Living as Acting as Living

A few times, I’ve been told I would be a good actor. Other times I’ve been asked if I was an actor. In both types of occasion, what had happened previous to the comment or question, was that I had been being... histrionic I guess is the most accurate word. Expressive, histrionic, actorly...

I think I’ve always been this way until the Great Shutdown of my Adolescence. Then I re-started and then there were a series of lesser, minor shutdowns that impeded the actorly expressive vibes to come through.

I’m very much against any idea of “essence”. I don’t think such a thing exists. But I do believe there are temperaments. Something more profound than habits but something less deterministic than nature.

This is to say that I don’t think I am any specific way, but that many of the ways that I am, including this histrionic aspect, were definitely shut down or repressed during painful periods of my life. I don’t think any of this is unique. But it does feel surprising and discovery-like to see myself anew or brought back to a former self. Not so much “former” as merely previous and, hence, memory-like.

When somebody tells me I’m like an actor, I’m reminded of who I was previous to the Great Shutdown of my Adolescence and it makes me like myself, strike that, love myself in the same way I love my nephew and niece. I’ll avoid the inner child metaphor but I guess it is relevant. In any case, it’s a love that’s not nostalgic in a sad way but memory-like and reminding in the way of a lovely holiday you had as a kid with your parents, or an afternoon or lunch spent with the whole family, grandparents still around, going to and from the table, with siblings and cousins, with that very specific three generation presence at the table which made everything so interesting.

Your parents telling you to do this or that, your grandparents allowing you other things, your parents telling their parents something about their children (you and your siblings), and your grandparents then answering to their children something about their grandchildren.

As I write this, I can’t help but notice I’m talking about identity: the same person as a child, as a parent, as a grandparent. The difference in roles for each and the difference in relating to others for each.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be a parent, let alone a grandparent. But I remember vividly being a grandchild and a son.

All this to say that when someone comments on my expressiveness, I remember the kid I was. The one that was exposed to the Home Alone movie and then forever thinking I was being filmed (predating reality TV). The one obsessed with the Ace Ventura movies and understanding something about myself in that hyper-expressiveness and the humor of removing yourself from the existing situation to both reference and parody it.

I honestly don’t think I can live or exist any other way. Nor do I think I want to.

After the Great Shutdown of my Adolescence, I think I started to believe there was a Truth to... life? Or a Truth to the way-of-being. A false belief in the (false) concept of authenticity. As if there was a true way of living or a true way of being in the world, one that you had to respect or strive toward.

And although I no longer believe that, I do know that there is a way of existing in the world that doesn’t take you out of it to constantly observe it, yourself, and yourself-in-the-world (3 separate items). I believe there is a way to “just be in the world” but these moments are either so quotidian as to not even register as significant (think: the exact moment you put down the sponge when washing the dishes); or they’re elevated to a point of Samadhi or well-executed alignment to the body’s sensation during a Vipassana meditation.

When somebody comments on my histrionic self I feel I’m being truthful to the kid I once was. I feel a sense of pride projected onto me from the kid I once was, as if he’s (finally) looking at me from afar and thinking I’m (finally) doing a good job living. It makes me think I’m (finally) living in a more joyful manner, even enjoying myself, enjoying my self, and enjoying my way of being my self.

Are actors fake or are they capable of being in touch with all possibilities of human emotions in a specific scenario?

There are few things I enjoy so much as arriving to an infinite regress type of conclusion. The way the brain bumps into a wall of thought limit or impossibility of thought.

But I also love the idea of infinitely forking paths after any minimal input into Life. So being actorly-removed from an ongoing life scene and being histrionic to the point where you can react to the situation by contemplating the canonical way of reacting the situation, an extreme way of reacting to it, a tragic way of reacting to it, etc., quickly scanning all of these forked possibilities and kinda remixing them into an informed execution seems... fun to me, I guess.

This is something that came to mind suddenly. I’m trying to get into the habit of paying attention to ideas that arrive, putting them down on paper quickly, and exploring them in writing as I write.

And publishing them. In case anyone finds them interesting or relatable.

But they’re definitely not completely thought-out ideas. Nor do I think I want them to be...