A few thoughts

Well... I've been thinking and the answer is yes it did hurt. Why is it that no matter where you go if you say the phrase "i've been thinking" there will always be some smug arse waiting to jump in with "did it hurt?". We've all been that person and we know exactly what kind of response it will illicit from the people around us, yet we do it... Does it reinforce a feeling of comfort because its a routine... I don't know because I'm not so wise as to know why people do things. Actually i've pretended on more than one occasion that I am that wise but the truth is, I'm not and if I said something with some degree of wisdom I am pretty sure that I just got lucky. I don't even know why I'm writing this or sending it out to all of you Upstart members except for maybe a fleeting feeling that somebody out there is actually listening. Truth be told many people probably won't read this... I actually wonder if they'll open the email. I guess what I am trying to say is the reason why I am so attracted to theatre and acting is because I don't know. I don't understand why it is we do what we do. Someone asked me recently as to why people are so mean? I said I didn't know. What I do know is that people are people and they will continue to be people until they are simply not people anymore. I suppose that is why they are mean, stupid, flamboyant, wonderful, kind, harsh, opinionated and all those other wonderful words we use to describe being human. Anyway enough of this rambling. I was at a friends place the other day and someone said to me that people on average are happier than they have been for the past three decades. Now, I ignored various obvious pointers like increased suicide rates, increased instances of depression, the fact that Obesity is now an epidemic and is prominent amongst children. I did what I do best, I swung my leg over my high horse and galloped off. "are they?" I asked " who says this?" "studies" and there it is studies... what studies? but I left well enough alone and prosecuted further "Did they do happiness studies in the seventies and eighties? Did they comprise the exact same questions as what this study that says we are now happier contains. I didn't answer any of these surveys, did you?" How do you quantify happiness with a figure anyhow? Regardless of me being on my high horse the person I was talking to had convinced themselves that they were happier than they would have been twenty years ago and therefore this must apply to the rest of the human race. Its a perfect instance and example of how malleable reality really is. The argument went further until it boiled down to this. I said "I believe people could be happier than they are. I believe people have been convinced they are happy and they need to be freed of this illusion" And the response I got was "Shut the fuck up, who appointed you saviour?" "I never said I was anyone's saviour." I hypothesised at the time in my arrogance that by pointing out the illusion of happiness I had convinced my opponent to consider the fabric with which they have formed their reality, that they had come to realise that they weren't as happy as they thought and that this dissolution of the illusion had provoked a violent response. Then I realised I had achieved none of this. I had provoked an angry response because I was arrogant enough to ask annoying questions on a hot sunday afternoon when all that people wanted to do was relax and escape the world... their happy world. Instead of changing someone's thinking I had hardened their own opinions. Being arrogant enough to think I had set them free, I had rather slammed the door to their cell. I'm not saying that mine was the right way of thinking just that being forceful in my views I had closed their mind to all alternatives... Perhaps that too is an arrogant thought driven by the ego... All this relates back to Brecht's Galileo. What is true intellectual freedom? Is the pen mightier than the sword? How much control does the government have over the scientific progression of our society? Is stem cell research the equivalent of Galileo's research into a Heliocentric solar system? Is it right for a man to give his life for his belief's and become a martyr for the cause, inspiring revolutionary change? Or is it better that he should live on denying what he has taught? If he does go on is this not better? How many people will still listen to him? How can I ask any of these questions at all if I have no answers to them and nor does the play "Life of Galileo"... Are answers important or is it enough that we are asking questions? And are questions ever right or wrong? Ultimately, is it better to be ignorant and happy, not asking the questions that may give us answers that will make us unhappy or is it better that we should ask all the questions that the world has to offer and try to make our lives happier using the answers? I guess what I'm asking is if people are happy then do I have the right to ask them questions that may alter their reality so that they are no longer happy? Or what is worse do I have the right to risk asking a question that might set someone free and yet drive others to lock the cells of their minds? I wonder whether Galileo pondered these questions and if he did... what was his answer? Is that why he denied what he had found to be true, that the earth does go around the sun?... Or was it pure selfishness, Not wanting to be burnt at the stake? Why then would he continue his research and writing in secret and smuggle it out years later? Someone asked me whether I believed that Galileo or even Brecht was relevant anymore seeing as Galileo was very relevant at the times of Brecht's three different incarnations in that one was a commentary on friends who stayed to work in Nazi Germany, in this case Galileo becomes the Hero of the story, the second incarnation talked alot about sciences most horrific creation the Atom Bomb, Galileo becomes the villan for allowing the church (the state) to control science to their own ends and the last incarnation was about McCarthyism(sp?) in which Galileo is neither Hero nor Villan but just a man who does what he can to survive. So what will my Galileo be? I don't know yet. It's not for me to decide, I might be the director but I am not the pope, Brecht did not write the bible and sorry B.B. but when you say what things are like everyone's hearts will still be beating in their chests and with them they will make their conclusions. Everyone will go down if they do not stand up for themselves... I see that... but who are we B.B. to tell them how to stand? And who are we to ask them how they might go about it? When I say what things are like, Everyone's hearts must Be torn to shreds. That you'll go down, If you don't stand up For yourselves Surely you see that? ~ Bertolt Brecht