AN ART OF LIVING

Why do we wish to create? Do we want to compete with Nature? Is the desire to create linked to some higher inspiration, an urge to ‘imitate God’?

It seems to me that from the very beginning each generation of the human race has had a basic desire to change the world of outer form and general thought-structures, feeling a need to express (‘squeeze out’ !) itself in order to get rid of the invisible pressure that triggers the creative urge.

It is generally considered that the creative drive is a blessing, hence creative people are usually admired and even envied. The practice of using one’s imagination creatively acts as a control over the mind, rescuing it from idle fantasies and ineffective daydreaming. An ‘outlet’ of some sort may even safeguard physical and mental health, often preventing the need for psychotherapy ! My observation has been, that when a person’s mental activity progresses from an average level to a greater awareness, the creative urge tends to transmute into an investigative passion with a profound desire to discover the underlying cause of physical manifestation, moving ahead to embrace the realms of a higher emotional nature, wisdom and spiritual awareness. When that happens an individual becomes consciously aware of a gradual shift from the educationally ‘inherited’ — to a truly personal value-system, bringing forth the mergence of all the most positive qualities of what we call the basic human ‘Archetypes’.

An artist seldom investigates the reason why he / she is compelled to create. Our psychological intricacy and preconceptions hardly favour any conscious awareness of what we are doing ! As I see it, all we ever do, can be said to be a gradual climb towards better understanding of our condition. Most artists have an inkling of unseen realities and try to express these vague glimpses in their work.

Creative outlets are inevitably linked to activity of some sort and, in a broad sense, the latter belongs to the category we call work. The word ‘work’, meaning expenditure of physical and/or mental energy related to an ‘essence’ (L esse = to be) that lies behind all motion in the world of phenomena. This essence emanates from a Supreme Cause and is an indispensable quality without which there would be no manifestation of reality as we know it. That essence is made of the same ‘stuff’ whatever type of work we have in mind, since it is converted causative energy, applied in all areas of human existence.

What is life like for an artist who tends to push artistic frontiers forward without taking heed of the contemporary ‘in’-crowd? It makes one face up to the fact that one is an outsider in more than just the simplest sense of the word. I suppose most people who call themselves artists are outsiders in certain respects, but being an ‘outsider of outsiders’ means much more than that. It makes you live on the periphery of what is usually considered as normal existence.

There is some truth in the notion that artists are peculiarly different from most people and are often wary of tradition. Especially the avant-garde gnaws at rigidly adhered-to customs and favours radical changes in the status quo, whereas the Establisment clings to a presumed secure framework.

Many people start their adult life with wanting to change the world, however, most of us are either voluntarily or unwillingly changed by the world we find ourselves in. Surely it works both ways. The human race has made society what it is; what wrongs there are, can only be changed by human efforts to make things better. It is a strange fact that many artists intuitively comprehend what is wrong with society and out of that understanding grows a relatively antagonistic attitude towards the Establishment. Hence the average citizen tends to be suspicious of artists, finding them eccentric and believes that they are not really interested in everyday affairs, because all that matters to them is ‘to do their own thing’. I have personally experienced that there is a fascination for people like myself, but at the same time we create an uneasy feeling in others, because they can’t quite gauge what we are up to!

Having been interested in existential questions from an early age, it was natural that I observed attentively what was going on around me; and that wasn’t uneventful! My parents were both professionals — my mother a welknown operasinger and my father a lawyer who was also directing a literary cabaret and working as a journalist — portrayed independence and self-employment, which happened to become my own way of life.

I used to be on the lookout form stimulating conversations and events. Fixed ideas were abhorrent to me, as I must have perceived them to be ‘dead’, since they didn’t ‘move’ ! With advancing years however, I have learned that my concept of ever-moving transformation is not ideal either, because one cannot grasp certain aspects of life with that ‘fixed idea’ ! Pragmatism in all its aspects is one of life's essentials I have had to come to grips with. Our best teacher is the nitty-gritty of daily life; my passion for purely philosophical enterprises excluded very important issues.

At the age of fifteen my mother gave me my first singing lesson and I started training my voice and studied a repertoire of lieder and operatic arias, while in my spare time I read eagerly and sketched and painted figurative pictures. Within a short time I went on stage, singing popular songs, then I auditioned to become a member of a theatre choir and was allowed to understudy and eventually sing the role of Czipra, an old gipsy woman, in Johann Strauss’s comic opera ‘The Gipsybaron’, a real challenge for a young girl ! This was all a sideline to my serious dedication to classical music. Soon, still in my teens, I gave solo concerts both in Copenhagen and Stockholm. Later I went abroad to broaden my studies and enroled at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Art in Vienna and eventually became a student at the Opera-school there. In hindsight, it is interesting to me, that I also joined a class in mediaeval choir singing which I loved, in spite of not having been particularly interested in ancient music before. Slowly I became disappointed with the ins and outs of the theatrical music scene and eventually found myself wishing to quit that environment and change to the visual arts; one day I said to a friend ‘I wish I were a painter’ and..... the next day I had moved into the creative arts !

When I took up painting seriously after leaving the interpretative music world behind, I went into abstract art, working with etchings, monotypes, lithographs, collages, water-colours, torn-paper images, and started to exhibit in group- and one-woman shows.

During my time at the Academy I had the opportunity to expand my artistic search into several other fields. I met young people who were involved in various aspects of the humanities and who had a common interest: contemporary avant-garde art. My circle of friends included composers, painters sculptors and poets. The latter were members of a group called ‘Wiener Gruppe’. One of the group who also was a musician, became a good friend of mine. He spotted my talent for reciting his poems and asked me to perform together with him at some public performances. This was in fact the beginning of my becoming a poetry performer ! Other people also became aware of my talent for reciting modern poetry and so I compiled and toured with a programme of International Concrete Poetry, transforming visual poetry (by various authors, in several / in several languages) into acoustic events, demonstrating my particular approach to speech as a ‘musical expression’.

Was it because of the already mentioned predisposition for constant transformation and the example of parental models that I became interested in many activities of which the main feature is a component of ‘chance’?

In my visual work I eventually got involved in colour-interacting research which, roughly speaking, is to differentiate colours and their reactions on each other. I extended that by using artificial colour-light sources and projected the ensuing light onto colour pigments; this provided one of those ‘change’-activities, namely ‘colour kinetics’. I used geometric patterns in precisely chosen color-schemes and built them into light boxes with an electric circuit of coloured bulbs, which, when activated by thermostats (or in some cases motors), produced drastic changes in colour and form-groupings that appeared in random sequences.

I also worked on other visual investigations in ‘series’ of geometric patterns, some of which were based on magic figures and placed on a grid-system. In the early 60ies we called that kind of work ‘programmed art’ and I chose the title ‘study of similarity and differentiation in visual perception’ for one of my series. This particular work (comprising three variations) was conceived to make the observers aware of their own spatial relationship to it, because this interrelation is in actual fact the ‘cause behind certain changes in their perception’. Approaching and withdrawing in relation to the images makes it possible to grasp the complete visual information, since this bodily movement discloses that the ‘fixed’ two-dimensional image in front of one seemingly changes whilst one moves. Finally, it struck me that here was a visual exemplification for the saying ‘one in all, all in one’, because each variation is unique and can at the same time be traced back to a basic pattern............ Similarity and differentiation are two sides of the same coin.

This process of change can by analogy be associated with many problems in life. Taking these images as a model, one could say that if one finds oneself at a great distance from a problem one can only evaluate it synthetically, not being able to solve the matter; whereas during the forward movement new intermediate viewpoints trigger a process of discernment and analysis which make it possible to disentangle the psychological knots that have to be united before a solution can be found.

Later, in the early 80ies I experimented with Computer Graphics, using the then smallest and cheapest micro computer on the market (Sinclair ZX81).

Because of its multifarious meanings the English language interests me enormously and from around 1969 I started to use this language for my own writings, mostly using ambiguous contexts for my poems, corresponding to my liking for ‘change’!

My Semantic Sound Poetry was conceived to be not merely recited but performed; it combines semantics and abstract sound. As a starting point for these poems I used keywords, as I like to call them, which I developed through an etymologic associative working process. Sometimes I used scientific definitions and turned them into humourous reflections. With the choice of subject matters I wanted to stress the absurdity of daily / weekly / monthly / yearly social ‘trends’ and point out the conformity with which they are met. Slogans come and go, but whilst being ‘in’, they are often used to the detriment of human endevour.

My ‘Lingual Music’ tape-pieces are electro-acoustic compositions of which the main feature is s p e e c h as the basic material. Contrary to the traditional way of setting words to music, in lingual music speech ‘emerges as music’. A repertoire of (spoken) letters, syllables, words and sentences is recorded and then electronically exploited, the human voice being the only sound-source. Sometimes I recorded other sounds (like whales’ voices, musical instruments, aeroplanes, etc.) and used them in electro-acoustic compositions.

Is my passion for transformation on all levels linked to this innate tendency to observe in order to penetrate into the mysteries of life itself ? Did I learn to appreciate the changing scenery and complex personal circumstances because of a fascination for everything unusual, and foremost of all ‘unorthodox’ ? An everchanging diversity of homelife in my earliest childhood probably accounts for the eagerness with which I have always sought challenges, variety and anything that made me wax enthusiastic about something or other. As I was constantly stimulated by ‘interesting’ events, I never had occasion to get bored; if challenges didn’t come from outside, I invented them myself.

I have been told that already as a small child I would sit quietly observing my surroundings. Was this the first sign of meditative thoughts? Letting visual and aural impressions float by for them to be digested later?

My inborn curiosity drove me to experimentation with various techniques whether pictorial, musical or poetical, so that I could reach unusual artistic outputs. I looked for uniqueness and a personal ‘stamp’, though at one time while living in Paris, I did belong to an international group movement by the name of ‘Nouvelle Tendance’ where we aimed for ‘anonymity’ from the ‘personal touch’ of the artist. A bit of ideology for sure! Because whatever one does well, has a very personal style, even right down to the materials one chooses. Working with a repertoire of geometric figures and the choice one makes with regard to how one uses it, dictates that personal touch we wanted to avoid. We detested the prevailing values and hierarchic structure dominant in the art world at that time. The earlier visual and aural impressions I had been absorbing, now urged to be synthesized and materialized.

All this led to an insistent avoidance of stereotypical expression. I observed my fleeting thought-processes rather as in Buddhist meditation, and then decided to select and ‘freeze’ a particular inspirational idea and develop it in space and time, building an edifice of artistic creation.

What have I actually learned from my involvement in the arts? Artistic concerns have given me a broad understanding of life, helped me to develop sensitivity, opened my eyes to the importance of aesthetics on all levels, refined my sometimes robust outbursts of vitality and have strengthened my fondness for abstract ideas and theoretical appreciation. In this context it is appropriate to mention that my lifelong interest in the studies of comparative religions (in particular Tibetan and Zen Buddhism), natural science, psychology and philosophy built the background for the way in which I approached my artistic undertakings and life in general. Like any human being at times draws certain conclusions in order to survive at optimum, I suppose I used my wits and recollection, together with some acquired skills, as tools for living, creating and continuing to learn.

I had always been extremely trusting and have come to realize that because of this, I was exceedingly gullible...... Therefore I have had to revise what I used to consider in the past as some of my ‘rather endearing qualities’ (!) and can now see them in a different light. Looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses is alright to a certain extent, but exaggerated optimism and naïveté can be greatly misleading. If not controlled, too much idealism and insistence on ‘believing in the good at all cost’ can be quite dangerous. Life becomes one long ‘pretence’ if illusions are not dispersed. Self-deception is like an -ism one adheres to and takes to be ‘the truth’.

Sincerity had always been central to my outlook, so when I at long last learnt about hypocrisy, I was dumbfounded and shaken to the core of my being. But this didn’t as a rule deter me from continuing to believe everybody, because I still hadn’t learned the lesson of discrimination. In my judgement, everybody was basically o.k., they only needed understanding... I was in fact playing ‘God’ (!), the all-forgiving, understanding and generous onlooker, and I persisted with being benevolent in spite of some very hurtful experiences in my past.

From the very start, even in my mother’s womb, I was exposed to words and music. Being on the operatic stage as early as a yet unborn child, I acquired a taste for the theatre and other artistic in- and outputs. At no time in my life had I any doubt whether I wanted to be in the arts.

The more mature I became, the more I reflected and used my mind to differentiate purely mental activity from emotional reactions. I adore value-free abstract reasoning. Classes of ideas rather than specific semantic contexts interest me when I am just ‘thinking’ and because of that, I still get very frustrated by the fact that the content of ideas is tied to time / space dimension. I delight in lightning speed of thought, wanting everything to happen equally quickly.

The carrying out of an idea in the physical world takes time and effort and this feels to me like having a fight with ‘density’.... The sheer physicality of this process was often the least interesting to me. I suppose my secret ambition has always been to be able to give birth to new worlds by thought alone, without having to bother with the necessary materialization process; ‘telecreation’ would be a good name for that ! The driving force behind most of my activities is the desire to penetrate into unknown territories with innovative ideas. This even manifests when preparing a meal, because I always experiment and never stay with a recipe.

In this way the saying that ‘life is dangerous’ is even more true. The constant experimentation with materials, ideas and psychological observations necessitates an alert body and mind, otherwise mistakes can occur at any instant; they might be fatal! ‘Seeking happiness’ is a meaningless task, it leads astray and away from discovery, though when one’s potentials are being fulfilled to some degree, happiness ensues automatically. The meaning of life emerges by living it........ Small pleasures delight one at every instant on the passage through life, because they happen unexpectedly and seem to be the happy messengers that spur one on.

Apart from music, I am self-taught as an artist. All the subjects I have studied throughout my life have turned out to have been vital to my development.

When I was heavily involved in one of the disciplines I actively pursued, I identified with certain professional groups for a time, but I was never exclusively dedicated to any single discipline. Others also seemed to recognize this, because in the field of music I was often described as a painter, in the field of visual arts I was seen as a poet, in literary circles I was a performer and so forth. And this was and still is, the true situation. Some people perceived me as a ‘guest figure’ in their own domain. They were right ! For that matter I am also merely a ‘guest’ on this planet ! Hahaha ! Neither nationality, nor religion, nor profession, nor any sort of classification covers my own concept of myself. Categories don’t fit my character, nor my soul. I am a stranger in a strange land.

I had never realized how much pragmatism mattered before I intentionally started investigating my own thinking processes. I understood how badly I needed a balance between concepts and practicality. It was my innermost wish to find some relative truths that would help me understand this universe better, for then I would be able to compare my personal microcosm with other microcosms. Discernment refers to vision rather than logic and is not judgmental like prejudice.

Being in the arts alienates one to a large extent from society, it also makes one an outsider to acquaintances, a ‘strange person’, because one’s outlook has a different slant to most people’s. The reason for this is probably the artist’s oversensitization, vivid imagination and the openness with which a constant flow of ideas is allowed to float in and finally transform into emotional energy and mental pictures. The act of creation needs a kind of ‘stewing’-anticipation, a bit like a ‘witches’-brew’!

When active in the humanities one develops a holistic view of the world, rather than just having a narrow outlook linked to the egocentric ‘personality’. Creative outlets and the exchange of ideas with friends and colleagues matter a great deal. One word illustrates this perfectly: communication. It is the in- and outflow and transformation of data, constituting exchange, a give-and-take cycle.

This desire for exchange starts at an early age and can be observed in the way children view the world: they want to share their discoveries and offer them freely to any- and everybody. It is an unselfish and innocent way to be, because the ‘self’ hasn’t yet had time to accumulate substance.... ‘Mass’ is heavy to move about! The weightlessness astronauts experience in space frees them from the burden of the physical body. Likewise the body of concepts is a heavy load to handle ! Throughout life we humans carry our own accumulated concrete (body and worldly goods) and abstract (concepts) luggage around with us. In reference to the directness of childrens’ spontaneous comments, it is wise to reflect on the fact, that were we as spontaneous at all times, we would operate on a communication level that ignores the reality of our communication partners. Real communication is a two-way process, excepting the ’Theatre of the Absurd’ ! Still in connection with children it comes to mind, that most of them object forcefully to ‘being told’, because they wish to discover and learn to understand for themselves the workings of the world around them. If or when they take on other people’s prepacked knowledge, they have to carry this mass around with them until they will have had the opportunity to verify those opinions.

Society is faced with a new predicament connected with certain expressions ‘taken for granted’ and used in everyday language, i.e. the question of ‘political correctness’. The less aware one is of the vast implications of prejudice, the more inclined one is to harbour extreme opinions. Nothing is black and white in this world and in order to scrutinize any statement, we need to research a lot of grey areas. I find it useful to have to reflect on the use of words in everyday life, especially within certain given situations which demand careful and delicate handling. Thanks to the insistence of this trend, humans have had to reconsider some of their thoughtlessness.

At the very beginning of my professional life I was merely concerned with using my talents, finding ways to excel in this or that medium, it was all about being a good artist, seemingly emulating my parents and the circle they moved in. Now I realize how much I had sought approval and appreciation.

What I was doing came naturally and needed no conscious reflection, I had no idea why I had chosen the artistic path. At an early age emotions are stronger than mental reflection, heroes seem more attractive than cool-headed wisdom. But what happens when both drives are equally strong in an individual? That was the case with me. Already at the age of 15 or so, I remember clearly that I went to the public library and sought out ‘The Story of Philosophy’ (by W. Durant), which I preferred to romantic novels appropriate for my age.

Whatever branch of the arts one examines, it emerges that competition, jealousy, intrigue, and injustice reign here as much, if not more, as in any other profession. I started out in the music world, where the above is commonplace. It is a much harder fight to conquer the prejudiced connoisseurs than to pass an interview in another occupation, as opinions are more dependent on the personal taste of the assessors, taste being so very subjective. Neither does the art market willingly support any artists who tend to undermine the old-fashioned criteria of what constitutes an artwork.

Creativity is a sought-after quality of the imagination. There is however the question of what and why one wishes to create. If it is an off-loading of inner tension, it enables the creator to free him / herself from a burden, but what does it do for the public? It offers creative re-arrangements of already existing ideas, which can without any doubt be evaluated as a positive contribution towards widening our perception range. Most members of the public seem to link the imagination’s function largely to the concrete physical world, whereas the abstract realms of the imagination are more open to people who ‘can let go’.... I suppose the average citizen has all through the ages had a more or less materialistic view of the world, wanting to ‘have possessions’ and therefore craved after ‘security’. It is now quite obvious that this craving has in the 20th century reached a state of frenzy. People take out insurances against any and everything: health, home, car, life et cetera. Governments allegedly ‘secure’ national safety by acquiring nuclear weapons... ‘Security’ whether economical, physical or psychological is nowadays foremost in people’s minds and the undue stress that this provokes, is at the root of many of this century’s illnesses. Expectations are tinged with fear of failure and we seem to have forgotten, that a healthy portion of faith in ourselves and our future can do no end of good for our well-being. We don’t need to struggle most of our life against imagined eventualities. The commitments to security measures drain our energies and hinder the imagination from finding truly new ways to structure modern society. It is the capacity for free association without fear that opens up the flow if inventive imagination, whence fresh mental connections can be made.

Our individual outlook depends upon the belief-systems we have adopted to guide our lives. If we believe that we are not completely responsible for ourselves, but put our trust in some outside authority, then we are surely dependent on whether that chosen authority can be relied upon. We tend to blame that outside power for any disappointments and negative events. If on the other hand a civilized society is our guiding principle, we will be dismayed and upset by coarse behaviour and disregard of aesthetic laws in our environment, because we are tuned to a culture-frequency and our fine-tuned awareness registers the minutest deviation in frequency and thus any outside interference causes disturbance.

In spite of basically being at peace with myself, I know extremely well, that any dissatisfaction or anxiety within, manifests because I sometimes forget the factual interdependence of all opposites in this universe. At such moments I need to remind myself that it is our thought-based ‘linguistic prison’ that prevents us from breaking free from the notion of opposites.

It is difficult for me to recollect the feelings I experienced, the attitudes and thoughts I held while I was involved in the different art-movements. Lately I am only fleetingly involved in any particular creative output. At times I am dangerously detached in my views from the average concepts on most subject matters, but the rebel in me still exists and is maybe even stronger than ever; conformity has never been my strong point. I think that one has to scrutinize closely ‘anything that is taken for granted’. That presents some difficulties when considering different philosophical viewpoints: the idealistic / Buddhist concept off ‘flow’ is hard to reconcile with everyday reality, the materialistic doctrine represents a rigid view which negates life its flexibility and creativity, the cerebral view that recommends rationality and nothing else, robs us of legitimate needs for emotional experiences and their expression.

It feels slightly bizarre to me to give an account of past chapters in my life. Wishing to write about my experiences in the arts is for me necessarily bound up with ‘living’, because I see life as a creative process from which I draw inspiration for my artistic as well as all my other activities. I have to search very hard to recollect what seemed extraordinarily important at the time, for example my occasional active participation in performances of contemporary music, touring as a trio with two musicians who built their own unique instruments, creating exploratory radio broadcasts together with electronic-engineer composers, travelling as a performer of experimental poetry, holding ‘creativity’-workshops or being involved in the already mentioned art exhibitions. By now I have left behind the passion for artistic involvement and exchanged it for dispassionate observation, which I convert into socio-cultural writings, because I hope to communicate to an audience beyond the artistic arena.

One of my lasting beliefs is that, when a person has undertaken a fundamental, earnest and thorough investigation into one single subject matter and has arrived at the very core of it, this understanding can be used as an analogical matrix for arriving at the nucleus of other enquiries or studies. Deep contemplation on a centre allows identification with ‘it’. This gives an inner vision that doesn’t seek, but finds.

Precise wording of concepts has become more and more important to me. I have realized that if one wants to make written statements, they have to be concise and clear, especially when attempting to reach people who do not all share the same kind of vocabulary. When a vocabulary is based on sophisticated knowledge and becomes very complex, it is open to misunderstandings. Of course, this doesn’t go for poetry or other literary expressions, but where an unambiguous meaning is paramount the vocabulary must be chosen very carefully. I know when I tend to fall into the trap of insisting on using a ‘unique’ expression because I savour it and want to employ it in spite of my realization that it might confuse matters for the reader.

One of the underlying reasons for entering the avant-garde art scene may have been my inborn adherence to the idea of ‘evolution’. As I consider physical life to be ‘in constant change’, it seems natural to support that belief by ‘surging forward’. One thing is certain, that I have never been interested in being ‘the centre of attraction’ nor in becoming ‘famous’. On the contrary, I remember telling a friend with astonishment, that the public often seemed more interested in me as a person and performer, than in the material I presented, whereas for me the essence was the communication or either concrete or abstract content.

My mode of everyday living has always been quite different from most people’s, possibly because of being self-employed. When learning to survive in all economic situations, one’s outlook is to some degree shaped by observing the changing international social climate and ‘improvisational’ skills have to be acquired in order to master all forthcoming life situations. Having taken responsibility for being independent from any 9–5 job, many consequential problems make themselves known and with this comes an understanding of other people’s problems. The wish for justice also encompasses others and the desire to seek justice for all and to help one’s fellow humans follows naturally. I would like to refer to a happening many years ago which illustrates my ‘obsession with helping anybody and any-thing’: at a gathering of artists and writers, I was busy assisting the hostess in her various chores and offered to make the after dinner coffee. The coffeepot suddenly tipped over and I rushed to its rescue with the result that the boiling fluid spilt over my arm and burnt my skin to the degree that it peeled off in chunks..... Since then this event stayed in my mind as an example of automatic reaction and compulsion to save ‘otherness’..... Subsequently I have learned to consider my own salvation as well !

Ever since I took out that book on philosophy from the library, I have been delighted and inspired by reading other people’s communications. In this way I have had innumerable ‘dialogues’ with great artists, musicians, psychologists, philosophers, religious personages, scientists, mystics...... The list of my conversation-partners is too long to quote, but I wish to mention just one name that has been a permanent companion for many years, and that is J. Krishnamurti.

Lastly I would like to express my opinion on a controversial issue amongst artists and intellectuals. There is, and has been for a very long time considerable prejudice against watching television. The élite looks down on ‘the box’ and considers it sheer entertainment and food for the passive public. I started out with the same shortsighted attitude, but soon understood that this blinkered view veils social actuality and turns a blind eye to vital areas of human concern. Many of the forementioned critics would be surprised how actively the average citizen really participates in everyday public life. I am often astounded how passionately people state their opinions publicly in the many excellent discussion programmes on radio and television (I am particularly speaking about the British broadcasting networks) and how openly they aspire to change detrimental circumstances not only for themselves but also for society as a whole. They hear and see with ‘open ears and eyes’ and confront reality head-on without intellectually preconceived ideas. Television news, the mightiest competitor to the National Press, is more objective than newspaper reports with their ‘opinions’, because the viewers are able to use their own perceptions and psychological skills to decipher what happens on the screen. No interpretation is needed, since the viewing becomes a personal experience. — One of my aphorisms reads: ‘everybody is everybody else’s guru’......... What happens all around us, including on the small screen, can teach us a great deal if we are not too proud to admit it. Eliminating one’s prejudices promotes idealism, an idealism where ‘actions speak louder than words’.