I suppose an elaboration on the topics of the last few blog entries I've written for the precious few readers I have out there is long overdue and in order. So here it is… Firstly, this blog is aptly titled as such because being a long-winded story-telling human who happens to be an actor, I naturally ramble on just enough of things I've studied, learned, and/or have experienced personally.

Windows Vista Microsoft Word - Thesaurus: English (United States)

Rambling (adv.) as in "Ramble on" (v.): babble, blabber, blather, chatter, digress, drone on, go off on a tangent, go on and on, jabber, prattle, rattle on, stray, wander off the point, to digress.

The next 7 blogs will be devoted entirely to the wordy philosophical musings of one semi-learn-ed actor attempting to convey his perceptions and approach to the craft or the art of acting. For every form of art that exists or that is known, described, and labeled, ten other schools of thought instantly form, each begging to be discovered by our simplest notions that stem from our childish curiosity.

Note One: The Actor

The vehicle, the middleman, the connector, the medium through which every story develops is as always, as one would expect: through the human body, mind, and soul: The only one there, present to express that unique soul's experience in the moment, in the now-ness of a crystallized nano-second. Whether it's an animation, a documentary or a film, the characters all come from one place… us. To be an actor means to live in constant harmony with those things that put us in the experience of our humanity, to flow and flux with the tides of life, and to derive from this life an understanding of the tumultuous differences in reactions (reactions to differences) that actually unite us on this planet.

Our goal as actors is to, for ourselves, decode the emotional landscape of our own humanity while in the shoes of another and then, hopefully chock full with integrity, hand it back to those watching in hopes that they will walk away entertained, lofty as it may sound, with a subtle lesson even, an inspiring idea, or a re-affirmation of their own roles in life (or maybe just a good review). Better yet I'll explain from this viewpoint: Shakespeare's Hamlet is one of the more well-known characters in the history of theatre and acting that actually stands out with his dire situation being in the depths of our humanity, indeed at the very core of our malady of mortality: duality: will and choice, fight and flight. "Action" and "Inaction", the two states of being that you can be in when acting, essentially the term or word 'actor' is truly derived from the word 'action', which is what we all are while alive until death arrives knocking on our doors or perhaps while we're on that treadmill we were running on to get into shape for that next role that we'll never book now that we're dead and no longer 'in action', hence stripping us of the title 'actor' as well as the function, 'action'. Shakespeare said it best… "The world's a stage… and we are all merely players".

Here's a little secret: We're all born actors. Just watch a baby closely as it cries for sustenance from the mother, did it not evince emotion and motivation as the mother was affected enough to run and feed it? Or perhaps later in its life as it plays every role in every imaginary play it's playing in. If you'd like an example, just watch Charlie Chaplin's amazing feat of a movie, The Kid, and you will more clearly see where these impulses come from.