But it was interesting.  You could tell that those involved – that (dare I say) Aaron Sorkin/David Fincher empathized with Mark’s character.  That as a creator – as an artist – as a “computer person”, a big part of just you wants to do your work, and sink into a hole where you can do your work and never get touched by emotion.  Pay other people to do the things you don’t want to do.  The moments that affected me were:

a)      The moment where the Winklevosses are in the private rowing room – working ever working on their goal of being in the Olympics.

b)      The moment where Eduardo sees Mark across the room in the Facebook office – sitting plugged in and untouchable.

c)       The moment in the board room with the rain.

These are the moments where the characters are experiencing their bliss.  And then they are caught naked by the world – their bliss judged to be not enough, because you cannot only want what you are good at.  You cannot only want what you are God at.  You have to want other things that are popular, and you have to dilute yourself to others’ demands of you.

Everyone was using one another wants, needs, abilities crossing.  Eduardo got crossed in the middle because of a horrible, horrible disease called empathy.

That last moment was so clever.  Mark sitting alone in the board room, refreshing the browser page and waiting for that girl – that inciting incident girl – to accept his friendship.  That pause before he clicked “add as friend” when I thought he was going to add a personal message – say “I’m sorry”.  Refresh.  Refresh.  Refresh.  As the other characters storylines were closed out – their closure accomplished, I waited for the refresh to yield a friendship, and realized that it was never going to come.  “Mark” is the youngest billionaire in the world, but he’s just a guy sitting alone at his computer, waiting for an ex-girlfriend to acknowledge him.

There’s no closure when you look for the easy way out.

The movie also knifed me in that exquisitely playful scene, gorgeous rowing scene in Henley-on-Thames.  When that dude’s daughter went to Cambridge, and Cambridge was mentioned right next to the chit-chat with royalty, the bright purple vulgar bouncing of American Gods meeting with ancient, dribbling elite of Europe, I felt absolute pain and resentment.  A flashback of being in my classroom at City of London School for Girls when Mrs Restan ran panting into the room and said “Did Jane X get into Cambridge?  Did she…?  Oh THANK GOD!”  And, much relieved, ran out again.  And there we were.

Well.  If you’re going to bake a layer cake, there’s got to be a layer on the bottom.

In that moment, I hated those Winkelvosses so much.  I would have done anything to knock them off their skyscraper highchairs with their Aryan arrogance.  I hated them the way that I primally, unconsciously hated those Oxbridge-Bound Luvvies who kind of sort of drove me to America and completely changed my life.

And so you push yourself back down, and you curl, as a bound foot, into yourself, and you do your work.  You do your work.  You do your work.  You do your work you do your work.

“And I say, it’s not my dream I’m following – it’s just my career choice.  I’m following the steps of my chosen career, which requires a little more of a roundabout attempt than straight admin.  I’m not being idealistic, I’m practically following a course of action – this is what directors need to do, it’s not my dream.”

For a long time I thought she was totally right.  It was a nice little empowering flash of lightening in my world of self-defense.  And she is right in the sense that you don’t wake up in the morning and think “how can I follow my dream today?”  You don’t walk around waiting for the wind to pick you up and fly you away to the clouds – or at least Leta didn’t.  I didn’t.  I wrote because I knew/know that my type isn’t going to mature for another ten years or so.  I take classes because I want to keep current with people and get to know the different facets of my trade.  Practical steps to an impractical life choice.

It occurred to me all by my lonesome that it is not as simple as that either.  I got an email from my cousin Anna because she was thinking of stalling what she had built up of her career(already in Journalism) to pursue an MA in journalism that would make her a more desirable candidate in higher end jobs in a shrinking market.  She asked my advice specifically because I was “following my dream”, and my knee-jerk response was the new Leta Doctrine – acting and writing is my profession, and I work to make myself more marketable and useful in those environments.  Calling it a dream makes it fanciful and impractical.

It is not a dream, it is the same hard work as anything.

It is not an ideal, it is realistic and grubby.

But oh, oh it is a dream.  Oh to be professionally curious.  Oh to sit in a rehearsal room – even one with no heat or light or WC nearby, and to stand up and play with scenarios and words, and discuss the effect of scenarios and words.  To read newspapers and books and mince the ingredients, sautee the mirepoix of culture and create a flavorful broth of live theatre, where you get to fill someone else’s shoes.  Someone who is not hesitant.  Someone who does believe life is a dream.  Someone who believes it is a struggle.

What I mean is that you don’t want to take away the sense that it is a dream you are living, if you are following a route that is impractical and that is founded upon your vision of the world.

Because you are not working within society’s vision of the world, you are recreating it.  And that is a huge, huge, HUGE responsibility and opportunity and a gift, and you must not spoil it nor taint it with your assumption that you are merely doing your job.

There are two men – one who carries rocks and another who carries precious jewels.  If you have an important thing to be carried – a precious, fragile thing, should you give it to the man who hauls rocks, or the man who hauls diamonds?   We thought in Jewish Assembly, when the youth leader presented this riddle to us, that you should give it to the man who carries rocks.  He rarely gets anything special and he would be honored to carry something precious.  He would treat it so well knowing that it was his time in the sun.

You should give it to the man who hauls precious things because he knows how to treat them.

That is the answer.

It’s a merit good because it is good for you.  I am presenting it to you because it will do you good.  Vitamin C, fiber, general sense of well-being increased more greatly than if you were replace it with a Snickers bar.  Some people would rather have a Snickers bar.  Probably a lot of people would rather have a Snickers bar.  Or even a Nutrigrain, and even that is considerably worse than this orange.  May I present to you this Orange?  Do you want it?  You don’t want it.  Or you say you’ll take it but you won’t eat it. 

Why is it that you’ll take this orange and not eat it?  Why won’t you eat it?  I want to get to the bottom of this.  Is it because it is too hard to eat?  Is it because the payoff is not as great as a Payday?  Is it the Pith?  For me, it’s the pith.  I would probably take it, and make a deal of taking it, and then not eat it.  Frankly, I would probably do that. 

My question then is whose responsibility is it to make you eat this orange instead of a snickers bar?  If that is what is preferable that you do – for what reasons and to what degree.  In part, the government is interested in having you chose oranges above Snickers bars because oranges contain fewer calories, fat content and greater vitamins and healthy dietary components that are undervalued in the national average diet.  The government is interested in the preferment of oranges, as it is speculated that greater orange consumption would result in lower tax spending on the social, political and financial issues of obesity, of… tooth decay, of adhd caused by sugary foods, of having a population that needs larger clothes, wider airplane seats, bus seats and train seats, becomes more dependent on air conditioning… and then all the indirect effects that can be directly derived from the primary problems – increased video game use, increased use of social networking websites in lieu of actual interactions, the food industry and the widening gap between nutritional content and cost, the widening gap between the quality and quantity available to Western citizens versus that available to countries that perceive food as a necessity, rather than a treat or snack or tidbit or morsel to be gobbled up without much thought.  I mean, do you really think about popping open a can of diet coke when you do it?  No.  But oranges take a while to eat – I bet you are aware of the supposed good you are doing when you bruise open an orange, peel it, pick the pith away and slowly chew those smiley little segments…

So a merit good is a good that the government – or that beings of higher moral purpose, are interested in promoting because they are de facto greater than their market value – if market value is the interest of the citizens in purchasing and making use of them.  If common citizens omit to include something on their daily budget that the government thinks should be there, it is probably a market good.  That can be anything from oranges to higher education.  And there is market time also – the time it takes to finish higher education… but I digress.

Do you want the orange?

Do you want it now?

What do you imagine that this orange would bring you?

What can you glean from looking at it here as it is in my hands. 

You are all seasoned inspectors of fruit.  Any guesses as to its quality?

Takes comments from audience, affirms or negates accordingly.

But with this – what would you expect?  Pulls out a snickers bar.

Takes comments from audience, affirms or negates accordingly.

So we know exactly what we’ll find in the Snickers bar, but are a little tentative about the true nature of the orange.  It could be a bum orange.

Peels the orange.  Eats some.  Hands a little out.

How is it, performer?  Are you disappointed?

Why are you pleased, or disappointed?

I’m a wine drinker.  I’m not a seasoned wine drinker, but I enjoy wine.  I enjoy the surprise of wine.  I enjoy the surprise of oranges.  The incredible ones make all the dour ones worth it.  Maybe.  Maybe not.  Maybe.  Maybe not. 

Do you want some now?  Now that I’ve peeled it and everything?

Like those little bags of peeled and sliced apples you can get from Macdonalds.  Does that make them more appealing? 

I have to say, now that I’ve eaten something, I’m not so curious about the nature of merit goods as I previously was.  A lot of curiousity gets lost once I’ve eaten. 

Whose interest is that in?