S And T

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

Mark Twain
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One of the surprises awaiting you as you grow older is to realize that a day comes when most of the people in the world are younger than you are. I don't know if age secures what can genuinely be called wisdom, but at the very least it provides experience and hopefully the ability to see with broader vision the affairs of life.

The famous saying "There's no fool like an old fool" is certainly true. If you are a fool at 18 you may be criticized for it though it is essentially forgivable, But an 80 year old fool has no excuse.

I remember very little of what I learned in school. There were some theories of math and science, something about the time line of world events and an awakening, like the spreading of a peacocks tail, of the realities of great literature from an inspiring English teacher. Otherwise it was just bits of information that caught my attention and sent my imagination blasting off in one direction or another. What I didn't retain was easily rediscovered whenever I wanted or needed it.

One of the things I have seen to my chagrin as my education has developed is the younger generations inability to look at a broad picture of the world's doings. People will quote the U.S. Constitution (usually incorrectly) without having read it and knowing what it says in its totality. Freedom of speech applies to my ideas but not yours. Freedom of worship applies to my religion but not yours because yours is using up resources and convincing people erroneously. Freedom of assembly means that the members of even the most peaceful demonstration against the majority opinion should be reported to the FBI.

People will take a phrase out of context to prove someone is wrong when they're not. People will doctor videos to make it appear as if someone said something they didn't and other people will believe it. And it's all done in the false name of righteousness.

Years ago I read a book written by an American Army general about strategy and tactics and the difference between them. What is an actor doing reading a book about military theory, you ask? I don't know but I enjoyed it. (A former girlfriend thought I was reading it to learn how to win arguments with her. I left her behind with her arguments.) What that book taught me was that there are always tactics involved but they must be measured against an overall stated strategy. It also taught me that some strategies were valuable and progressive and others were not. These days most people just look at the tactics and misread them.

When General Sherman tore up rail lines, burned fields and left a trail of utter destruction on his march through the South it wasn't because he was an evil man, in spite of what some people said and still say. It was a tactic. The strategy was to cut off the Confederate Army's supplies and communication in order to weaken and demoralize it so that General Grant could win the war for the Union side. As a result we became one nation, indivisible.

If you want to win an election to beat or unseat your opponent then that's your strategy. That's it. And you will use whatever tactics, overhand or underhand, to do it. But if your strategy is to put yourself where you can effectively provide valuable and progressive changes for your country then winning the election is just one of your tactics. Why is it so many people can't see the difference? You don't learn about this stuff in school, evidentially.

DB - The Vagabond
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WEEKEND PUZZLE

Let us now praise middle names.

These are the middle names of some famous and infamous wh dwellers.
Who are they?

ABRAM
ALAN
CLARK
DAVID
EARL
GAMALIEL
HENRY
HOWARD
KNOX
RUDOLPH
SIMPSON
WALKER
WILSON

Good luck
DB
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Nether Nexus 9/01/09

In order to know what's what you have to read not only between the lines but behind them.

DB
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Welcome to my vagabond world.
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I know what I said. I think I know what I meant by what I said. But I'm not sure if I know why I said it.

I college I took a geology course. We took field trips, and one day we went into someone's backyard to look at a big rock sticking out of the ground. The teacher explained that it was stratified rock, which meant that at some ancient time it was lying flat on the surface of the earth. But this rock was jutting out at an angle.

Then we went miles away to another place and came upon an outcropping of the same rock which was jutting out in the opposite direction. The teacher explained how the earth had buckled and caused the rock to realign itself into a wave and that weather had eroded the higher parts of that wave. He said that there was probably some place where the rock could be found jutting back down into the earth again.

I was impressed by the fact that a geologist could see the shape and movement of that rock even though most of it had eroded away. But I was also fascinated by realizing that the uneroded part of the rock was under the ground. The movement of the earth had caused it to bend into a huge concave arc and that if we dug down deep enough we would find where the rock was at the turn of that arc.

I once attended a lecture on forestry for the general public. It was a talk about trees. A large part of the lecture was about roots. I knew that trees had roots, but I didn't realize to what extent the roots were important to the tree and that depending on the tree, in terms of bulk, some roots are as big as the tree. While the upper part of the tree is sending out shoots and buds, forming leaves and branches and gradually growing taller, the roots are groping their way through the earth, like a bunch of worms looking for sustenance.

Both of those experiences got me thinking about the hidden meaning of things. I began to wonder what was behind, underneath and responsible for things. I also began to apply it to my job as an actor. A piece of dialogue in a script usually has two levels to it. One is what you say and the other is what you really mean, You say "What time will dinner be served?" What you mean is "I'm very hungry."

But then I began to look deeper into the script. I was doing a two character comedy in New York. At one point the other character drops to the floor and has a tantrum, pounding his fists on the stage. I stood watching him. We were in rehearsal and the director wanted to know what I was doing. I said that I was trying to understand his tactic. The actor said "sometimes a cigar is just a cigar" quoting Freud. I said a cigar is always a cigar but on the stage it means something. I repeated that I was trying to understand the character's tactic at having its fit, but that it did not mean the character knew what it was, It was an eye opener. Can people do something which seems to have no reason, but which in fact does have a reason hidden from the person who's doing it? Of course. It happens all the time. Furthermore, can a person do something for an apparent reason while the real reason is hidden from him? How aware are we of the real reasons we do things?

The birds and squirrels that sit on the branches of the tree are totally unaware of what is going on in the ground underneath that tree. And so are we, in our lives, most of the time.

DB - Vagabond Journeys
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Happy September.
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SUMMER QUIZ

This is not a contest.



A young man out west just took home 88 million dollars from the lottery.



Whether you play the lottery or not, if you suddenly had 88 million dollars, or the equivalent of whatever your currency is, what are the first three things you would do with it?



You have all summer to answer if you wish.

20 responses so far.



DB