Yesterday I happened onto some '6o Minutes' interviews with Will Smith, and he is such a beautiful phenomenon to me. I just tried to find the video pieces, the slices that 6o minutes was marketing on line, and at a quick scan I can't find the exact ones. Below are some, but I would like to link to one where he mentioned his connection with Nelson Mandela. He is so lively and real.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/11/30/60minutes/main3558937.shtml

---

Ambo Suno

Ambo:

I agree that Will Smith seems like a very high integrity person. Very real.

Let me come at this from another angle: you know, there was a time when people regarded actors as immoral, or fraudulent, or somehow not full of integrity.

The basic idea is that there used to be a notion that a person who was full of integrity and purity was on the job 100% of the time in life, revealing and testifying the truth without deception. Being themselves. And only themselves.

So, with actors we have people who are professional deceivers. They literally use their entire body-minds to cleverly trick us into believing that they really mean what they say and what they present. This is the core of their profession!

It used to be that people looked down on this. A person who can fake crying was regarded as ungodly and even a danger. People who lied were violating the mandate to remain faithful to the truth of the spoken word.

So, to bring it all back home, you are asserting that a professional actor ... is ... so real, based on what he has presented us ... on video! Doesn't this strike us as problematic?

You have heard me rail against the deep and abiding levels of b.s. in our modern world. This I believe is symptomatic of the point.

I would like to suggest that there are very few professionals we meet on TV or video who are not highly adept at convincing us of one thing when another thing is true.

There is however, another interesting phenomenon, and that is the odd transformation of a role player into the role s/he is playing when the audience responds and treats the actor as if s/he were the character in the role. Which might suggest that the best way to become Integral is to fake being Integral, acting "as if" and having the world conform and respond accordingly.

Imagine how an actor must feel after playing Jesus! Forgive me for coming off as if I am God, but ... I am.

And the last shell be first, in regards to responding to comments.
"Imagine how an actor must feel after playing Jesus! Forgive me for coming off as if I am God, but ... I am."
I do believe you, and I'm a good god fearing man. Well, sorta.

I probably have watched 10 or 15 video clips of Will, and seen a number of his movies. Through some of his answers to questions of how he became how he has, surprised me in how he appeared to take such clear strong lessons from those pivotal life events. For example, he said that he decided to take everyone he met  as someone important to respect, following one time when he and his friends almost got shot by someone who he beat up for cutting in line while waiting. Yes, he may have crafted the story to have that punchy delivery, as he may have with several other anecdotes.

And if I discovered that he actually was high on some substance during his interviews and that made him especially luminous, I'd be disappointed. Since I have a lot of appreciation for evolution-given spark that he seems to have in his eyes, that may have been seen as mischief in past years, I like his energy and seeming respect and good-will, as I am imagining do you also appreciate that. I sometimes think that those who were a bit ADHD/hyperactive or manageably hypomanic are given gifts of liveliness. Whether they get excessively sidetracked and damaged by failures or other of the many possible derailments of course makes a difference.

I'm not sure how any of this applies to Will, but he seems to have a spark and some common-sense wisdom, to maybe understate it.

Who among actor and actresses strikes you as relatively 'real' and authentic? Who do you very much dig for other reasons and giftednesses?

---

Ambo Suno

Ambo:

I intuitively distrust evaluations that are based on packaged presentations.  

I guess I have enough experience dealing with people who are extremely charismatic and smart and oozing persuasiveness and I have seen how these people act at critical junctures.

I think it is important to evaluate people to know how they tend to act and respond and to get a sense of their altitude on various lines.

I don't trust my ability to get a read on anyone from seeing them on TV. I need to live with them and hear how they spontaneously react to things, what they say about others, what choices they make, what kinds of cognitive connections they make to different things, how much they love their separate self and the appearance that their body makes to other separate selves, how intuitively they see the world through their heart instead of their head, etc.

One of the things that I really look for in others is how instinctively they extend their awareness to the internal awareness of others (individually or collectively). In the moment, does someone automatically try to feel how things look for another or a group, or are they perpetually scheming to have others or a group "see them" in a way they have determined fits their needs?

TV and movies are massively packaged and I am not willing to trust my ability to assess anything other than the skill of the packaging effort.

That said: Will Smith made a choice to play a role in the Pursuit of Happyness. For me, that says a lot about his character. This was a really powerful movie about a guy who refused to wallow in self-pity. The point of that movie was really powerful for me.

We have this really clever ability to model things. We can act "as if" and carry it out in very complex ways. And in a sense, it is self-fulfilling.

I am very, very suspicious of actors, just as I am very, very suspicious of politicians. I think that they have both made fundamental turns down very odd roads. Both of them are devoted to lying in the most basic sense of the word. They are accomplished at saying things in the moment that are not true and they know they are not true and they would like us to believe that they are true and react as if they were true. They package and they present and they represent a very weird turn that we have taken.

What is the sum total of this lying? Isn't there a sense that the inner and the outer should be intergrated at all times such that one would feel highly disturbed at "presenting" something that one knows is false?

Why does it not bother actors to endorse a product that they do not believe in or even use? How can they allow their name and face to be used for this? Why does it not bother actors to simulate sex on screen so that we collectively become aroused at watching them? How does a child feel when their parent has simulated sex on screen with someone who is not their parent? Isn't there some doubt that this parent is truly a committed member of a loving "oneness" in marriage?

I am disturbed at our collective infatuation with "con artists." That is, with people who trade in our confidence. When did it stop bothering us that they are lying to us?

I know you were simply pointing out that Will Smith comes across as honest and caring. I hope you understand that this topic is just one of my pet rants - everywhere I look in the world I live in I see people who have given away their dignity and their minds to this elaborate and fake world of appearances. And I know that if they were more stingy like me, they would not feel so powerless and act like such robots.

We need to start owning our lives and being very critical about what we know and how we know it. At that starts by identify that which is packaged to "create an effect on us."

Now to tie this into politics: I like McCain for the simple reason that he more than any other politician seems willing to remind of us this. No doubt, he is a major league doofus in many ways. But he seems to be in touch with this principle that I find holds the key to our collective mental health.

This Obama phenomenon is the slickest, most artfully crafted package of "messages designed to create an effect." I just do not see this helping us at this point.

 

Hi, Schalk -

I feel and think similarly about what you are saying here.
"I intuitively distrust evaluations that are based on packaged presentations.  

I guess I have enough experience dealing with people who are extremely charismatic and smart and oozing persuasiveness and I have seen how these people act at critical junctures.

I think it is important to evaluate people to know how they tend to act and respond and to get a sense of their altitude on various lines.

I don't trust my ability to get a read on anyone from seeing them on TV. I need to live with them and hear how they spontaneously react to things, what they say about others, what choices they make, what kinds of cognitive connections they make to different things, how much they love their separate self and the appearance that their body makes to other separate selves, how intuitively they see the world through their heart instead of their head, etc.

One of the things that I really look for in others is how instinctively they extend their awareness to the internal awareness of others (individually or collectively). In the moment, does someone automatically try to feel how things look for another or a group, or are they perpetually scheming to have others or a group "see them" in a way they have determined fits their needs?

TV and movies are massively packaged and I am not willing to trust my ability to assess anything other than the skill of the packaging effort."

Whatever trust I have in quick perceptual or intuitive judgements is usually tentative, and therefore I often don't trust all that much my reflexive and somewhat blind self-trust.

Yeah, I liked Will in Pursuit of Happiness, a good role and performance.

I too am suspicious of politicians. I don't really believe much of what 'they' say; but then I don't believe very much about what anyone says. I think that I can get more disturbed by politicians because of a few aspects of politics. I think it's pretty normal and maybe natural to tend to look up to those in public office as people who are willing to carry an almost sacred trust, our well-being. Politicians actions have such far-reaching consequences and involve direct power over the physical workings, immdiate and long-term, of people's lives and therefore feelings and experience. I think we expect a lot from politicians and a lot from "religious" figures and movements.

One reason why I don't get so disturbed about actors is that I have an easily accessible default position that acknowledges it, identifies it as child's play and commercial endeavors. These are grown children, making believe. Of course it is not quite so simple, and there are profound effects on culture and people and mind because of popular motion video art and titillations. I too get strong negative vibes from gratuitous sex and intimacy created scenes that are mostly buttons with which to push our experiences around. Especially, ultimately for a payday. I like well done scenes of intimacy, which may be explicitly sexual or not. Even many kisses on film are gross and dishonest and therefore, with such a powerful medium, quite crazy-making for individuals and cultures.

I see what you mean about McCain, and I see a possibility to frame Obama as you do.

The way that I'd personally put it with McCain is that he is wrapped pretty tightly or tries to stay wrapped pretty tightly in integrity. That doesn't go all that far for me, but there is plenty of respect in that. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the tightly wrappedness that I imagine with him has to do with pain, physical and psychic. I wince a little with pain when I see him, even when he smiles. But, my caveat, Schalk, is that beyond a pretty basic point I don't get too much into the details of materials that are presented - I guess in a sense I do tend to trust in limited ways some other perceiving, intuiting, and imagining faculties, and I don't claim to be very rational in this. 

Do you have any actors, men and women for whom you have some admiration, or just, without having to defend your warmth, who you like, who you are drawn to?

---

Ambo Suno

Ambo:

I was posting awhile back about the notion of all of us reclaiming our lives and communities from the superstars and big-shots and opinion makers.

You have expressed respect for both George Carlin and Kurt Vonnegut and I too have enormous respect for the courage of these two figures. I see both of them as voicing that vicious and devoted love of human dignity at the individual and community level.

I have travelled around a large chunk of our country and so many times I have gotten the sense that ... no one is at home. There is no group of persons belonging to a community who are taking charge of what happens in their two blocks of existence.

But not everywhere. When I see ownership, whether 5 people who clean up a street, or a local farmer's market, or a small event in a town, or just an institution that is simply serving people in one place, I feel a gust of fresh air in my soul.

But when I see people sitting on their ass in front of a TV, drawn into a world of "big people" in TV and movie-land who are "really living" it sickens me. When I check out at the grocery store and see a magazine devoted to whether Britney Spears is getting a new jump on her career, I know that the same people who read this junk and care about it are neglecting their own children and their development, and they probably haven't spent 5 minutes making their yard look beautiful, and they haven't tried to write a poem or listen to really good music, or make a new dish for their family to enjoy and on and on ... They have given up ownership. There are "others" out there who really know how to live, and they are not us.

For me this is the number one issue in America. Learning how to live again. We are bloated junkies with little taste. I have seen how Asians and Europeans react when they come to America and realize, they have given us way too much credit as people. It shocks them just how shabby we are - our choices are what children would make in a candy store.

So, I am not concerned about the economy or the war or anything other than the national mood. And I want to see messages that reflect principles of life ownership and committed choices.

This chameleon Obama parade - I am not concerned about Obama. I think he is a very solid and dependable man. What I am concerned about is the camp that will follow him. We just do not need this mob of bullshit artists in power right now. We need healthy strength, unsophisticated principle, patient integrity. Not a bunch of brilliant champions of cognition who will embroil us in 4 years of hand-wringing and domestic discord and idealistic one-upsmanship.

Switching gears - regarding actors, one of my favorites is actually a cousin of mine, Jim Caviezel. He did a really elevated job of portraying a 2nd Tier soldier in Thin Red Line and has consistently presented high altitude roles in subsequent films. Of course, playing Jesus Christ is a good way to practice some elevated chops.

I think I like Russell Crowe - he makes choices that reflect an integrated inner approach. Master and Commander is a text book movie for 1st Tier Integral leadership.

I like Samuel L. Jackson for his post-modern vibe.

I like the work Julie Andrews did in Mary Poppins and Sound of Music. The opening scene on the mountain top in Sound of Music just pulls your spirits through the crown!

I really like the work Al Pacino did in Scent of a Woman. I loved the scene where he appeared before the student body and the board at the prep school and made a case for honor.

Daniel Day Lewis I admire for his absolute mastery of the edge of a role. I sense that he is living in the awareness of a mythical tone to the character he is playing.

I would probably trust any of these people as people, or be willing to extend an assumption of good will to them.

 

 

Schalk

Ambo:

I was posting awhile back about the notion of all of us reclaiming our lives and communities from the superstars and big-shots and opinion makers.

You have expressed respect for both George Carlin and Kurt Vonnegut and I too have enormous respect for the courage of these two figures. I see both of them as voicing that vicious and devoted love of human dignity at the individual and community level.

Yes, though often I don't have the patience, interest, or knowledge to articulate in AQAL terms specifically what I value and respect about some people and things, I do feel/think it - so I bring it forward as it is or comment in some vernacular about it. Carlin and Vonnegut are two that have stirred the pot for me. I'm glad that you and others seem to dig some things about them as well. 

I have travelled around a large chunk of our country and so many times I have gotten the sense that ... no one is at home. There is no group of persons belonging to a community who are taking charge of what happens in their two blocks of existence.

But not everywhere. When I see ownership, whether 5 people who clean up a street, or a local farmer's market, or a small event in a town, or just an institution that is simply serving people in one place, I feel a gust of fresh air in my soul.

Yes, fresh air in us!

But when I see people sitting on their ass in front of a TV, drawn into a world of "big people" in TV and movie-land who are "really living" it sickens me. When I check out at the grocery store and see a magazine devoted to whether Britney Spears is getting a new jump on her career, I know that the same people who read this junk and care about it are neglecting their own children and their development, and they probably haven't spent 5 minutes making their yard look beautiful, and they haven't tried to write a poem or listen to really good music, or make a new dish for their family to enjoy and on and on ... They have given up ownership. There are "others" out there who really know how to live, and they are not us.

For me this is the number one issue in America. Learning how to live again. We are bloated junkies with little taste. I have seen how Asians and Europeans react when they come to America and realize, they have given us way too much credit as people. It shocks them just how shabby we are - our choices are what children would make in a candy store.

Yes, learning how to live, again - or learning how to live, as we suddenly find ourselves with the possiblility of having to jettison everything, and start afresh (if that were possible). Huge issue, I think. How to live. And usually it seems I am not up to the radicality of the challenge. Learning from scratch (if that were possible).

And as you suggest above, to be able to actually live in the moment, without TV, magazines, and the symbolic renderings of life rather than life itself is a huge challenge for most U.S. people. I know for me that this may be one of most pervasive addictions, maybe my one addiction, is my apparent need to live in virtual reaity, the mentalized version of living. Probably in reaction to TVs contribution to my being-sickness, I stopped having a TV in 1984. About ten years ago I tried it again for 1 1/2 years, with cable, and I felt various yucky aspects. I then gradually became more involved in the virtual world of the internet and computers, and then increadingly into DVDs on my computer. Probably for 20 years I've retreated, taken R & R in novels. Books more than video reshuffle my mental decks. So I concur with what you say, and I am still a user/abuser of the virtual, the several steps away from the terrifyingly real. Some people are clearer and such than I and can live in cold-turkey-life land. I seem to to depend quite heavily on stimulation of ideas, symbols and images. I bow to those who can mainline life uninterruptedly, unfiltered, unmoderated by intermediary means. I do bow.

So, I am not concerned about the economy or the war or anything other than the national mood. And I want to see messages that reflect principles of life ownership and committed choices.

Yes, life ownership - and perhaps being.

This chameleon Obama parade - I am not concerned about Obama. I think he is a very solid and dependable man. What I am concerned about is the camp that will follow him. We just do not need this mob of bullshit artists in power right now. We need healthy strength, unsophisticated principle, patient integrity. Not a bunch of brilliant champions of cognition who will embroil us in 4 years of hand-wringing and domestic discord and idealistic one-upsmanship.

Away with bullshit - to the extent that it be possible for us. Yes.

Switching gears - regarding actors, one of my favorites is actually a cousin of mine, Jim Caviezel. He did a really elevated job of portraying a 2nd Tier soldier in Thin Red Line and has consistently presented high altitude roles in subsequent films. Of course, playing Jesus Christ is a good way to practice some elevated chops.

Yeah, Passion of The Christ wasn't a bad role. Him as cousin - cool to know someone at that level of mastery of an art and trade. I have to admit that often I am not very discriminating about film and particularly about social value. I like a lot of movies - mainstream popular, and I as one of the masses can laugh, frown, cry, constrict, expand, and perplex when the puppeteers pull and strum my strings. I liked your cousin a lot in Angel Eyes, along with JenLo.

I think I like Russell Crowe - he makes choices that reflect an integrated inner approach. Master and Commander is a text book movie for 1st Tier Integral leadership.

Though I have been biased by news bits about his temper and apparently related moments of assumption of entitlement, I too like Russell Crowe. I liked him in Gladiator and in one where he 'negotiated' the release/rescue of some hostages in a Latin American country. I'd have to look at Master and Commander again to see if I could go as far as you in generalizing as far as 1st tier leadership - 1st tier covering so much territory - but I think I get your gist. Of what I remember, he was a masterful naval warrior and multifaceted leader.

I like Samuel L. Jackson for his post-modern vibe.

Yeah, a consumate professional. Hasn't he recently decided to go back to stage for awhile, for the major acting challenge? The movie that he was in that has stuck mostly in my psyche is The Caveman's Valentine - wow - I love those crazy-man (and woman), fringe-man (and woman) movies. Seen it? See it - my guess is you'll like it - not a stretch, since you like him already.

I like the work Julie Andrews did in Mary Poppins and Sound of Music. The opening scene on the mountain top in Sound of Music just pulls your spirits through the crown!

I ought to to see those again.

I really like the work Al Pacino did in Scent of a Woman. I loved the scene where he appeared before the student body and the board at the prep school and made a case for honor.

I've had a tough time liking Pacino - probably got off to a bad start with some character he played that I didn't like. He evidently is a master actor. I think I have had the impression of him as someone who is too much, who overacts, yet that could well be the powerful roles that he inhabits. Just a taste thing with me probably. Maybe I'll see Scent of a Woman again.

Daniel Day Lewis I admire for his absolute mastery of the edge of a role. I sense that he is living in the awareness of a mythical tone to the character he is playing.

Yeah, he's great, and versatile I think. I first saw him in My Left Foot and the theme was important to me, as with the movie I recommended, Music Within. He did a great job as a CP challenged guy. (I have a personal connection with the theme.) I liked him a lot in Last of the Mohecans.

I would probably trust any of these people as people, or be willing to extend an assumption of good will to them.

I follow you.

Some of the mainstream 'Hollywood' movies I have liked are Road Warrior (less now than I used to) and Conspiracy Theory both with controversial Mel Gibson (maybe another big ego). I like Runaway Jury a lot.

There are a number of actresses that I have been attracted to for various common reasons, generalizing a bit, probably having little to do with moral/ethical values of them as individuals. It would be a long story for me to try to tease out what and why with each one. Some certainly do ham up and dress up their personae. (Some spelling will be off.) A few are Renee Zellwigger, Gwynth Paltrow, Meryll Streep, Susan Sarandon, Samantha Morton (Code 46 - wow for me), Uma Thurman. Again fairly irrational. (Uma had a shoe-in with me because I've met her dad, Robert Thurman, a few times briefly and think he's wonderful.) One thing they all have in common is they're women, in case you haven't noticed. Ehem.

Of course Tommy Lee Jones is a good actor, but it has been said, not such a great guy. The author I just posted about, James Lee Burke, is having a movie made of one of his stories and Jones is leading in it. I have a pretty good story about him and an ex-girlfriend of mine.

John Cusack's been cool for me.

Dustin Hoffman, too - Tootsie registered as very cool on my scale (as did Jessica Lange in that movie).

I'm sure I have left out some actors and actresses who I really care about. I don't feel too tapped into this at the moment.

Oh, yeah, when Doctor Zhivago came out and I was on leave from the Army, I was majorly moved - in a trancy zone for several hours afterwards.

OK.

ambo

---

Ambo Suno

Oh yeah! That's right. Anthony Hopkins as actor!

---

Ambo Suno

Yeah, you're tapping into the heart of the matter.

Remember the feeling of the world you had when you first watched Dr. Zhivago?

My main rant keeps revolving around the fact that modern American life is completely bereft of this ... feeling.

And I don't see it as merely an emotional indulgence. It is a seeing from the heart-zone.

It used to exist. I remember how my grand-parents used to behave when we were out in the woods on summer vacation. There was an easy, and very very large open-hearted feeling of nature and the "timeless" world. A picnic basket for example would be packed with home-made bread and home-made root beer. What about that feeling of 3 generations venturing into the woods with a picnic basket.

The other day I was hosting my uncle from Slovakia. He speaks almost no English so we had to communicate other ways.

I stopped by the side of the road and we stood there for a good while picking and eating fresh salmonberries. You cannot even buy these anywhere. Then he said "they taste like salmon." Which is true and I never realized it.

So, the movies I like are the ones that remind us how to live. I hate the ones that are slick, bullshit productions obviously built to appeal to a generic idiot next door.

I really like Tim Robbins. Ever since I saw Jacobs Ladder he has had a magnetism that gets me everytime.  

I really like what's being said here, but I'd like to play devil's advocate a bit to get a better sense of your viewpoints:

What, exactly, is the inherent problem with communication being "slick" or "packaged"?  Essentially, all communication is a "packaged presentation".  All communication shows us reality filtered through a particular viewpoint, manipulated by a particular agenda, as a part of a world that all people engaging in this communication are taking part in constructing.  Schalk and Ambo, you both have been placing a lot of value on authenticity in this thread, but ultimately, aren't we all completely authentic, and at the same time, the absolute worst kind of liars?  Every day we live as a completely full and authentic representation of the transcendent working inexplicably and intimately through an absurdly improbable collection of conditions in this finite reality which have produced this living, breathing being.  And yet, despite the spontanious emergence of this authentic self, each and every one of us does everything we can to deny that this is truly, deeply who we are.  All communication is a lie to some degree because it takes place in a finite world where there is no ultimate truth.  Ultimate truth is there, is here, but it can never completely be grapsed by language because the rules of lanugage are based on finite conditions.  That doesn't stop us from trying however, and we will continue to seek ultimate authenticity, even though it is already right here, right now, and thus we further evolve the cognitive and linguistic capacities of these finite human entities.  In this process, we never really find truth, we simply increase the sophistication and bold openness of the lie to allow more of that inherent-to-all-existence truth to seep in.

I think there's something to be said for recognizing that all presentations of reality are packaged, despite being representations of a fully authentic Self, and to deeply engage in refining the process of this packaging based on as integral an awareness as we can come by is something to be strived for.  Why, in this light, should there be anything wrong with a slickly-produced, blockbuster Hollywood film, or a slickly-constructed political campaign, especially if real and profound depth lies beneath its candy-coated surface?

Yes, Fangsz, I agree with you. It's pretty rare for me to use the word authentic/inauthentic. Sometimes in some contexts, it's the closest I can get quckly with some people to what I want to convey. A bit analogous to "natural" and "unnatural" having their problems too.

Yes, I actually, as part of the flock, herd, pack, and mainstream masses am often moved by packaged and slick. Many hollywood mainstream movies flutter my sails.

But I think you are making a deeper point, with which I agree. It all is included in "what is", and how can "what is" be inauthentic.

So what is it that bothers us sometimes with a gratuitous kiss or battle detail? Is it sometimes its lack of artfulness, its poor and difficult to believe aesthetic, its flagrant transparency of trying to move and manipulate us but failing? We see some things and cringe and say, "Are you shitting me?" What all is that about, anyway?

---

Ambo Suno

Yeah, IN, Tim Robbins is versatile and talented. Have you seen Code 46 - he was in that with Samantha Morton - quite haunting dark scifi movie.

---

Ambo Suno

Fangsz:

I am going to cherry-pick some of the issues you raise. 

1. What is wrong with communication being slicked or packaged?

2. Aren't we all completely authentic just the way we are and at the same time complete liars?

3. Don't we all do everything in our power to deny who we truly are?

4. Isn't all communication a lie?

5. Aren't we simply increasing the sophistication of our lies all of the time?

6. What is wrong with slickly-produced media? Especially if there is profound depth below it?

Let me try to wrap it together into a thesis.

"Anything that we can say is by definition limited and relative. Therefore, by saying anything, we are willingly engaging in an act that can never convey the truth that is absolute. All that is - is. And all that is, is perfect as it is. Because - it is, and could never be any different than it is. Our acts of communicating and producing limited and relative messages are truly lies, and they are perfect lies, and there is nothing wrong with learning how to lie more slickly, especially if there is profound depth contained in the sophisticated and slick lie."

1. Absolute and Relative. These two realms follow different rules. In an absolute sense, every brutal dictator in history was perfect. Every mass manipulator was a child of God and simply good at what they did.

In a relative realm, there are gradations.

Wilber once provided an example of relative truth when he cited a British statesmen who, when asked about the cause of World War II, said: "one thing is for certain, the history books will not say that the war resulted from belligerent conduct on the part of Belgium" or words to that effect. A relatively true statement.  

2. Slick is another way of saying "bullshit." The essence of bullshit being the presentation of a message, and rather than deliberately trying to deceive or tell the truth, both of which require a concern for what is in fact true, instead, presentation of a message with the overriding intent to create an impression, while being unconcerned in the first place with what is true or false.

3. Slick bullshit - it contains no nutrients. That which comes out of the ass has been stripped of its nutritional value. And to present it to another under the guise of food is a moral crime. We are swimming in a sea of nutrition-less fare.

4. Authenticity and sincerity are not the same. Authenticity is being real. Sincerity is caring about being as real as one can be.

That is - sincerity is doing one's best to exercise an inner skill at presenting the best of what one knows and is.

My complaint is what? My complaint is that people are not even doing their best. They are not even trying. It is worse than deliberately lying. It is not even giving a shit about what is true or good or beautiful and simply being concerned about creating an impression that will allow one to make a drive-by, hit and run, quick buck on the way out the door.

America, and especially public America, is made up of masses of cognitively strong slickers who are simply sliding out the door and trying to hook a little cheese on the way.

Let's not confuse definitions - you posit a "slick film or campaign" that has depth. This is not the slickness I am talking about. Slick is that which slides and cannot be pinned down.

I fully support the skillful packaging of a message. My question is - what is the message? Is the message intended to point as skillfully and sincerely as possible and what is true, or good, or beautiful in a particular context?

Or, is the message intended to leave an impression? Is it devoid of nutritional value for the mind or soul?

Nutritional doesn't have taste. Nutrition is that which provides nutrients for the healthy growth of an organism.

Slick communication is like Cheetos, Coke, Smarties candy, and Nachos. Tastes great, provides no nutrition.

Years ago, when a craftsman built a desk, equal time was spent on the inner parts of the desk ... even though the user would never ever see those parts! Caring extended to all parts of the work.

To what extent does someone cut corners when they can get away with it? That is my point.

Slick never wins. Slick always ends up getting out-slicked. Bullshit artists always end up auto-intoxicated. I am talking about what it will take to restore Health - in our minds and our spirits and our bodies and our collective feeling of community. We in America are way behind the power curve here.

My uncle visited me from Slovakia this week. He watched my son playing Call of Duty. He turned and looked at me and his look said: "you are a sad, sad example of a father. You let you son play this trash?" He was not angry at me. He was just viscerally sickened by what he saw.

I know - he doesn't get it. Just an old, out of touch fogey. Sometimes the cure for cancer is more cancer, right?

Sometimes the best medicine is, as George Carlin used to say, to swim in the shit. Revel in it. Let 'er rip!

Bring on the bullshit artists, arm them, and let's have fun!

In the interim, let's work on that national health care plan Hillary was talking about. Because there is no doubt in my mind that America's leading position as the Sicko of the World is intimately related to its leading position as the Bullshit Artiste of the World. I am not talking about politics. I am talking about us. And what we demand in our communities. I do not even care about politics or politicians. They perfectly reflect who we are and what we demand. I care about what you and I are doing to restore responsibility and sincerity and earnestness and gumption and caring in our neighborhood.

So, no - we are not all liars. And lying is not inevitable. And we can do better.

 

Slick Packaging Item:

Governor Tim Kaine is now touted as a front-runner for the Obama VP slot.

What exactly makes him the best choice? It is hard to tell.

But his surname is pronounced exactly the same as the second syllable of the opponent's surname.

This permits confusion and unfair aggregation of attributes. Every time the name McCain is mentioned, the name Kaine is suggested. McCain = Kaine. McCain is the son of Cain (Kaine).

Moreover, Kaine is a handsomer version of McCain. So, which of the two Canes do we want?

Slick packaging. This is the predominant mode of public decisionmaking in American power politics. Advertising executives are filled with glee at the brilliance of this.

We have no idea just how abundant our lives are with this kind of cheating.