The Truth is....

...Until my daughter, Kate, suggested this as the name of my intended blog and everyone chimed in with recognition, I honestly didn’t realize this was a Geriism right up there with the frequently uttered “Yah?”  Since that came to my attention I have been pondering my meaning and my intention in using this expression.  I know that I also say “The point is . . .” and “The fact is . . .” almost as frequently but those expressions I don’t find equally troubling.  “The Truth Is . . .” suggests I think I know what that holy grail of all philosophy, the truth, is.  And my strongest belief is one I borrowed long ago from Socrates:  “The only thing I am certain of is that I am certain of nothing at all."

So, what to make of the contradiction between the belief in the expression of uncertainty and that of certainty. As a great many of you may know I have been studying the brain and it’s methods for many years, first because I find my own mind perplexing and fascinating but also because I believe the road to the final expression of truthfulness in acting is in the process of creating the mind of the character out of the raw material of the actor’s mind. A book I am reading slowly and thoughtfully is called The Master and His Emissary by Iain McGilchrist. It goes a long way to describing the relationship between the right brain and the left brain and the particular difficulties that relationship  in our daily life. For that reason it makes almost confoundingly difficult the problem of creating a believable mind for a character.

In the rawest possible terms, the left brain is what I refer to as “high school head.”  It’s the brain whose function is increasingly rewarded in elementary and high schools as “teaching to the test” becomes more the order of the day.  The left brain believes in right answers and, indeed there are some right answers in math and the hard sciences that are provable and demonstrable.  Everywhere else, in religion, politics, all of the arts, philosophy, etc. answers are only relative.  The left brain controls language and has the capacity to shut down the right brain that cannot speak directly but only in something Steven Pinker calls “mentalese.”  The left brain always wants there to be one answer and that answer the right answer.  Its answers are usually normative and conventional and in many situations good enough for government work.  However, real advances in both art and science require that much praised capacity, critical thinking.



For me the idea of critical thinking can be characterized by embrace of one simple idea:  “What if the opposite were true.”  The left brain can just about wrap itself around a proposition and its opposite, but that is not the end of critical thinking.  It means going to that theoretical position of considering the contrary of both the original proposition and its opposite.  At his possibility the left brain throws up its hands and yells to the right brain, “You take over.  I’m outta here,” as it runs from the room.

The right brain has eight ideas for every one the left brain has and it is interested in all of them.  Think of all of the different “right” ways of saying just about anything. Eventually however, the play must be played and

decisions made over and over and over again about how, at least tonight, the line must be said. When one delivers the line that way one is saying “At this moment I believe the truth is . . .” And that’s what I mean when I say something in class or in rehearsal or just in an everyday conversation. I never mean it’s THE truth.  It’s only the truth as I profess it at this very moment.

Tomorrow I will be a slightly different person who may think the truth is other. But at this moment this is what I profess. I would be delighted if you could convince me that I’m mistaken.  So, you see while you have thought I thought of myself as the all-knowing fount of wisdom I have really thought that I am on a lifelong journey in a search for a truth that will never be anything but temporary.

There are a few things from my childhood I continue to profess but I have no certainty that in my last hours (or tomorrow) I won’t slap myself on the forehead and exclaim, “How could I be such an idiot!”  And when and if I do I won’t be embarrassed or humiliated but only delighted that I have, temporarily, found my way to a better truth.

Next time (if there is a next time) I will talk a little bit about “point of view” and how it relates to life and theatre.  Anyone who has a disagreement with anything I write or an idea of something you would like to hear me expatiate on, just email me or reach me on Facebook.  If this blog has a comment function, feel free to do that too.  My daughter, Jessie, is managing my blog at the moment so if it’s there she’ll let me know.

So till next time, if the good Lord’s willin’ and the crick don’t rise. . . I’ll be back.

(posted for Geri by her daughter)