improvisation vs. permanence

I've not really read much this week, as I'm trying to finish a paper instead, and I haven't finished the paper either, so I don't have much to say on that front. But I thought I should make a few brief remarks before the week catches me in its whirlwind.

It seems the theme connecting Proust to your discussion of Socrates here are the circumstances for creation, and their relation to conversation. One point of comparison that leaped to mind was improvisation in theatre, which requires spontaneity and also a group, much like conversation. And like a Socratic dialogue, it also needs strict rules in order to function. Unlike a Socratic dialogue, fruitful improvisation relies on a back-and-forth between all the players, rather than having one dominant player who directs all the proceedings. Improv takes off when no one person assumes control over the creation, so that all participants surrender themselves to the possibility that things will spin off in a direction they didn't anticipate, while all assume responsibility for making that direction as interesting as possible. One of the things that's always fascinated me about improvisation is that it seems to me to be creativity in its purest form. Giving people time to think things through might give greater polish to what they come out with, but it also allows for tremendous self-censorship. What the great gurus of improvisation, like Keith Johnstone, train in their performers is the graceful art of letting go of that intellection and self-censorship so that gifted improvisers can surprise even themselves with what comes out of their mouths, but they have a strong enough instinct for cooperative storytelling that even the unexpected contributes productively to the story being told.

One reason I think improvisation brings people closer to the act of creation than most things is that it removes the element of thought. That might sound odd. But I think too much reflection can be a great hindrance to creativity. From the ancients to today, people talk about inspiration, about the muses, about spirits entering and moving them, and so on. There's a sense that true creativity is a gift that comes from without rather than a talent one extracts from within. Being a great artist isn't simply a matter of being talented, but also being open to that inspiration. What I envy in improvisers is their innocent capacity to be open to that inspiration. To use a word that's sadly fallen from common English usage, they're unsoulclogged.

That said, I do think that getting ideas straight does involve a lot of thought on one's own time. Rumination can be as much hindrance as help, and I think the history of philosophy bears all too much of the evidence of how abstract thinking can lead us astray. But I find, for instance, that the Oxford tutorial system relies very heavily on the cut-and-thrust of quick-witted debate, which can often be a helpful way of mooting ideas, but I far too often wish people could give me a day before I get back to them. I'm no Socrates.

On the side of taking your time is the dream of perfection. My brother, who's quite a chess wizard, plays a lot of correspondence chess, partly for lack of good opponents nearby, and partly because he finds the form fascinating. In tournament chess, you'll have less than a couple of hours to complete all your moves. In correspondence chess, you can take a week or two over each move. The result is that the best chess players could presumably play much closer to a perfect game by correspondence than they could in tournament. In a similar vein, Glenn Gould gave up giving concerts after a while and devoted himself to studio recording in the hope of capturing a performance that was closer to perfection than any live performance.

Part of the beauty of improvisation, to my mind, is that it rejects the idea of perfection altogether. What they're giving us isn't a spontaneous idea that could be improved through greater refinement. What makes what they give us worthwhile in the first place is its spontaneity. You find this mentality much more frequently in eastern traditions, I think. The sand mandala, for instance, is destroyed as soon as it's completed. I suppose that's in keeping with a spiritual tradition that takes "this, too, shall pass" as one of its fundamental tenets. I wonder to what extent our obsession with permanence and perfection and our resistance to spontaneity is related to our culture's monotheism?