Yesterday I read a profile article in New York Magazine about Cornel West. In it he is quoted as saying, "21st-century confessional narcissism isn't his thing". When I read that I was reminded of an Actor's Studio interview with an actor, whom I've forgotten now, describing that it was an uniquely American trait to say and express everything in a film that one had on one's mind. That American actor's bulldoze their way through a film leaving nothing to the imagination. The actor then gave examples of American films versus say, French film. When I thought about it I felt I had to agree. Anyone who has seem an Isabelle Huppert film will surely agree that what she expresses without words says volumes more than what Robert DeNiro or a Woody Allen film attempts to do. We as Americans can't seem to shut up. Another side of this is an insistence that what you say be polished and presented to satisfy everyone within earshot. This last component is interesting because I often wonder if anyone is actually saying a anything they actually mean or really want to say. I am not so sure that self censorship is not the beginning, the middle or closer to the end of an indicator of other types of censorship. You can't say this, you can't say that; it all sounds rather ominous to me.
One of the concepts of an arranged marriage, successful ones, that I admire, is that the union does not begin with anything but trust and hope. Two people have to fall in love by actually watching, listening, being silent and thinking twice. There is something valuable in that. Watching Isabelle Hubert is so fascinating because everything about her style, her character, is hidden. We don't know what she is thinking and we are forced to learn about her at her pace, not ours. There is a lesson there. And I think we mull over a performance by Hubert in a far deeper way than a DeNiro film simply because she emotes something human and deep whereas with DeNiro we come away with wanting to do impressions of characters he has embodied. Yes, there are great American actors, with Pacino perhaps being one of the greatest because he too doesn't always show us what is going on at first glance.
Are you talking to me?
Yes I am. But I find myself more interested in listening nowadays. In part because I don't find people very interested in listening. And maybe I have little left to say because, God knows, I have talked enough.
I write this blog for obvious reasons in that I do have something to say, but I leave it to a reader to care, or not to care. I can't be interrupted here. You, the reader, are forced to take it or leave it. I can relieve myself of my thoughts, flesh out my own ideas, be happy with the result and press the publish button. You don't have a say in the matter. This has its own narcissism; my compulsion to write what I hope will be read.
Werner Herzog eschews self-analysis. I think what draws me towards a kind of communion with this concept is that after years of my own analysis, which was done in private, alone in a room with one other, I have to wonder why I, or anyone else for that matter, feels a need to discuss what they have learned or hear about the inner dialogues of others, outside 'the' room. Is it a need to identify? To be commiserative with others? Sometimes it feels competitive to me and that component whether from myself or others, feels distasteful somehow.
I don't know. All I know is I feel I have discussed these things ad nauseam and I don't really want to talk about things anymore of this nature. I also have begun to feel less empathy towards those that grind away in conversations about their looming misery or their past trauma. Perhaps it is my Catholicism that thinks these things warrant a confession box rather than an audience of more than one. Some of it has to do with the fact that most people don't need to say a word, we know what they are all about by their actions and the verbal explanation is just redundant. I think I am in my phase of life where observation seems more interesting to my sense of curiosity. Too much of what is said I experience as noise. I don't need to listen to it because I have heard it before. I am in search of the new and different and too much of self analysis and pop psychology feels like a faux intellectual masturbatory illusion. And it always seems to begin with either an 'I' or a 'You' and never, it seems, with an "I don't know". I like listening more now because I am catching myself following the words of others and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised by where I am taken.
I'm very opinionated. I have an opinion about everything from potatoes to war. In conversations I am acutely aware of how infrequent it is that others ask: What do you think? And because of this I am not inclined to imagine my interjecting my opinion is really called for or wanted. People tend to ask when they want to know or when they are just curious. Or when others suddenly notice how quiet you tend to be. One can only really notice another person's silence when one stops talking themselves.
I am thankful for those years of analysis. In the long run the greatest gift I received is the ability to be content, satisfied with my part played, and very clear about the difference between you and me. I am detaching from this world. Not in a maudlin type of fashion but rather I am taking time to listen to what is not said. I've spent most of my life listening to the one channel I was instructed to tune in to but now I find myself listening to a different frequency and what I hear seems so much kinder, more harmonious and piques my curiosity anew.
One of the concepts of an arranged marriage, successful ones, that I admire, is that the union does not begin with anything but trust and hope. Two people have to fall in love by actually watching, listening, being silent and thinking twice. There is something valuable in that. Watching Isabelle Hubert is so fascinating because everything about her style, her character, is hidden. We don't know what she is thinking and we are forced to learn about her at her pace, not ours. There is a lesson there. And I think we mull over a performance by Hubert in a far deeper way than a DeNiro film simply because she emotes something human and deep whereas with DeNiro we come away with wanting to do impressions of characters he has embodied. Yes, there are great American actors, with Pacino perhaps being one of the greatest because he too doesn't always show us what is going on at first glance.
Are you talking to me?
Yes I am. But I find myself more interested in listening nowadays. In part because I don't find people very interested in listening. And maybe I have little left to say because, God knows, I have talked enough.
I write this blog for obvious reasons in that I do have something to say, but I leave it to a reader to care, or not to care. I can't be interrupted here. You, the reader, are forced to take it or leave it. I can relieve myself of my thoughts, flesh out my own ideas, be happy with the result and press the publish button. You don't have a say in the matter. This has its own narcissism; my compulsion to write what I hope will be read.
Werner Herzog eschews self-analysis. I think what draws me towards a kind of communion with this concept is that after years of my own analysis, which was done in private, alone in a room with one other, I have to wonder why I, or anyone else for that matter, feels a need to discuss what they have learned or hear about the inner dialogues of others, outside 'the' room. Is it a need to identify? To be commiserative with others? Sometimes it feels competitive to me and that component whether from myself or others, feels distasteful somehow.
I don't know. All I know is I feel I have discussed these things ad nauseam and I don't really want to talk about things anymore of this nature. I also have begun to feel less empathy towards those that grind away in conversations about their looming misery or their past trauma. Perhaps it is my Catholicism that thinks these things warrant a confession box rather than an audience of more than one. Some of it has to do with the fact that most people don't need to say a word, we know what they are all about by their actions and the verbal explanation is just redundant. I think I am in my phase of life where observation seems more interesting to my sense of curiosity. Too much of what is said I experience as noise. I don't need to listen to it because I have heard it before. I am in search of the new and different and too much of self analysis and pop psychology feels like a faux intellectual masturbatory illusion. And it always seems to begin with either an 'I' or a 'You' and never, it seems, with an "I don't know". I like listening more now because I am catching myself following the words of others and sometimes I am pleasantly surprised by where I am taken.
I'm very opinionated. I have an opinion about everything from potatoes to war. In conversations I am acutely aware of how infrequent it is that others ask: What do you think? And because of this I am not inclined to imagine my interjecting my opinion is really called for or wanted. People tend to ask when they want to know or when they are just curious. Or when others suddenly notice how quiet you tend to be. One can only really notice another person's silence when one stops talking themselves.
I am thankful for those years of analysis. In the long run the greatest gift I received is the ability to be content, satisfied with my part played, and very clear about the difference between you and me. I am detaching from this world. Not in a maudlin type of fashion but rather I am taking time to listen to what is not said. I've spent most of my life listening to the one channel I was instructed to tune in to but now I find myself listening to a different frequency and what I hear seems so much kinder, more harmonious and piques my curiosity anew.
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