Year 2, Day 317: Shakespeare Institute -- Provoked.

Social experiment #1.
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I am against racism, sexism, evil, laziness, ignorance, stagnation, and rape.

In fact, I don't believe anyone worthy of having a conversation with is actually FOR any of those things as concepts.  They are concepts drawn out of polarized thought... except the last one.  I'll discuss that last one there in a moment.  In the meantime, all of the rest of these concepts have been created in order to polarize a person or populous against something.  It is an institutional desire to create polarization in and amongst people as there will be commonality seen or experienced then within that institution.  It is not the ideal of a community however to create polarization, as all communities truly wish to welcome members that already share a common bond (usually a proximal living situation).  So, for the purposes of this discussion on the polarization of thought, an institutional way of thinking could be seen as exclusive, and a communal way of thinking as inclusive.

So, how did you read that statement above?  Are institutions 'bad' and communities 'good'?

Rape is the product of a polarized society.  One definition of 'rape', according to the Oxford Dictionaries, is 'the wanton destruction or spoiling of a place.'  Though there are other definitions of 'rape' in many different dictionaries online and in print, this is the definition that I'd like to address.  The act of rape is the product of a culture, society, or institution completely polarized in thought, action, or policy.

No one supports these other concepts, except in a fictional society.  Racism, sexism, and evil are not concepts people act or speak towards, but rather against.  (Imagine the cheers "Go Racism!" that you've never heard in your life - and you understand that no one speaks to the premise, they simply act in ownership of it).  Laziness, ignorance, and stagnation are not self-aware concepts, for obvious reasons.  These are all terms, ideas, or talking points that have arisen from institutions wishing to polarize thought against something else, not them.  The big question here is, why?

Am I polarizing your way of thinking by even calling out the concept of polarized thought?  Am I anti-polarization now that I have said 'rape is a product of a polarized society'?

When an institution has invited you to take part in whatever they are selling (education, parties, political thinking, money, self-help, etc.), each and every one of them has sold you on the premise of what they are not.  A PC is not an Apple.  Michigan is not Michigan State.  Democrats are not Republican.  The Globe is not the RSC.  You get the idea.  Even by stating a positive viewpoint, these institutions have polarized their ideas against someone else.  "We are here to make you succeed!" ~ "Don't put your unrealistic expectations on me.  What if I don't want to succeed your way?" -or- "We want to save the rainforests!" ~  "I make my living chopping down trees.  Are you oppressing me?" -or just- "Jesus saves."  That one has had a few responses over the years.

Institutions are there to pull you up/down/through to their level.  They do it by polarizing you against something, intentionally or no.

Have I now made the institutions aware that I am aware of what they are doing?  Am I paranoid?

Rape occurs when the polarization has reached a boiling point.  The old Garfield adage: "I hit him back first."  It is the initial impetus of war, and fighting, and disagreements, and misunderstanding, and it is part of the human condition.

Have I just called all humans naturally rapists?

In the movie, Thank You for Smoking, a professional lobbyist named Nick Naylor, played by Aaron Eckhart, tells his kid about winning an argument, and without butchering the point too much, comes to the conclusion that to win you do not have to prove your own point right, but just that your opposition is wrong.  Coming from the point of view of a professional 'litigator' - 'lawyer' - 'arguer' - 'disputician' - 'quarreler' - 'warrior', I'd say that was right on the money.

The institution, however, does not argue.  It creates the argument where none existed before, and hires disput-icians to fight the battle the institution has created.  Polarized thought is a product of institutional thinking, and rape is a product of polarized thought.  (Tell me, you saw that one coming?)

So, how do you feel about institutions now?  Have I managed to polarize you to one side or another?

A community holds you up.  Welcomes you in and says, 'how can we help you?' It does not say, 'let us protect you.'  It gives without asking for or expecting anything in return.  So the question remains...

Am I a part of an institution or a community?
_____

In this little social experiment, I have tried to control the way you have thought (that is, if you are actually reading this).  I have given you two options, institution or community, and reasoned with you that one is not the other.  Portrayed one as bad, and the other I've shared platitudes about.  I've made drastic assumptions here, but never given them air.

Is it possible though that you can be something else entirely devoid of institutional or communal thought?

You, the reader, may have seen through this.  You're smart.  And a plural thinker.  You don't get trapped into thinking one way and entertain many different ideas.  A member of the anti-polarized.
_____

I did it again.  I made you into something you are not.  You almost sounded Marxist there.

_____

It's your fault.  I didn't want to call you Marxist.

_____

Ok, fascist.  Woah.  Get off your high horse there.  I was just trying to make people aware of the fact that arguing is simply a product of our need to be right, and feel accepted, and secure.  We polarize ourselves according to our insecurities.

_____

Isreal. Palestine. Go.

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity

We bid be quiet when we hear it cry,

But were we burdened with like weight of pain,

As much or more we should ourselves complain. - Comedy of Errors (II.i)

 

Year 2, Day 317 - Words Written: 0

Year 2, Day 268: Shakespeare Institute -- My superpower.

After looking at, and of course editing, the same sentence for the past week, I have now convinced myself that I am a terrible writer and that it is no longer a foregone conclusion that I will ever get a PhD.  That sentence you ask?  Why, it is only the research goal for my entire thesis.  Which I am told will change many times before all this is done, so yeah, I've got that to look forward to...

This is not what has bothered me.  For the first, maybe the second, time I feel as if my supervisors know more than me about my topic.  I spent the last week working on this damn sentence, so that I can send it along to my supervisors, who then get back to me within 12 hours only to have rewritten the sentence to make perfect sense, and proving to me that I am terrible at finding obvious logic and saying what I really mean.  I think they are shining me on.  "Oh sure, sounds like a GREAT topic.  I wrote that book two years ago, but you go ahead and give it a try." -- Editor's Note: They'd never say this, or even think this.  This is my paranoia broadcasting on loudspeaker inside my head.  <-- I edited this sentence Editor's Note.

<edited for content... I went on a rant.  Then I erased it.  Then I wrote another rant.  Nobody needs to read that.  So that's gone too. The third, and last, rant almost made the cut.>

Plural thinking.  It's how to solve a problem in many different ways.  I was introduced to this phrase by Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing when Josh Lyman hosts a group of school kids in the cafeteria of The White House and talks to them about entertaining more than one idea.  There is more than one way to write my thesis, more than one way to think about things, solve things, believe things, and if you ever find yourself stuck in thinking one way about anything... stop.  Try and imagine the other side of the argument/discussion/conversation.

Plural thinking is the basis for empathy.  Not sympathy.  They are two different things.  There are plenty of people who are sympathetic to any number of other people's plights (I can call about ten people right now who could all sympathize with the writing-a-thesis thing.)  Sympathy = feelings of pity or sorrow for someone else's misfortune.  Empathy = the ability to understand and share in the feelings of another.

Yeah.  Some people condescend to sympathize with just about anyone.  "Yeah, that sucks" is the aphorism of the apathetic.  A sympathetic person will feel sorry for someone else, but will most likely move on fairly quickly from that emotion (America felt sorry for Sandy Hook, and now are carrying guns through the aisles of Target because they want to show their solidarity for Open Carry Laws.)  An empathetic person actually needs to physically, emotionally, and thinking-ly stop (thinking-ly is not a word), and imagine what the other person/side/alien is feeling to try and understand it (So, yeah, I try to understand the people who believe vaccination is bad for kids.)

I am an empath.  It's my superpower.  I use my imagination to try and construct stories for people I do not yet understand so that I can make sense of the world.  I can't help or stop myself from doing it.  <empathetic rant where I imagine a conversation with right-wing political strategists>  So, what does this have to do with getting a PhD?

Everything.

In order to write a (rather long) paper about a topic, any topic really, there is a completeness to the argument you are interested in that you have not yet thought of.  There is a side to the conversation you have not yet heard, and probably don't want to hear.  A person can sympathize without really listening; empaths have to listen to everything... and all too often, they lose their minds.  But, you have to hear what everyone has to say (everyone that has an academic say-so, not everyone with an opinion) if you are going to empathize with those other arguments.  You need to understand both, all three, all twelve sides to an argument/theory/idea before they let you participate in the discussion.  All too often you shut your mind off to the opinions you don't want to hear.  In a PhD, you have to present all sides to a very long argument, in an empathetic way so that each argument has its merits, and then by the end you have made a decision based on all the facts, opinions, and little tidbits you never wanted to hear about.  You have to listen first in order to be heard.  In order to get a PhD you have to prove that you've read everything about that topic, and then 'people' will say that you have the right to be heard yourself.

What did Marilyn Manson say when, in "Bowling for Columbine", Micheal Moore asked him, "If you could, what would you say to those kids who committed this terrible act?" <-- paraphrase

"Nothing," said Manson, "I'd listen to what they had to say." <-- paraphrase again

So, are you listening?  I know.  It's hard.
I'm listening.

"Give every man thy ear but few thy voice.
Take each man’s censure but reserve thy judgment." -- Hamlet (I.iii)

"Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts.
Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts.
Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me...
Anything can happen, child. Anything can be." -- Shel Silverstein, "Where the Sidewalk Ends"

"When people talk listen completely. Don't be thinking what you're going to say. Most people never listen. Nor do they observe. You should be able to go into a room and when you come out know everything that you saw there and not only that. If that room gave you any feeling you should know exactly what it was that gave you that feeling." - Ernest Hemingway, "Across the River and Into the Trees"

Year 2, Day 268 - Words Written: 0.

Year 2, Day 258: Shakespeare Institute -- Editing Myself.

This past Thursday I went through my (first) Progression Panel of being a PhD student, and they actually let me pass.  It was a relatively painless process discussing my work, and my place working at the Institute.  I met with three very nice people from the University who seemed interested in what I had to say, and also interested in getting me out of there as soon as possible because they had fifteen other people to see that day and didn't want to get behind schedule so early.  I had turned in some work earlier this year so that 'readers' from the Institute could critique it, and then I'd have something to talk about in the Progression Panel.  We touched on it during our brief conversation, with them saying, "well, it seems as though your readers have said it is okay, so we'll let you go through." So, since then, I have scrapped all the work I've done in the last month and started again.  Why?  Well, that's a dangerous question.

My readers, two professors I know and respect at the Institute, trashed me.  Well, no, they didn't trash me, but they had lots of negative things... no, well, maybe not exactly negative things, let's say criticisms.  Yeah, there were a bunch, maybe five or six, criticisms about my paper.  A paper that was 6,000 words long, at the beginning of my entire PhD process, and one that has already been scrapped in lieu of a brand spankin' new research focus.  So, why did I decide to go back and rewrite the outline that I had been working on all month long?  Because I edit myself, ALL-THE-TIME.

It is very likely that I will go back and read, re-read, post, and then delete this blog entry because statistically speaking, I've deleted maybe half of what I've written in this text square over the past two years.  Only the least offensive material gets through... I hope.  Maybe I need to go back a re-read my blog entries from a year ago and see if I should delete or edit any of them?

I edit myself in conversations, and even then, I'm pretty offensive.  I haven't been let off the chain in years.  I haven't said what I've actually thought about things in a decade... maybe five years... it's possible I said something offensive two years ago, but wait, let me revisit that moment in time again in my head... (pause)... Yep.  I was offensive then too.  (A space where I go on a rant and am once again edited two minutes, maybe hours, later to reflect what I want no one to know I think about, talk about, or bitch about... because in my rants, I complain a lot.)  So, that's me, it feels good to get all that out (it no longer feels good, because writing it down and then erasing it is almost as if I've acknowledged these impulses and then shoved them back down again.)

If I could, I would write about swing dancing (another passion in my life), but I've read blogs where they do that and most of them sing praises to the professionals and crap all over everyone else (if only somehow to make themselves closer to the people they worship.)  If I could, I'd write about Technical Theatre and Design, and try and convince (or educate) the theatre and dance practitioners of the benefits to doing it right, and what exactly that means... for some reason y'all think that to do it right means a lot of money, and a lot of preparations, when I've seen it done with two clip-on lamps and some ingenuity.  If I could, I'd write about American politics and see if I could affect change just once, and see if there was a politician actually interested in what I had to say (but then I realize I don't have any money to spend on a Super-Pac... so, that'd be a "no" right there.  And then there are the political internet trolls who find you, trash and ruin you, all because you wanted to speak up, and I'm tired of fighting those people.)  If I could, I'd write about all the problems with this world and how you and I can fix them (but then I remember how many people read blogs anymore and the people who do visit this page, most would not have made it this far into a post.)  Then I remember, that I can post about being a PhD student at the Shakespeare Institute, because I don't think that I'm offending anyone when I do that.

So, why do I edit myself?  I'm scared.  I feel as if everything I say is simultaneously ignored and catalogued.  (edited for content.)  I should listen more.  The sad part is that I cannot get back all that I have edited out of my brain.  I might have written a novel somewhere in there and never have known it.

I must not pretend to have restor'd

this Work to the Exactness of the

Author's Original Manuscripts.

These are lost, or, at least, are gone

beyond any Inquiry I could make;

so that there was nothing left, but

to compare the several Editions,

and give the true Reading as

well as I could from thence. -- Nicholas Rowe, Shakespeare's 1st Editor.

Year 2, Day 258 - Words Written: (Edited for content.)

Year 2, Day 224: Shakespeare Institute -- Talking it out.

After almost 9,000 words written, and countless materials read and researched, I have reached the pinnacle of inspiration and specificity and have begun revising my outline to reflect the new ideas I will be tackling in my thesis.  As always, I cannot give details here beyond that it has to do with Shakespeare and Production Design.  In a few short weeks I will begin writing my actual thesis, and producing work that will eventually go on to be evaluated by a committee of scholars that will approve my PhD-ness.  I am confident that I know what I should be talking about, and that specificity of topic, questions, research, and the ultimate "why am I including this sentence?" will be tackled every line, page, and chapter.  I've got this, except I've never done this before.

There are no instruction manuals.  There is no way anyone in the world can tell me what it will be like for the next two-and-a-half years writing this beast, and whether it will turn out wonderfully, passably, or not at all.  Who knows, I may have to re-do the outline again and again... and keep starting afresh every two months from here on in until I get it right.

I wish I could share my ideas here.  I really do.  I'm fairly confident that no one has tackled the things I'm on to... simply because I'm not sure anyone else would be that interested in the topic.  I'd love to crowd-source and find people that I could talk to about this.  I wish I could simply have a conversation with a competent and interested party which I felt confident enough in that no one would steal my ideas and publish their own book on the matter.  Arrogant?  Of course it is.  No one wants to say out loud to anyone else, "Yes, of course I'd love your input, but I'm afraid that you'll steal this idea and try to capitalize on it without giving me the credit I have worked so hard for."  Again, don't invite me to your next dinner party.

I feel like I'm not alone in this feeling however.  How many tales of fiction and non-fiction have been based around this very premise?  Is it my destiny to change the world with my original thinking, or is it my destiny to write a rather cliche story of how my great idea was stolen by some other enterprising individual who managed to capitalize on it first?  Is my idea good enough to steal in the first place?  Would I be better off trying to write this on my own?  Is the University going to claim the rights to this piece of work because I wrote it as a PhD student of theirs, or will I be able to publish afterwards and keep all the rights?  Will I get published at all?  I should probably write the thing first.

I'm not alone in that way of thinking.  I know it.  But as a result, I'm alone in my own thoughts... and unable to tell if my great ideas are even great at all.

Give every man thy ear but few thy voice. - Hamlet (I.iii)

Year 2, Day 224 - Words Written: 0

Year 2, Day 194: Shakespeare Institute -- Getting Over Oneself.

Following along the lines of last month's post of being distracted... ever the overachiever, I've been even more distracted this month.  I've written some, researched some, but am finding it progressively harder as the days trudge on.  Life is always in the way, not sometimes.

So, how do I use this inconvenience to my advantage?  All it takes is a bit of an alteration to my priorities.  As it is normal for procrastination to take its toll on that which you think you should be doing, but would rather not at that point in time, I find that it is my PhD which suffers and watching YouTube videos or surfing Facebook is my escape.  However...  If I were to make Facebook and YouTube my job, then I might find that I can procrastinate by writing and researching for a PhD.

I'm a genius.

And so are all the other fifth graders in the class who thought that making video games a requirement and homework the fun or "procrastinating" part of the evening was the smartest thing they ever thought of.

I'm, in fact, not a genius.  I'm actually nine years old going on forty.

So many distractions though... why do we propagate celebrity?  Why has grammar gone down the toilet for everyone that is not me?  How is it that I actually know someone who is a member of the anti-vaccination movement, and refuses to vaccinate her babies (<- Plural)?  I have found that artists I have known are some of the smartest and wisest people on the planet, and yet many performers these days are profoundly stupid or ignorant, why is that?  Why do I feel the need to be sanctimonious, high-minded, or pretentious?  None of my role-models in life were, but I know that I can be so... and that I am, especially when writing about it.  Like now.

I suppose being a teacher, it becomes hard to turn off the pretension or sanctimony.  It is really difficult to teach children/ teenagers how to properly use language and then read some of their tweets or texts.  It would probably been even more difficult to read the texts and tweets of your students' parents.  Which I have only once, and it wasn't pleasant.

Why oh why does this line of thinking make me crazy enough to ignore my responsibility of writing and researching something I believe in?  It seems as if something is eating at me.  I know I'll figure it out if I just think about it some more.  And a little more.  And just a little bit more.

I figured it out.  All I have to do is change the way people think about PhDs in Shakespeare Studies by telling them all that we are in fact smarter than they... and they'll all fall in line, and start paying us what we are worth.  I'm a genius again, and I've really got to get over myself.

...He that is proud eats up himself: pride is
his own glass, his own trumpet, his own chronicle;
and whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours
the deed in the praise. - Troilus and Cressida (II.iii)

Year 2, Day 194 - Words Written for an Extremely Pretentious Endeavour: 5,378

Year 2, Day 159: Shakespeare Institute -- Distracted.

I think this month I'm using this blog to jump start the desire to write.  This will not be the last time I must do this, as I believe the desire to write hits us all at the most inconvenient times (in the shower; whilst out jogging; or otherwise occupied wherein having a computer or any writing utensil is completely impractical).  I realized this as I was sitting in the Thursday Seminar this week not being able to keep my mind off of designing a completely impractical set for a production that does not exist... or another one for a show that does exist, and yet remains completely impractical due to the fact that it would cost more money than we've ever spent to build it.  It seems that I have the attention span of Nuthatch (one of those small little birds that move really fast, and whenever you try and think of the definition of the word 'flit', you think of them.)

So, I've got to get started again writing what I know will be interesting to me but will suck up the rest of my day.  Each and every time I start writing, before I know it, I've spent seven hours sitting and writing and doing some decent work.  Have I gotten all of what I was aiming for done?  Sometimes.  Do I feel as if there must have been a better way to spend my day?  I shouldn't.  I mean this is why I am in this country.  So, why don't I just sit down and write every single day?  Because I've seen what that does to PhD students.  I've seen them lose their minds, not leave the house for weeks at a time, and then stress out every time they step away from the computer screens to use the toilet (because they should be working.)  I think I need to find a way to moderate work.  A clock of some sort giving a beep to remind me I've been at my desk for an hour, two hours, six hours and it is time to step away for a minute or so.

A moderation of my work needs to happen, and I need to stop paying attention to everything else in order to achieve that moderation.  I can become scatterbrained, I need to focus... but not focus so much that life passes by my window and I can never stop to take a look.  Now, where to begin?

ROSENCRANTZ: We think not so, my lord.
HAMLET: Why, then, 'tis none to you; for there is nothing
either good or bad, but thinking makes it so: to me 
it is a prison. 
ROSENCRANTZ: Why then, your ambition makes it one; 'tis too 
narrow for your mind.
HAMLET: O God, I could be bounded in a nut shell and count
myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I
have bad dreams. (Act II, Sc. II)

Year 2, Day 159 -- Words Written: 2,798 -- Words that need 'Correction': 2,794

Year 2, Day 139: Shakespeare Institute -- Relentlessly Detached... Brutally Indifferent...

Dear All,
In the past month, I have written (and still writing) my first sample of my first chapter of the last paper I will ever have to have graded in order to receive a degree.  I have taught a Master's-level University of Birmingham class in Sound Design for the Theatre.  I have auditioned and cast for the show that I am directing for the RSC Open Stages project, Measure for Measure, produced by the Shakespeare Institute Players.  I have reopened the rather successful swing dance I run here in Stratford-upon-Avon, and our attendance is still growing!  The assembly of a great blues band is in the making, and I have recorded their very first jam session, for the purposes of giving the production of Measure a musical element!  All this, and I still feel as if I am the most boring guy at the party... and I'm still very interested in everything I am doing.

It is a strange dichotomy.  To know that you are boring, and to still be very interested in everything you are doing... I think I know how accountants, tax auditors, and garbage men feel.  Or at least how I'd imagine they'd have to feel when they go to parties.  They love what they do (ok, maybe not the garbage men... they love the money they make) and yet they know they shouldn't ever talk about it in public for fear of killing someone with boredom.  Weaponized lethargy.  "Look out, it's David. We must not talk to him for fear of extreme apathy."

That's right, I'm fatally tedious.  And I know it.

Whenever I catch myself talking (which is far too much), I have the voice going off in the back of my head telling me to shut my mouth... which is of course distracting, so everything coming out of my mouth then becomes a jumble of nonsense, turning that voice in my head to a shout that pleads with me to 'never speak again'... which doesn't matter anyway because by this time I can actually hear the voices in everyone else's head around me. "What a sad little man" and "You are dumber than a bag of hammers" and "Please, for the love of everything holy, stop saying words."

Lesson learned: If I have to open my mouth, it should either be to stuff my face with food or to drink heavily.  If I must emit sound, it should be a non-committal grunt that could possibly be a response to those who are far more interesting around me asking a question that requires an answer.

I've also recently discovered that my tediousness has spread to my face, when listening to others.  Instead of 'bitchy resting face,' which I hear has become a problem amongst women who cannot hide their disinterest in their friends' lives... I have 'murder resting face,' wherein it looks as if I want to kill someone when I am simply in a relaxed state of mind.  I think I also need to make a conscious effort to soften my features a little, as I've not felt like killing anyone for quite some time (hours at least).

I wonder if Master Shakespeare thought himself boring...

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale
Vexing the dull ear of a drowsy man. - King John (III, iv)

Words Written: 956 -- Good Words Written: -956