.
DB
Vagabond Journeys
*****************************
Weekend quiz, answer the following clues. It's easy
Comet's driver (5)
Headless egos are helpers (5)
Precipitation sound to gentle creatures prancing (8)
Sooty entrance for bag man (7)
Herb's digit up above (9)
Receptacle for feet hanging (8)
Charles' festival song (1, 9, 5)
DB
***************
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Dig We Must
The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.
Edwin Schlossberg
*********************
Anyone who is looking for quick and easy answers to the paradox of life is in for a shock. Look to a favorite book to tell you what to think and you're looking for trouble. Among the philosophers that I enjoy reading are Nietzsche, Hegel and Heidegger. Those are men with strong opinions strongly and clearly stated. What's difficult is following the thinking processes that brought them to their opinions. Nietzsche stated that the purpose of philosophy is not to tell you what to think but to get youto think for yourself. A good philosophy teacher would point out the observations, logic and finger posts of a philosophers thought and ask if there is a fault line running through it. He would ask if you agree or disagree, and if so, in either case, why?
It isn't necessary for everyone in the world to be a philosopher or even a reader of philosophy as I am (a nutcase if there ever was one). But it is necessary for people to think. I've written about this topic so often that I'm bored with it, as you also probably are. I have a quote here someplace that I might use someday which says that the reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
The sad thing is that there is no result of honest applied thought available on most of our TV and radio programs, from news reporters, politicians and preachers, tal;k show hosts. No one is entertained by mindfulness.
Great music is a glamorized experience of original deep thinking. Listen carefully and find your way through Debussy's La Mer, You can't do it on one hearing. Only a genius can do that.
Why is thinking like digging in the back yard? Because you might be surprised at what you find there. Carefully study Da Vinci's Last Supper. Forget for a time it's religious significations and look through it with an open mind. Can you find the knife?
Read any Shakespearian play. The story, the characters and Shakespeare's own amazing intellect are so completely bound harmoniously together that it is easy to miss the profound wisdom as it flashes by.
My life changed considerably one day when I discovered that not only was I opinionated but that there was so little thought that supported my opinions. Facts are one thing, ideas are something else. Most people want to just deal in facts and leave the ideas alone. "Just the facts, ma'am." They want to know the what and the how but not the why.
The amazing thing is that there is an infinitetude of ideas, music, poetry, art, inventions, systems, philosophies, programs and solutions still existing in the mind waiting to be discovered. Writers write to lead us, through the inadequacy of words, to the places where those discoveries can be made. A good writer provides the back yard and the shovel.
DB - The Vagabond
********************
SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?
3 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
********************
Edwin Schlossberg
*********************
Anyone who is looking for quick and easy answers to the paradox of life is in for a shock. Look to a favorite book to tell you what to think and you're looking for trouble. Among the philosophers that I enjoy reading are Nietzsche, Hegel and Heidegger. Those are men with strong opinions strongly and clearly stated. What's difficult is following the thinking processes that brought them to their opinions. Nietzsche stated that the purpose of philosophy is not to tell you what to think but to get youto think for yourself. A good philosophy teacher would point out the observations, logic and finger posts of a philosophers thought and ask if there is a fault line running through it. He would ask if you agree or disagree, and if so, in either case, why?
It isn't necessary for everyone in the world to be a philosopher or even a reader of philosophy as I am (a nutcase if there ever was one). But it is necessary for people to think. I've written about this topic so often that I'm bored with it, as you also probably are. I have a quote here someplace that I might use someday which says that the reason people get lost in thought is because it's unfamiliar territory.
The sad thing is that there is no result of honest applied thought available on most of our TV and radio programs, from news reporters, politicians and preachers, tal;k show hosts. No one is entertained by mindfulness.
Great music is a glamorized experience of original deep thinking. Listen carefully and find your way through Debussy's La Mer, You can't do it on one hearing. Only a genius can do that.
Why is thinking like digging in the back yard? Because you might be surprised at what you find there. Carefully study Da Vinci's Last Supper. Forget for a time it's religious significations and look through it with an open mind. Can you find the knife?
Read any Shakespearian play. The story, the characters and Shakespeare's own amazing intellect are so completely bound harmoniously together that it is easy to miss the profound wisdom as it flashes by.
My life changed considerably one day when I discovered that not only was I opinionated but that there was so little thought that supported my opinions. Facts are one thing, ideas are something else. Most people want to just deal in facts and leave the ideas alone. "Just the facts, ma'am." They want to know the what and the how but not the why.
The amazing thing is that there is an infinitetude of ideas, music, poetry, art, inventions, systems, philosophies, programs and solutions still existing in the mind waiting to be discovered. Writers write to lead us, through the inadequacy of words, to the places where those discoveries can be made. A good writer provides the back yard and the shovel.
DB - The Vagabond
********************
SUMMER QUESTION
(This is not a contest.)
Who are the 2 (two) most important people alive today? Why?
3 responses so far.
dbdacoba@aol.com
Thank you.
DB
********************
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