Discovery

The German film maker Werner Herzog (Kaspar Hauser - Jeder für sich und Gott gegen alle/The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser; Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht/Nosferatu the Vampyre; Fitzcarraldo; etc.) says when he is directing an emotional scene he likes to film the actors from behind. An example is the scene in Nosferatu where Jonathan and Lucy Harker are together on the beach just before Jonathan leaves for Transylvania. They are walking away from the camera, in the middle distance. In a Hollywood film the tendency would be to shoot such a scene in close-up, to extract the maximum intensity (and to release more of the box-office value in the stars' faces, I suppose). But he says "I don't want to see the actors crying, I want to see the audience crying". So we live the emotional life of the characters rather than being fed it.

The painter Mark Rothko said that his purpose in making such large works was not to create something grand and impressive (as one might expect historically), but rather to create a feeling of intimate intensity.

To find an answer of genius you must first set off in the opposite direction.

Indispensable

The one indispensable work in world literature:

My Young Years
by Arthur Rubinstein

I am telling you to read it.

But only if you enjoy being alive!

Growing

The man who had lived in a small cage for thirty years. Maybe now it would hurt more to leave the cage.

The young girl who had been kept in a cellar all her life. Would the sun hurt her eyes?

A dog that had been mistreated. Could it learn to trust you?

We have the power to see ourselves. We see the face in the mirror and know that it's our own reflection. Not exactly 'me' but the reflection of me. And over there in the mirror you can see what others see - if you can quiet down your own picture of yourself and make friends with what is through the glass. It's someone nice. It's you. (From before)

The sunlight might hurt. It might hurt to stretch what had been cramped and locked away. For a while. How much more would it hurt to stay the same?

I don't know much about dogs. I would hope you could help a dog to learn to trust you. But he wouldn't learn without you. He can't see his reflection. He can feel emotions but he can't understand them. He can't change himself.

What about me and you?

Listen...but not too hard!

I had an article published recently.

It looked to me like it would alienate academics through not being academic enough, and that it would alienate non-academics by being too academic.

But I wrote it the way it had to be written.

The only thing I was concerned about was - where were the jokes?

To be really serious about something, you have to be able to laugh. The ones who can't laugh, who are too important to be joked about, who have a serious bearing that's damaged by laughter...where are they going? Nowhere, by the looks of it.

Too late! We've gone. We laughed, and it made us zoom off into the sunset together!

And if you couldn't laugh, what would you do? Cry?

I laughed until I cried anyway!!!

HA HA HA HO HO...

Sea of ferns

I came back to London on the train through one of England's most famous forests. For some reason it stopped on the way, and I was unexpectedly surrounded by lots of green ferns and purple foxgloves. Good! This is the feeling around me that I am missing when I'm back with the city people. Grey and shut in, they pass me by like ghosts when all the time the green is calling them to reach out their tendrils to light...and other life.

English Words

Least favourite words:
1. "Mate".
A term of endearment directed at people for whom one has no dear feelings of any kind. Rhymes with "hate".

2. "Chat".
The sound made by flapping open mouths when the brain is not currently in use.

Some favourite words:
"Yes"
Also a flexible, inviting kind of silence (not a word, but I like to hear people saying it - especially people who enjoy category 2 above).

That is all!

Seeing

Sit down somewhere (you can stand up if you want, or lean on someone, but please don't lie down, we're not trying to go to sleep here). What are you thinking?

Can you see what you are seeing, just for itself and in its moment? Or is it all affected by your thought? I wish it was different, today is a terrible day, today is an ordinary day, why can't I do anything right, I must be better than them, I will succeed, must change this, must not think this way or that way...

Then what happens to your life? Do you change that by your thought?

It's difficult to find the moment. But I think it is there to be found.

More soon.