I dreamt I had received the entire Stanislavski System

Last night I dreamt I had downloaded the whole Stanislavski System. It came in a rush, like a salmon, mysteriously intact. I had the entire massive file.



Stanislavski was there. We were all inside the computer, in the datastream. He was a tiny glowy golden figure like the Princess Leia holograph in Star Wars. Nemirovich-Danchenko & Leonid were glowy figures to the left, out of sight.

I also, I realized, had absorbed the entire mountain of what Rumer Godden knew -- monks & monasteries, cool-wind Kashmir, sparrow children.



I was climbing down from the top of that mountain, roped with a pickaxe. The mountain looked like a giant thangka, like Jiang's white-faced Empress who hangs in my front room. I was climbing near her blue eye & her black one.


Jiang's Empress

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In my waking life, I am slowly typing into another blog the entire manuscript of Leonid's unpublished first book, In Admiration of the Human Being.

I am rereading Nemirovich-Danchenko's My Life In The Russian Theatre. The part about how he and Stanislavski met; and had an 18-hour conversation that began in a restaurant, moved to Stanislavski's country home, lasted all night, and ended with them founding the Moscow Art Theatre which changed acting forever.


Nemirovich-Danchenko & Stanislavksi at the Moscow Art Theatre

He spoke about how apt he thought the Russian proverb was, Two bears won't get along together in the same den -- especially given two men used to absolute rule; how they created an artificial division of duties to get themselves past this -- Stanislavski had the final word on form ("Art"), Nemirovich-Danchenko on content ("Literature"); how this never really worked, although they always obeyed it -- yet how, indeed, they did manage to create the theatre.

It is precisely this point which was to become the most explosive in our future mutual relations...

None the less, on that remarkable morning we snatched at this artificial device, so intensely did we desire to banish all hindrances, so endlessly attractive, so tremendous and precious seemed that visionary edifice which we had adorned inwardly and outwardly, infecting each other from two-o-clock of the previous day with our temperaments, beautiful dreams, and closeness to realization. Each of us honestly and without calculation was ready to take upon his own shoulders the sacrifical burden of making the concession, if only to keep the divine conflagration in us from being forthwith extinguished.

Sometimes such trifles are recalled, such seemingly insignificant trifles!

For the whole of life there has remained in my memory the silence before the dawn in the farmhouse, upon my return from Moscow.

-- Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko

I am also reading Christopher Alexander, the humanist architect & creator of pattern languages, author of The Nature of Order, on how real human structures grow.

An organically-grown human structure

In the carpenter’s workshop, each piece is gradually built and fitted, over many years, until each tool fits just where it belongs, and each surface is just the right size and height for the carpenters work. [...]



There is no perfect layout process, and no perfect theory of layout, which you can use to get the perfect working environment. The carpenter's workshop, referred to above, is the end product of years and years of gradual, painstaking adaptation. During these years, the carpenter works, each day, and every now and then he does something usually something small, and quickly done to make the work more comfortable.



Thus, the great comfort that is achieved is not arrived at by being right. It is arrived at by being wrong, and by making small modest steps, to make what is wrong slightly more comfortable, slightly less wrong.

It is important to recognize that the state of mind in which the carpenter is able to achieve this, is a very humble one. He is never trying very hard to make perfect environment for himself. He is never under the illusion that he can reach anything perfect. He just keeps trying to make it little bit better all the time.

This process of gradually trying to make things little bit better, all the time, is the only state of mind in which you can really get there, because it is low stakes, humble and fairly easy. You don't have to try to hard, you don't have to kid yourself or anyone else you just have to keep working at it, bit by bit, and having a few small ideas which slowly make things better. [...]

As you will see, this easy process requires a very particular set of tools, to let you get there. [...] We shall see that the tools that are needed for this process are surprisingly sophisticated.

-- Christopher Alexander

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My question is:

How do I grow something organically? Which is in service to god? With another person?

The answer I am receiving is:

With a leap of faith. Despite all common sense. Starting from yourself, making things a little bit better all the time. With humbleness. You know how.