Yes, I believe everyone does have an internal actor–the one that crafts the mask for any given social occasion. I think it too true that all the world is a stage in the sense that people chronically lie and project illusions to hide if not protect the vulnerable things behind their curtain. Maybe crazy things too. The masks we put up are our fourth walls. Shamefully, I’m no good at maintaining the fourth wall that stands in reality, the one between people. I have trouble “playing” a self who is *not* my self, but then the latter is so dynamic that it exposes my inability to be ‘one person’ (which does not bother others as much as it bothers me apparently). At times I romanticize my lack of consistent substance in an effort to make myself feel better about it, but really it’s a hell of a thing not to be able to count on the thing in the mirror or the voice from your own mouth.

As for the writer to actor comparison: what is writing a book but performing improvisional theatre, playing every role, on the stage of the reader’s mind?

There you have so much more to use as a means of expression. More than lighting and sound and your body. You have all five senses as a canvas, and more. You have everything. You have unlimited range. It’s sublime. It’s the ultimate.

It’s … cool.

And I really need to stop blogging in your blog, man. (:

Jack, man, what would happen that would make you afraid? Or is this a comment about the kind of author’s you admire But I think I understand a bit of what you’re talking about with regard to an authors ‘internal actor’; I think we’ve all got them. Mine, not having spent much time on stage, doesn’t seem to care much about the fourth wall. Maybe you could try for the “all the world’s a stage” idea?

Get better and finish that reading.