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Purging the Toxins

If there is someone in a person’s life who is exhibiting toxic behavior—be it the fallout from active addiction, verbal or physical (or any other type of) abuse, manipulation and gaslighting, or what-have-you—the person is not being unloving or intolerant to set boundaries around how that someone can remain in the person’s life. The person can love that someone to the moon and back, but the only—I say again, the ONLY—healthy thing the person can do is to set boundaries around the someone’s toxic behavior. If the toxic behavior persists, there may still be love but there will be no connection.

The someone may try to tell the person that if the person really loved them they’d stay connected no matter what. This is false, it is dangerous, and it is nothing more than yet another toxic manipulation. It can’t be agreed to or even tolerated if the person wishes to remain healthy themselves.

We often believe that true love means being willing to be hurt. It does—whether it’s signing on to knowing that sooner or later one or both of you is going to die, or being willing to put ourselves in harm’s way to protect the person we love, or a thousand small ways. The critical difference is that these ways of willing to be hurt for love are OUR choice. Love should never, ever mean that we are willing to let someone hurt us just because they want to or because of their own pathologies. Pathology may be a valid explanation for their hurting us, especially as long as they’re in treatment for that pathology, but it doesn’t make hurting us okay. It doesn’t mean we have to let them keep hurting us.

Why do I bring this up? No, it’s not because anyone in my life is doing this to me on an interpersonal level. I don’t have anyone directly in my life (anymore) who is doing this. I bring this up because I want people to understand that calls for reaching out in unity to those across the ideological divide in this country are themselves toxic and abusive if they lack nuance and ask us to overlook toxic behavior and people who would abuse us and/or others. Reaching out and re-connecting should—and, in my own case, does—come with boundaries.

Racism is toxic.

Homophobia is toxic.

Transphobia is toxic.

Misogyny is toxic.

Classism is toxic.

Religious bigotry is toxic.

Threats of violence are toxic.

Threats of disenfranchisement are toxic.

Denial of clear evidence in favor of a baseless narrative is toxic.

These are not political issues. Disagreements over things that are political issues are not, in themselves, toxic (though the way some people handle those disagreements can be). These things are about the most basic level of human decency.

I have a boundary that regardless of anyone’s political affiliation, regardless of for whom anyone voted, etc., people who are and will be connected with me will disavow these toxic things and work against them in themselves and in society. I will not entertain these things in my presence or my conversation. People who wish to be around me will learn that such ideas and attitudes are unwelcome with me, and they will either feel the shame and loss of social capital of having to keep them quiet or, far better yet, they will decide to do the work to purge these ideas and attitudes from their minds—i.e., they will cease their toxic behavior. That’s it: drop it, keep it in their shame vault, or accept that connection with me will be minimal to non-existent. Those are the options.

That’s not to say that it’ll always be one-and-done. No one can be expected to respect a boundary they don’t know is there or don’t fully understand. Egregious violations from people with whom I wasn’t strongly connected to begin with may be one-and-done, but most instances and most people can expect a degree of calling-out and boundary-clarifying commensurate with our previous level of connection, the egregiousness of the boundary violation, or maybe how patient I’m feeling on a given day. The boundary is mine; only I decide the standards for how it is defended.

None of this makes me intolerant. None of this makes me a hypocrite in espousing love for all humanity. None of this means I hate people who vote or think differently than I do. It means I am standing in my power and honoring the health of myself and those around me. It means I am part of a society, and that both personally and in that society there are boundaries and rules that are designed to keep people from hurting other people. Those who refuse to follow those boundaries and rules don’t get to be in society with me or with the society at large. Abusers, no matter how much we may love them, are not welcome in the only society that has a future—because a “society” built on solipsism and on abuse (and the overlooking of abuse in and of others) is not really a society at all.

I’ll reach across the aisle all day long, but not if I’m the only one reaching and not if the hand on the other side is clenched in a fist—even if that fist isn’t pointed at me personally.

hamletbardfest2019

Our THE BARD GIVES BACK campaign is DEDICATED to DEDICATING our four remaining performances to our partner organizations by the end of August!

Dedicated performances mean the partner organization gets a donation of a portion of Bard Fest’s proceeds AND gets to promote its message at the performance.

WE NEED YOUR HELP! Go to https://www.indybardfest.com/the-bard-gives-back to donate to Hamlet on behalf of your favorite partner organization TODAY!

On Rights, Right, and The Right

In a perfect world, everyone would have complete liberty in everything all the time. This world we live in, though, is not perfect.

In situation after situation, we must—or we choose to—place the rights of one person above the rights of another. The right of the thief to live where and how they choose is deemed less important than society’s right to be shielded from thievery, so we lock the thief in prison. The right of the public to quiet and peaceful living is deemed more important than the individual’s right to do as they please, so we pass noise and nuisance ordinances that hold individuals accountable for violating that peace and quiet. The right of the public to be truthfully and, insofar as is possible, objectively informed is—or is SUPPOSED to be—deemed more important than the right of a public official to keep their conduct in office secret, so we have the First Amendment to the Constitution and transparency and oversight rules. The right of the property owner to paint their house a particular color is deemed more important than their neighbors’ right not to be confronted with a color they find unappealing (unless the property owner has signed over that right in a neighborhood association covenant).

Some people think human life begins at the exact moment of conception (apparently, only if that moment occurs inside a human uterus and not in a fertility lab). Some people think that the nascent pulsing of fluid within a weeks-old fetus is completely equivalent with the beating of a fully-formed human heart. I don’t personally agree (because, y’know, biology), but let’s set that aside for now. Let’s even take the human-life-begins-at-in-utero-conception argument as axiomatic for the moment.

Even if we do take it as axiomatic that the fetus—or the baby, if you prefer, as some people do with tremendous vehemence—is fully human with all rights thereunto appertaining, it seems to me that what we’re faced with then is a situation in which one person’s rights conflict with another’s, and we must come up with a way to resolve that conflict. Regrettable though you may find it, this would seem to be another of those situations in which one person’s rights must be placed over those of the other.

When it comes to a conflict between, on the one hand:

- the rights of a person with a uterus to choose whether they wish to allow another person to live inside their body for forty weeks, or

- the rights of an adult or juvenile person with a uterus to choose whether or not to gestate, give birth to, rear, and share visitation rights of their rapist’s child, or

- the rights of a person with a uterus to determine whether they have the resources to successfully rear a child

- the rights of a person with a uterus to continue living, and to do so in reasonable health

and on the other:

- the rights of a person (remember, we are taking this as axiomatic at the moment) to be gestated

- the rights of a rapist to continue victimizing a person with a uterus for forty weeks, and possibly even for decades as they co-parent the child conceived by his commission of rape

- the rights of a person to endure a lifetime—if, perhaps, a brief one—of suffering and torment due to illness or malformation or economic or emotional deprivation

- the rights of a person to damage, endanger, or destroy the life of their mother just to serve their own aim of being born

I will choose the rights of the ex-utero person over those of the in utero person every single time. To me, that choice seems absolutely obvious. Clearly, it is not so to everyone.

Maybe it’ll cut through at least some of the mouth-frothing and the ludicrous accusations of wanton murder to frame it this way. Maybe it’ll help to realize that to make the pro-birth argument one must, in effect, look an air-breathing, at least somewhat physically mature human person in the eye and tell them that their rights are less important to you than are those of a person (again, axiomatic here for the moment) who does not breathe air and is presently incapable of self-sustaining life. To tell them that not only are their rights less important, but that they must personally give up a gigantic measure of their own rights and freedom to sustain this other person—even though in so many cases one has no interest, either personally or societally, in helping the air-breathing ex utero person to do that.

Viewed from that angle, it sure starts to look like the same kind of deprivation of rights we impose on thieves. It starts to look like punishment (for existing while having a uterus, perhaps) and control. I don’t think that’s coincidental.

Yes, it's a lot of work for us white, cisgender male, heterosexual, able, middle-aged, middle class people to simultaneously dismantle ALL of the social structures that keep us up to our eyeballs in unearned privilege. Yes, it can feel like a runaway game of Privilege Whack-a-Mole. But suck it up, buttercups--it's still far easier than it is to exist under the boot of those social structures. And hey, aren't those among us who are still blind to our unearned privilege (and at this point, that blindness can only be willful) fond of patting themselves on the back for the myth of being where they are solely because they worked harder for it? Great, now they can really prove how hard they can work.

Learning to contain your libido within your heart keeps you from using your genitals destructively

Don Jones, Wisdom for the Journey

The most aspirational work we do is a hedge against our own worst fears for ourselves.

Maria Popova on “On Being” 2/7/2019

To let someone love you is a sobering act - for by loving you they give you the power to make them suffer.

Don Jones, Wisdom for the Journey

Eleven Million Minutes

Since we seem so keen to forget the lessons of history, here's a little mathematical perspective:

If, at the moment a child is born, you were to begin to hold one minute--just one mere minute--of silence for each of the people--not only Jews but also Romani, LGBTQ+ people, and others--murdered in the Holocaust, you would fall only about a month shy of having that child hear your voice for the first time over a beer you had legally bought that child (in jurisdictions with a drinking age of 21).

11,000,000 minutes is 183,333.33 hours, which is 7,638.89 days, which is 20.91 YEARS.

This is why people do and rightly should become intensely alarmed at anything that carries even a slight whiff of this kind of dehumanization of and animosity toward "The Other." When it rises from a mere whiff to a noxious fume, it must not be tolerated. It must be extinguished.

Never forget. Never again.

How little true manhood comes from testosterone alone!

Don Jones, Wisdom for the Journey

aunt-mimi

When somebody says that “a man likes to feel like a man,” all I hear is “A man likes to feel superior to you and it’s your job to make him believe it.”

geekandmisandry

Someone said this to me once, that a man needs to feel like a man, I replied “well I’m not stopping him” and had to watch this fragile creature try to explain to me that my strong personality could demean men.

Like, if I have to pretend you are a strong man and cater to that then clearly you’re not that strong dude.

ass-warship

This post has the most weapons grade dick energy ive ever seen.

mindofthepowers

“Well, I’m not stopping him.” <--- best response possible.

Men, your masculinity is dependent on no one but yourself, and it is contingent upon subjugating no one.

Within the charge that “[Oppressed group seeking equality] people want special treatment!” there exists, at some perhaps not-quite-conscious level, the understanding that the privileged group *has been receiving* special treatment.

fluorescentnova

We had to write a Mini Comic for my Illustration Class so I did mine based on The Frog and The Scorpion. Hopefully you all know the story!

But if you don’t know the story… In the original the scorpion stings the frog in the middle of the river. When the frog asks “why” the scorpion says “it’s in my nature” and they both die. I like my ending more.

Done with watercolor and pen and ink nib.

notallfay

I always thought this story was fucked up, even when I heard it as a very young child. I even got put in the naughty corner, and a star next to my name crossed off for questioning it.

This story is so much better, and I like it’s message much more.

mysharona1987

roachpatrol

I WOULD PAY TEN TIMES AS MUCH FOR CHOCOLATE IF IT MEANT REDUCING THE AMOUNT OF SLAVES IN THE WORLD? HOW IS THIS ANY KIND OF PROBLEM.

ithelpstodream

cookie-sheet-toboggan

so is Victory

ashermajestywishes

LOVE TRIANGLE

bsparrow

Don’t forget Truth (Coming Out of Her Well to Shame Mankind)

justrollinon

This must be why the Trump administration hates them all

acciowine

The Four Horsewomen of the Trumpocalypse.

krustybunny-deactivated20221129

I’ve never reblogged anything so quick

spectrometon

The Ultimate Squad, comin’ to wreck your shit and save the world

On Acting Shakespeare

Let me get this out of the way: I am not an expert. I do not hold a degree in theatre or in English--my degree is in history. I do not make my living in the theatre--my primary employment, or my “RJ” (for “Real Job”) as one fellow theatre practitioner put it, is in information technology. I have not attended RADA nor have I been trained at the RSC (except by way of the John Barton Playing Shakespeare video series from the 80s). I haven’t even read all the plays in the canon. I’ve acted in about half a dozen of them and am about to direct my first.

What I do have: professional acting training, a fair bit of theatrical experience, a moderate-to-severe case of Bardolatry, and an artistic opinion--and those are always subjective, even from the experts.

Now that’s out of the way, on to my point.

As I think about a lot of the Shakespeare performances and productions I’ve seen, I seem to notice two major problems. These problems would seem to be in opposition to each other, yet sometimes a performance or production will manage to suffer from both.

Problem #1: Not Breathing Life into the Text. Shakespeare’s words are brilliant, but they are not holy writ. Just because they’ve been around for 400-odd years and many of us know them so well doesn’t mean that the words are a foregone conclusion to the character speaking them. To the character, each rehearsal or performance is the very first time these words have ever been spoken. Our own character’s words should be delivered as such, and the other characters’ words should land with us as such.

Let me give but one example. In The Merchant of Venice, Bassanio asks Antonio for a loan so he can do the Aladdin/Prince Ali Ababwa thing to impress Portia in Belmont. Antonio doesn’t have the liquid cash, so he tells Bassanio to borrow whatever he needs in his (Antonio’s) name. Importantly, no specific amount is mentioned in this scene. Two scenes later, Bassanio and Shylock have the deal just about worked out when Antonio arrives. Antonio asks Bassanio “Is he yet possessed how much ye would?” and Shylock replies, “Ay, ay, three thousand ducats.”

All of the productions I’ve seen have Antonio receiving this information without batting an eye. But what if we assume this is the first time Antonio has heard the actual number? Three thousand ducats would be, by gold weight, worth over $400,000 today. It would no doubt be somewhat less by monetary value, but even to a rich merchant like Antonio, it’s a lot of money. Yes, he told Bassanio he’d give him whatever he needed, but surely we’ve all told someone “Take all you want!” and then thought, “Wow, I never thought you’d take THAT much!” So it seems to me that the actor has an opportunity here to breathe some life into Antonio’s next line “And for three months” by letting Shylock’s “Ay, ay, three thousand ducats” land with him as though it’s the first moment he has realized just what a staggering sum Bassanio intends to borrow.

Shakespeare wrote fully-formed, complex humans with real depth and vitality. Just because these are rightly venerated texts doesn’t mean we have to deliver the lines as though each of them is a foregone conclusion or received from above or merely recited because they sound pretty or happen to be what comes next on the page. Let these lines and these characters live.

Problem #2: Not Trusting the Text. On the other hand, Shakespeare doesn’t really need our help to be dramatic or funny. Certainly, we might have to do a bit of work to help clarify some jokes--and certainly, there will be some that we’re just bound to lose with modern audiences--because cultural references are lost or pronunciation changes have destroyed the original wordplay. But Shakespeare was still very funny. He was also very good at capturing human drama. So it’s in our best interest to let him do that.

I like to operate under two closely-related rules when it comes to Shakespeare jokes: 1) assume the play was written by an extremely precocious eighth-grader, and 2) if you think there is even the slightest chance that a line could be a sex joke, it’s totally a sex joke.

I’m all for introducing some bonus laughs by including a new bit of physical comedy here and there, but we don’t have to rely entirely on those to make the plays funny. If we recognize when our character is making a joke, if we know what our character’s joke means, and if we know why and to whom our character is making the joke, it will be funny without further help from us.

By the same token, if we recognize when our character is feeling some mighty emotion, if we understand why our character is feeling that level of emotion, and if we know why our character needs precisely these words to express the depth of that emotion, then it will be moving without further help from us. If we think we have to “help” the text along by wailing and crying and screaming, the audience will get that we’re being loud and might get that we’re sad or angry or whatever, but the audience won’t have a clue what we’re saying or why we’re saying exactly that. And honestly, they won’t care.

By all means, we must “go fully,” as Sanford Meisner would say, with our emotions. But Shakespeare lives at that point where we’re too enraged to scream or too grief-stricken to cry. So with him, “fully” is even “fuller” than our incomprehensible wailing or shouting.

A funny thing can happen when we trust the text and let it work on us. We will often start to feel our character’s emotions even when we recite the lines flatly for memorization. These bigger feelings are baked into the language. We have to do our work and our processes not to paint those emotions over the top of the lines, but rather to get out of those emotions’ way and let them come through the lines. Which leads me to:

Solving Both Problems. Even though the two problems seem to be pulling in opposite directions, I think there is one solution that handles both:

Be true. Be real. Don’t act: be. Not coincidentally, this is the same solution that should be applied to our performance of a modern play, or really any play. The difference, really, is that Shakespeare gives us more to work with in doing so than many other playwrights give us.

Shakespeare doesn’t need our help. What he does need is our life and our truth.

My new primary theatrical headshot.

dankmemeuniversity

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