Today's Thoughts

Improv is the ability to act without preparation. To react without anticipation. To do without thought. To go without consideration. Improv is short of Improvisation, or making up as you go along. Everyone improvises everything they do, in everyday life. Life doesn’t have a script, or blocking, or rehearsal.  Everyday you have lived, you have improved.  The only reason some people find it more difficult to do it for theatre, is because you have had less time to get to know your character.  In real life, even though you improvise everyday, you have had your entire life to learn your character, how they walk, how they talk, and so with that level of knowing what really makes your character what it is, it becomes natural to react without anticipation, do without thought, and go without consideration.  

When you are on stage, and you need to improvise, it becomes more difficult. You are creating a new character every second. You haven’t had time to really understand who your character is, therefore you don’t have the natural understanding of what they will do in that situation. Also, as far as comedic improv goes, the point is to do something that normally wouldn’t be the natural reaction.  You not only have to create a character as you go, but your new character has to be almost the opposite of reality so that you can entertain the audience by constantly surprising them.  

First off I want to state that I am not an angsty teen who hated his high school because I had the same math teacher every year who I swear hated me. I was raised in a military family, and experienced eight different schools, three of which were high school, some of which were military schools, two of which were in Fairfax County, the number one public school system in America, supposedly. With these different views of school, I was able to see where the backbone of school is.  Where everything is the same, and why.  Public schools are based from the Industrial Revolution, and have lived to this day, but desperately need to change to help students the way they were designed to.    

During the Industrial Revolution, the public school system was completely redesigned. It was during an age of innovation, made possible by blue collar workers.  While the Industrial Revolution is known for all of its inventions, if you compare the amount of people inventing with the amount of people building, it is a very big difference.  Therefore, it was logical to base the new education system on building.  Students were assigned to sit in rows of desks, the same assignment was given to every student, expecting the same train of thought from each, and then taking the same tests on the information that was uniformly absorbed. Classes were changed at the end of a bell, lunch was to be eaten all together in one big room, at the same time. And the superiors were placed into an easily understood hierarchy. It made sense for people who were, most likely, going to work in a factory, sitting in lines, receiving the same materials, being expected to turn it into the same products, multiple times a day. Knowing the time and what to do by the sound of a bell, all eating together for lunch at the same time. It made sense, it was preparing students for what they would make their living off of. We became the greatest country in the world, leading the way down the path to new possibilities, new truths, new understandings.  

Now here we are, around 200 years later. We still have the same education system. However, we have a very different set of likely career choices.  One thing Americans pride themselves on, is how many small businesses we have. More and more people every day are deciding to follow a unique career path, where they make the rules, and decide how to do things different than anyone else.  It makes no sense then, that we have the same school system. We learn to think the same, even though we grow up and people expect us to think differently.  We learn to follow a set of uniform rules, and then realize that the rules are constantly changing, more so than ever before in history. We learn to know, and realize we don’t know how to think.  

If we were to re-create the public education system, we would be able to focus it on originality. Albert Einstein once said “Everyone is a genius, but if you judge a fish on it’s ability to climb a tree, it will go through it’s whole life thinking it’s stupid.” School should help students find their inner genius, find what it is that they can do better than anyone else.  Each student would have an individual curriculum, based on their abilities, strengths, weaknesses, hopes, and dreams. And yes, while students generally don’t know what they want to become, the kid that understands how people work together and can become a team, is probably not going to have a job where he sits in a cubicle answering phones. Students have strengths and preferences, and even though they will change, the core will still be there.  Maybe they become a doctor instead of a CEO, but they still know how to make difficult decisions.  Maybe they become a lawyer instead of going into public relations, but they still know how to influence how others view the subject.  But most of all, we could teach kids to think. Instead of teaching them what happened, teach them the reasoning behind it. We could teach not when Caesar ruled, but how.  Not how people fought for slaves in the Civil War, but why. Not why America fell as the greatest country, but when we returned, as the jewel of the world.

It has often been said

there’s so much to be read

you never can cram all those thoughts in your head.

So the writer who breeds

more words than he needs

is making a chore for the reader who reads.

That’s why my belief is

the briefer the brief is

the greater the sigh of the reader’s relief is.

-- Dr. Seuss

  People throughout history have tried to understand, to learn, to find the treasures of the world. They attempt by going on long journeys, reading long stories, searching for long answers. However, the ability to be brief is a treasure itself, and should be treated as such, for as two great authors have said “Brevity is the soul of wit” and “wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”

William Shakespeare, the greatest playwright of all time, once said “Brevity is the soul of wit.” Although his plays lasted hours on end, Shakespeare understood the concept of brevity, and he became the master of wit itself. For years, when I heard this statement, my mind would go to entertainers, stand up comics, comedies of all types, and how the best thrived on being quick. They would make their joke, and go right into the next. There was no pause, no contemplation, it was quick, and it was funny. In a seemingly unrelated note, in my Junior year of High School, I was assigned to read Moby Dick, by Herman Melville. Throughout middle school, I loved reading classic novels, from Frankenstein to Tom Sawyer to A Tale of Two Cities.  I was excited to find out I would be able to add another timeless classic to my collection of great reads. However, I quickly learned that, unlike other classics with large bindings to hold their large stories, Moby Dick was nothing more than purposely taking up space.  Melville wanted to write in as many possible styles as he could in one book, including encyclopedia and descriptive narratives of passing islands.  I quickly lost interest in this once revered book due to its seemingly pointlessness.  There was a lack of passion, a lack of energy to inspire, and thus I wasn’t.  There was no cleverness, and no wit.  And at that moment I learned what Shakespeare really meant when he said “Brevity is the soul of wit.” He was not referring to comedy, he was referring to the fact that wit cannot be inspired without brevity, for lack of attention, and creation of apathy.  

When J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter series, she included a quote by a fictional famous character, Rowena Ravenclaw, who stated that “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.” Throughout time, there have been many people who are still highly remembered, artists and makers, leaders and philanthropists. However, no type of person is more remembered than scholars and writers.  From Homer or Shakespeare, Agatha Christie or Mary Shelley, the people with great minds are remembered more throughout history.  They inspire the artists and makers to create new representations of what it means to live. They show the leaders and philanthropists how to help others understand and realize what it is to be human.  Without scholars and authors, we would be lost in time. They show us who we were, who we are, and who we can become. These are the people throughout history that understand more, and know more, and thus have more wit. These are the people that give us treasures, and show us what treasures we already have.  These are the people that show us that “Wit beyond measure is man’s greatest treasure.”

So, I'm not just a nerd, I'm a fandom nerd.  Especially Doctor Who.  Im even the kind of nerd that doesn't just cosplay, he creates his own character within the universe and cosplays with his own imagination.  So for Doctor Who, my character is: The Performer

The Performer is a timelord, who's parents were in great fear of the Last Great Time War, that they fleed Gallifrey, taking their infant son with them (me).  I never was told about the war, and I never was told anything about the other Timelords.  I only knew me and my parents, and I always assumed (and still do) that I am the only one.  I became employed in the Time Agency, befriended Mr. Jack Harkness, before he fled, which I soon imitated.  I used my, now stolen, Vortex Manipulator, to travel, see things most people dreamed of, did things others had only heard of.  Throughout my travels I met many interesting people, and collaborated with them on their works.  My favorite, however, that inspired me the most, was a Will Shakespeare.  The two of us wrote A Midsummer Night's Dream, which I later performed as Puck in The Theatre in London.  As I continued to travel, one day back in London, visiting the Big Ben, a laser pen fell from the sky near my feet.  Its electronic, and I think I heard a man screaming fairly close when it happened. I never found the man, who I presumed to be the rightful owner, so I decided to keep it. Now I continue my travels, meeting many others who are passionate in the performing arts. 

Current Generation: 3

Current Age: Don't know, don't care

Look: White button up, black tie, black vest, black dress pants, black chuck taylors, glasses