Suffice it to say the postmodern ethos was well represented. The play was often about the play, which eventually included a soliloquy by the putative playwright (actually an actor, although it would no doubt amuse the actual playwright to play an actor playing himself from time to time).
It was very funny, played with stereotypes in very interesting and both comical and cavalier ways (he managed to find black humor in drive by shootings, although we the audience were largely afraid to laugh).
The point I wanted to make, though, is that postmodernism as an ethos, as a worldview, is inherently and intrinsically emotionally rooted. It is not an intellectual world view. It is rooted in despair, confusion, and fear.
Both the comedy and the flirtation with nihilism were backed by biographical details which rang true, even if wrong in some important particulars.
And it occurred to me that so often in dealing with people’s defenses, we are dealing with a human shell game. They are daring us to guess which self is the real one. Often, I feel, they themselves don’t know. Many comedians I think are like this. Comedy is a sort of violence you can get away with for a long period of time.
It occurs to me to share my piece on Deconstruction, written some ten years ago or so, around the time I built that website. All of these pieces still have value to me, but the discovery of the true pain within me, and its source, is worth all of them ten times over.
You can say intelligent things without heart. But those things will always lack the Way. We need the Way in our lives. It is the invisible Mother, the source of all things.
I can’t resist adding: I’m not a bad writer. I likely would have made a decent if not great academic. Probably a really good teacher.
But all my life I have tried to follow the path of discovery, and tried never to get too far away from “what’s next” on this journey. I have never forgotten it, and I felt–and I think I made the right decision–that any number of choices I might have made, including academia or–believe it or not–law enforcement–would have pushed me backward in the long run. I could not always see the way forward, but I never ever stopped looking. I still look every day, but what I have found, what I am working with now, is very, very good.