Thoughts on Mike Daisey

Mike Daisey has long been an influence for me. I've seen several of his shows and have even flown cross-country to participate in one of his solo-performance workshops.

So it was a hell of a letdown when it came out that he lied. Mike Daisey is a liar. He fabricated major elements of "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs" -- and less than two weeks ago that came down to bear on him when This American Life had to retract the story they did on the performance.

How humiliating must it be to admit that you lied? That you didn't consider yourself a good enough storyteller to have veracity in the tale you told? He could've said from the start that certain elements were fabricated -- or say it in whatever language he chose -- and we would've bought it.

As it is, he has lost our collective trust. Time will only tell if he can regain it.

Beauty

Control

I've realized a lot of the reason for my anxiety is a need for control. I don't just want to control the circumstances around me. I want to control the circumstances of the world. I don't want people or animals or anything to hurt. I seem to think I can make this happen. I don't seem to get that I am only one person and while I can have an impact, that impact is by its nature limited.

Oh yeah, and I'd like my sushi to be fresher. I've got to take control.

Joe Wilkins, "Bruised"

What I am aiming at here is this: There is some connection between the contusions on our skin and the various contusions that bloom in our brains. As the violet bruise blossoms -- as, weeks later, the flared scar finally diminishes - the neurons themselves lurch and wobble, link and relink. It makes sense but is still somehow shocking. Each wound changes how we see ourselves, how we understand the world around us. This bat's wing will color more than the tissues around my eye, will stay with me longer than the few weeks it will take for the skeletal muscles to repair themselves and the extracellular serums to drain.

More Moffitt

"The Buddha compared the tendency of the mind to repeatedly organize and mistakenly become identified with the ego to a house builder. Your ego constructs a self in order to shelter itself from the anxiety and stress of the truth of suffering. You then spend your time and effort on furnishing the house and repairing damage to you. Thus you seek status, material goods, a guarantee of physical and emotional safety, and insurance against all the uncertainties of life. But through the realization of cessation, you cease to believe the delusion of your separateness and your permanence and cease to compulsively hold a shelter for your ego."

More Phillip Moffitt, "Dancing With Life"

"Neither the dramatic altered states nor the subtle shift in consciousness is superior to the other. It isn't the amount of fireworks you feel, but rather how much actual lessening of grasping and arising of insight you experience and the amount of time that the mind is at ease even in difficult situations that indicates your progress toward liberation."

My Valentine

There is one person who makes me smile like this. I fell in love with him in a time before time, in a place I will always recognize even if I don't remember it. I love you, Adam.