Why mystery?

[mangosteen]

This is apropos of nothing... the muse walked up behind me and politely informed me that I would be writing this down.

...and that’s the thing about mystery. Mystery is what allowed him to be something other than a person. Of *course* there’s a person behind the phenomenon of the performer, and that person has a real name, and a real life, and internal organs and everything else, but that’s not the point. The mystery is what allows it to all work... to see an *entity* that’s a musical genius that doesn’t have to be quite human, and that just adds to it and makes it all okay.

Sure, you could look around and find out his real name. I’m sure that it would be trivial to find out the facts of his existence.... but what would you gain? A little bit of knowledge that you found out something? That his name is John Smith or something else? That he has feet of clay? We *all* have feet of clay. It is the mystery that allows as to transcend beyond that... to engage in the consensual hallucination that with the actions we take, each and every one of very small beings who are *us* can be something that is not bounded by the physical limitations of our surroundings, by becoming something *more* in the eyes brains hopes and dreams of everyone we touch.

There will be no there, there. You will find exactly what you expect, and that will be the saddest thing I’ve heard all week.

Comments

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

;-D

[siderea]

Sorry, dude: I could not disagree more.

Mystery is the lie one tells oneself to insulate one's ego from the possibility that could be me.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.

We say, "The performer on the stage, they are beyond human, beyond me. I am not that. That is Other. That is a creature from some other, more glorious species," to allow ourselves to be in the presence of that light without it illuminating uncomfortable places in our souls, where its sibling sparks roil in a turmoil of confining darkness.

That glory is there not inspite of the performer having feet of clay, but because of. Not only can you dance on feet of clay, I'm not sure you can help but do so.

Those humans don't just talk by slapping meat together, they sing too.

It's not that humans can reach beyond humanity. It's that humanity stretches further than most people give it credit.

[mangosteen]

Mystery is the lie one tells oneself to insulate one's ego from the possibility that could be me.
[Williamson quote elided]


Okay, I saw how you got there, and I mostly agree.

Here's another take on it, though:

Beneath this mask there is more than flesh. There is an idea, Mr. Creedy, and ideas are bulletproof.

Virtually no one can be as big as the ideas that exist in the minds of others about them. Mystery is the spackle that fills the gap. I can see how mystery can be a inhibiting agent ("Oh, *I* could never do that... normal humans can't do that."), but I also see how it can be an enabling agent. To me, that's the whole point of role models... there are plenty of people that I am not, and who I would never want to be, but they embody a set of ideals I can aspire to, and so I seek to understand that. For example, I have way too much hair to be Spider Jerusalem.

The posting was more about the idea of the hollowness of pointing out that someone has feet of clay in order to bring them *down*.

[siderea]

I also see how it can be an enabling agent.

Mystery can be inspiring, but it is not enabling, especially not, when, as you do, you argue that its inspirational qualities cannot withstand close scrutiny.

The posting was more about the idea of the hollowness of pointing out that someone has feet of clay in order to bring them *down*.

Discouraging someone from peaking behind the curtain on the grounds it will just disillusion them is precisely the same as discouraging someone from asking questions of their religion on the grounds it will just weaken their faith.

Are you sure this is the argument you want to be making? Does it get you where you want to go?

[jeffpaulsen.livejournal.com]

Discouraging someone from peaking behind the curtain on the grounds it will just disillusion them is precisely the same as discouraging someone from asking questions of their religion on the grounds it will just weaken their faith.

I disagree, on the grounds that the mystery of performance is not the same as the mystery of faith, generally. I grant that there are some faiths for which they are congruent.

We're all talking in undefined terms here, and "mystery" is something of a dangling pointer, so I'll draw a distinction. It seems like M isn't talking so much about the mystery of performance (eg, how brush strokes become art) but the mystery of the performer (eg, James Brown, the hardest working man in show biz, vs James Brown, the actual human being who was not a saint or anything like it).

Mystery of Performance is ultimately about suspension of disbelief. As Wrestlemania season draws near, this is especially apropos. Any child knows that 'professional wrestling' is 'fake', in that the outcomes of the matches are predetermined. For some people, knowing this prevents them from enjoying pro wrestling, which baffles me. When I watch Star Trek, I know that the people on screen are actors working from a script, and this doesn't break suspension of disbelief unless the acting is particularly terrible. Special effects work the same way - their job is to enhance suspension of disbelief, not make me think about raytracing. Listening to music in headphones, sounds are positioned in a stereo virtual environment to create an artistic effect, not to impress me with the producer's audio engineering skill.

Mystery of the Performer is a little trickier. "Threepenny Opera" has awesome music, music that feels more discovered than written. If, in digging into this, one finds that Brecht and Weill were goddamn Reds, one might find it somewhat less enjoyable. The listener might realize that there are Communist themes in the plot and lyrics. The listener might be unable to give themselves to the experience, because of cognitive dissonance or sheer cussedness.

Maintaining the mystery of PERFORMANCE requires a willingness to miss, ignore, or forgive the wires. Maintaining the mystery of the PERFORMER requires a willingness to miss, ignore, or forgive the performer's humanity.

Religious faith is not normally thought of in terms of suspension of disbelief, but rather in the positive terms of belief. When one of the faithful asks the hard questions about their own religion, confirmation bias is on the side of the questioner. This leads to apologetics rather than disillusionment.

[siderea]

You have seemed to entirely missed the points of what I said. As a matter of principle, I don't repeat myself in disagreements. If there's something you're unclear on, please let me know. Perhaps there's something I could clarify.

[mangosteen]

I think jeffpaulsen summed up my thoughts on the matter very well.

As a request for clarification, can you crack open how you get from the mystery of performance to the mystery of faith?

[crazybone.livejournal.com]

Heh. I initially read this as fiction dialogue. It seems like a murder mystery surrounding an artist that has a public identity but not private one. The more the detectives try to unravel the cypher character and the reason for their murder the more questions appear. I'm thinking kind of a Citizen Kane meets The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. If you choose to do a reveal, then add in The Usual Suspects too.

[mangosteen]

...and I meant it as a fiction dialogue, so that works out well. :)

I'm thinking of it as a subplot to the main case, where it would be not completely outside the realm of the investigation to find out the real identity behind a performer or performance group, even though it would serve no purpose beyond a fleeting feeling of control.