March 23rd 2021

 I want to keep this as simple and to the point.

What is acting...

I am asking this based on a personal journey of mine.

It is ultimately the question I face myself with that speaks to no true definitive answer.

It is to no fault of my own. I embarked on the birth of this question the same time I thought about pursuing acting as a medium. A trade. A profession.

But never once have I found the enlightenment of what is acting.

Acting to me has been a belief. A renewal. An expression of faith in what I believe can be real.

It is a search for truth in my desire to create art but more so to answer question in my idea of them.

I have come a long way in terms of proving that answer is relevant provided the question 'what is acting' isn't unanswerable. I don't want a discussion of sort that compares to a dog chasing its own tail or a chicken running with its head cut off or a pin the tail on the donkey.

This question if at all answerable deserves one.

I have traveled this far...

- Marco =====================

Zach Reg

Acting is an art. For some it’s a profession. For some it’s more of a hobby.

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 it is just that never once and I mean not even university was I faced with this question until I asked it myself. It befuddles me. - Marco

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Brad Gross

With acting you only truly feel

It when it’s in the minutes of time that your watching then and only then can you make a dissertation of good or bad .

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I really like what you said here Brad. Thanks for weighing in. I appreciate your response.

Instant Perception

 

Why I aim to make myself an artist of my mind. (MA2013)

"This is how I feel today within these four walls or when I stroll through the city: opposed to something."

"But to what?"

"First, to the portraits I painted and to myself for painting them,"

"...but not to what I was when I painted them:"

"...I cannot oppose what I was, now less than ever."

"I wanted to summon what I was (and do believe I succeeded)"

"...like someone conjuring up his own shadow,"

"...which lingered behind and became soiled and ragged around the edges, barely recognizable in that jaded expression we know so well, but as much ours as sweat or sperm."

"And also opposed to everything around me."

"I am convinced this is where most of my tension stems from."

Jose Saramago

The importance that is given to the hidden layers of consciousness is still on the surface, without any depth. — Krishnamurti

March 22nd 2010

 So many confuse the doing something 'for the sake of' i.e. good will, does not constitute good will itself on a secular level. That distinction is a mockery of the human condition, whereas most hold defenseless onto.

- Marco

March 22nd 2011

 I wish to pour out my heart, let it freely flow, the rest of my days. Dear God, hosanna in the highest, let you be with me on this earth. - Marco

I miss feeling good about myself, I need my family the most, to conquer the depth and details of my humbleness and fears to be conquered. - Marco 

Ana Santos

Love you and miss you Marco!!!Beijinhos

identity

 "Face the facts of being what you are, for that is what changes what you are." Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard is being metaphysical in its guise. In my view to face the facts of being what you are COMES BEFORE self discovery.

- Marco 

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Cismo, remoto da calma

Em que de sentir-me vou,

Não sei quem é a minha alma

Nem ela sabe quem sou.

E neste mal entendido

Entre quem sou e o que é eu

Vai, tudo com outro sentido

Que está entre a terra e o céu.

No intervalo cresce o mundo

Com sóis e estrelas sem fim.

Tem um sentido profundo.

Conheço-o. É fora de mim.

*

31 - 3 - 1934

Fernando Pessoa

In Poesia 1931-1935

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This is why I am I religious in my personal life. Fearless in my public life. And keep distance in my private life. I would die in the name protecting Jesus' name.

- Marco 

Literature is more than art

 

I always thought (read) that literature acts as the science of language. Without literature no meaning would be understood in language. As Voltaire stated, men argue / nature acts. Such is language as an art form.

-Marco 

March 21st 2014

 Subjectivity can only get you so far, it is found in how close will my subjectivity run as a reversal in the minds of others. The goal is to infer and be inferred as result of having reached subjectivity.

- Marco

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My heartbeat is in precision like a drum to an eternity that cannot be compensated but empowers the average mind.

- Marco

Cleanthes

 Cleanthes, a great Stoic philosopher

Cleanthes (c. 301 B.C.E. - 232 or 252 B.C.E.), an early Stoic philosopher, succeeded Zeno of Citium as the second head of the Stoic school in Athens. A steady disciple and hard worker, he was not credited with intellectual brilliance, but was admired for his strength of character and high moral qualities. He studied under Zeno for 19 years, and upon Zeno’s death in 263 B.C.E., became leader of the school. He wrote at least 50 works, which contained little original thought but dealt with the themes put forth by Zeno. He became the teacher of Chrysippus, the third leader of the Stoic school.

Cleanthes is remembered as a person who embodied and showed Stoic ideals through his character, life, and behaviors.

Life

Cleanthes was born c. 301 B.C.E. at Assos in the Troad. Most of what we know of his life comes from Diogenes Laertius’s Lives of the Philosophers. According to Diogenes, Cleanthes was originally a boxer who came to Athens with only four drachmas in his possession. He listened first to the lectures of Crates the Cynic, and then to those of Zeno, to whom he was a faithful disciple for nineteen years. He embodied many of the qualities that the Stoics regarded as virtue; he was known to be patient, hard-working, loyal, persevering and true to his beliefs.

It is thought that Cleanthes was very poor, and supported himself by working at night as a water carrier in the public gardens so that he could participate in philosophical discussions during the day. He was at times so poor that he wrote notes on Zeno's lectures on oyster shells and the shoulder blades of oxen because he could not afford to buy better materials. On one occasion, according to the custom of the city, he was brought before the court of justice, the Areopagas, to give an account of his manner of supporting himself. He then produced the gardener for whom he drew water, and a woman for whom he ground meal, as witnesses to prove that he lived by the labor of his hands. The judges of the court were struck with such admiration of his conduct, that they ordered ten minae to be paid him out of the public treasury. Zeno, however, did not allow him to accept it. One of his pupils, Antigonus Monophthalmus, afterward presented him with three thousand minae. According to Diogenes, he once brought one of the pieces of money which he had earned into the middle of a company of his acquaintances, and said, "Cleanthes could maintain even another Cleanthes if he were to choose; but others who have plenty of means to support themselves, seek for necessaries from others; although they only study philosophy in a very lazy manner."

Cleanthes recognized that his intellect was slow, and Diogenes says that he did not object to the name when he was called an ass; but only said that he was the only animal able to bear the burdens which Zeno put upon him. When he was reproached as a coward, he said, "That is the reason why I make but few mistakes."

Upon the death of Zeno in 263 B.C.E. he became president of the school by virtue of his character, though there were numerous brilliant disciples of Zeno in the school. He later became the teacher of Chrysippus.

Cleanthes died of starvation, some say at the age of either 80 or 99. As treatment for severely swollen gums, his doctors advised him to fast for two days. His condition improved so dramatically that he was urged to return to his former eating habits, but he refused, saying that as he was already halfway on the road to death, he would not trouble to retrace his steps. After his death, the Roman senate erected a statue in honor of him at Assos.

Works and Thought

Cleanthes produced over 50 works on topics such as time, duty, freedom, love, marriage, virtues, justice, knowledge, time, dialectics, and Zeno’s system of natural philosophy. Only fragments remain, embedded in the works of later writers, except for a large segment of his Hymn to Zeus, preserved in Stobaeus.

Cleanthes apparently promulgated the teachings of Zeno rather than developing original ideas. He regarded the sun as the abode of God, the intelligent providence, or (in accordance with Stoical materialism) the vivifying fire or aether of the universe. Virtue, he taught, is life according to nature; but pleasure is not according to nature.

He originated a new theory as to the individual existence of the human soul; he held that the degree of its vitality after death depends upon the degree of its vitality in this life.

Nietzsche

 

Zach Reg

Sounds Buddhist. A little depressing. I like to be a bit more positive and hopeful. Life is tough. You are tougher.

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My rebuttal: 

Nietzsche is a notorious villain of philosophy. What we like to think of as typically nefarious in practical terms. He is a villain because his beliefs are inhibitively intrusive. What we like to call a cold calculating nihilist.

Manoel de Barros

 

Passo e fico, como o Universo

 

Callicles

 My opinion of Nietzsche 'Callicles'

Trying to debunk Socrates is a noble lie I will not admit but care to deny. This means you can characterize the argument as valid but it doesn't make it true. Therefore, a weak attempt at debunking and at best unconvincing critique of Socrates. It fails.

Here is the argument I've read and critique.... Verbatim.

- Marco

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Callicles

Plato's Gorgias is simply the most existential piece of writing ever created. Nobody managed to surpass it, and nobody will. In the Gorgias you have the essence of the existential philosophy - with the question ''what life to follow''? The life of philosophy (and arts, morals, etc), or the life of politics? That the life of philosophy is ultimately in conflict and at war with politics is the most predominant theme in Plato.

For this reason the first word in the Gorgias is ''war.'' The dialogue is nothing more than a war between Callicles (who utters the word ''war'') and Socrates. This is a war between the manly Callicles and the effeminate Socrates, a war between the way of life of the real men, thus, the way of politics, and the way of life of the slaves, of the slave morality defended by Socrates. Nobody attacked the philosophical way of life more violent than Callicles, thus the Socratic way of life, and the question is, why did Plato do it?

What really triggered Callicles to declare war on Socrates is Socrates' insistence that it is better to suffer injustice, than to do it. Callicles says that this is the life of the slave who is impotent to cause violence, thus, for a slave, to suffer injustice is a noble thing. The slave, because of his impotence, considers that doing injustice is wicked. Because Socrates insists on this way of life - the life of the slave, Callicles accuses Socrates of trying to ''transvalue the values'' of men. For Callicles, and for every man out there, to suffer injustice is just wrong, with the caveat that you have the power to cause injustice or violence and harm. Those wo don't have the power are slaves, and for them a life of suffering and impotence is better, but for the real man, causing violence and injustice, especially when wronged is the noble life. Callicles defends the existential life of power, whilst Socrates defends the life of the powerless and impotent slave who can't revenge a wrong. And the slaves invent religions and morals to carry an imaginative revenge - and this is what Socrates does in the myth at the end.

This is the main reason why Nietzsche himself attacked Socrates. For Nietzsche Socrates is nothing more than a ''roturier'', a peasant, who ultimately destroyed the noble aristocracy he came in contact with. For Nietzsche, the aristocracy was defeated by the slave morality with a terrible weapon - the dialectics, the main culprit being Socrates. In the Gorgias we have the best example of this Nietzschean war - the dialectic, and the life of the slave being at war with the noble aristocracy played by Callicles.

One of the most decisive Calliclean attacks on Socrates and his philosophical way of life consists in the fact that people who pursue philosophy late in life are useless people, who can't do anything else, who are inferior to all other activities, and who can't compete in the harsh political arena. These ''effeminate'' men choose a life of philosophy and arts, and thus a sedentary life, from cowardice, a cowardice that ultimately will corrupt the whole of society. This is Rousseau's attack on philosophy and arts - philosophy and arts make men effeminate, unable to lead a virtuous life, which will ultimately corrupt everything, and society will crumble.

In the dialogue, Socrates, with all his dialectical slave morality tries to defeat Callicles, and Socrates is a good ''mob orator'' and a demagogue, and in speech Callicles is indeed defeated, simply because Socrates is a better trumpeter. But Callicles's principle remains victorious - the life in the pursuit of power is the best life.

Callicles is superior to Socrates just because Callicles studied philosophy. Philosophy must be studied when young, as a preparation for the life of the real man, the life of politics. But, Socrates has remained a philosopher as an old man, and this is a mistake. Politics for Callicles means to have friends, to build a network of power so you can defend yourself from enemies. But, Socrates remaining a philosopher, thus poor and destitute of power, he will be a sure victim if somebody was to accuse him of something. And Callicles attacks Socrates on exactly this thing - that philosophy makes you weak, unable to defend yourself, and will ultimately lead to your doom.

The transvaluation of values defended by Socrates, is the main motif of Nietzsche's entire philosophical life. Nietzsche is best understood as defending the position of Callicles at war with slave morality and the likes of Socrates. Just because slave morality won over the noble morality, Nietzsche warns us, the time is now ripe for a new war, and a new transvaluation of values, in which the noble morality defended by Callicles will defeat the slave morality of Socrates.

March 21st 2025

 The miracle of creation is a source of universal properties, everything that was you became. There is no way you or I exist without some unknown force making us exist. If we call it god, then so be it. I call it my soul. If god does not live in me, then why should I bow to it.

- Marco

do you (March 20th 2009)

ever wake up with a feeling of complete enlightenment, where answers come naturally as they are. If I could describe this to you, it would be as though living in a world of perfect total clarity. I guess that sounds hard to believe. So much of me, although, particularly has made this impression of late - I can't say 'why' I get these feelings. I suppose it is to do with enlightenment on some level. Though enlightenment can be purely subjective a retort. This recourse of myself, in some stages, throughout this time in my life I think has a certain level of objectivity in mind. Causes which I can communicate without some belief in knowing the outcome or what may result due to cause.



I restrict these feelings - not to ambition - per se.



I would equate my own enlightenment to 2 phases separate of natural cause(s). One being passion, the other being hope.



Sometime(s), if I wake-up, it's living as if in a nightmare, to which end I cannot differentiate the outcomes present-ed to me in that state of utter delirium. In which case, most dream(s) depicting the challenge of your altered state in a (i.e. parallel dimension) for sake of argument cannot be unfounded in a universe all its own. As unnatural the vivid a psychosis might take you.



When I awake from this dream state, the world appears to me, exactly as it once was a priori to the dream world before it happened. I do not realize this until, I begin to challenge the thought, with the same thought that 'it was only a dream.' However, these are not the answers one is to fill without a sense of urgency. Which, this leads myself to believe, that my retroactive sense of the dream life is an opportunity to examine the question of its exactness. However, my problem became one of, what measure can I propose the possibility of a duplicity? In other words, how can I answer questions, to answer, in a world that does not exist from this of our own. If there is a correct interaction between myself, into a modern day paradox of the cerebral kind, when I make the choice to correspond with a mixed interpretation. One part human (physical), the other dream (spiritual).



There can be no confusion between underlying variables, which a paradox of this kind would undertake the possibility of both human (cerebral) or "the dream" (psyche) to co-exist. The dichotomy present is theoretically, when one is awake, there is no definitive proof that dreams exist. Therefore, you or I as a physical entity cannot assimilate or combine the same physical properties without a dream which make-believe is absent.



In this desired state between dream-life and the presence of time in physical reality, there are conditions from which the physical property between one's answer to what-is-real, is to believe what you want to believe. That condition is already present in the universe of one's cerebral ineptitude. The second part of this ulterior "dream state" is the non-physical attributes, which exclude such things such as hope or vision is to wish fulfillment. Wish-fulfillment is something typically associated with dreams. However, therein lay the difference between the dream-life one experiences without the interpretation to correctly match disingenuous inferences. The nightmare - which is equally relevant to one's dream life is nonetheless a dream of escape, or abandonment.



(1) In conclusion of such argument, the favour of what dreams represent are insofar as emblematic of conditions. I argued this, because conditions of such self-awareness prior to the dream-life could not possibly cohabit in the same place you once were before the dream happen(s). This is lucid to no particular subjective force, which is to examine, with what dreams contain physical yet actual properties. In fact, the dream-life is impossible to reconstruct which is what makes them so fascinating.



(2) The conclusion of such a dichotomy, is that common sense already dictates what we know about dreams, but not why we dream. The dream life represents one's physical attributes, the paradox, that one does not differentiate between the dream life. The purpose of when one dreams, assuming we have no direct idea that something physical happened, even if immune to it. The paradox of an altered state such as dreams, in fact, lead to the same direct answer of strictly unknown phenomenon.



(3) The final conclusion of this continues between the altered state of dream(s) to physical property. There are in litany of the subject hope - and - passion. Perhaps, there are few other types of interaction which shapes the human mind or ego, yet are sublime to subjectivity. Both hope - passion, working together do not form dream(s). However, those are concepts which form vague if not abstract interpretations impossible to emit through gestation. Unfamiliar as hope - passion, resemble nothing they reveal to. The same kind of ambiguity refers back into the dream life in hope of achieving a desired goal. Passion - is of unfulfilled destiny, that can only be broken, yet crushes the feeling of a wish fulfilled. Therefore, hope always leads before passion. Such is the dream life as is to living the good life.

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Just to clarify something. . . I do not plagiarize any of what I write. In fact, teachers in the past would ask me of a source to my writing. When I would reply these are my own thought(s), they either wouldn't believe me, get jealous, then fail me.

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So why don't you wirte a book. The way you express yourself with words, you would make a great author. Serious! I would purchase, not becuase your a friend but for the way you write.

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I am seriously_flabbergasted. Not so much due to the compliment, (because you've truly humbled me), but why you have flattered none the same. I thank you. Totally unexpected. I thank you.

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1 John 2:6

 I strive to feel this in my heart every living breathing day I spread myself. There is a line you must be prepared to walk and it is razor thin. I trust myself in this manner of feeling and in my thoughts. I spend my time with it using my internal clock as my guide. The wisdom you must gain provided. It provides peace. Well being. And above all... god. God is the first and the last piece of resistance in life. When you realize that God is your refuge you will fight for it. That's what this proverb means to me.

- Marco