As I sat down to write this, or more accurately as I crawled into bed with my laptop it all started to become a technical nightmare. The computer froze, as I was reading past blogs. Yes, a bit of research as any good actor would do. First thing I did was hit the mouse pad a hundred times, as if that would do anything. Then I sat there holding the control, alt and delete keys and nothing was happening. I didn't want to restart the computer because it takes so long to reboot. I don't have the time to wait. Hurry it up please this blog is due tomorrow. However, instead of cursing the Gods that be I grabbed my iPhone off the nightstand and opened my Notes application and began retelling the experience. Technology at my finger tips. It's unbelievably easy to access this superhighway of information. Some floating invisible bubble of information. I've even found all the Thoreau quotes that I've posted on Facebook without having to open a book. Don't get me wrong, I purchased a copy of Walden and have read through it. Ok not all of it, but some of it. I bet you didn't know that Thoreau is the most quoted, but least read. All this technology that can keep us from actually experiencing life itself. Nothing can replace the act of crunching leaves under your feet, or the sensation of mud gushing between your toes. I've played a Wii, but it's not the same as actually throwing a bowling ball.
You may be wondering where this is going. I'm a strong believer that the greatest gift an actor can bring to the table is their personal experience of living. It's through these
experiences that we educate our soul. Yes, I have all this technology at my fingertips and yet without actually experiencing life around us it really means nothing. Thoreau's gift to us were his journals, but his gift to himself was the life he experienced around him.
"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."
As we continue into tech week, I stop and think about Thoreau and Facebook. What would he have said about that? Maybe he already did.
"How vain is it to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live."