Edoardo Ballerini

A piece about tonight’s reading: “Gomorra” Reaches the New York Stages

Professional acting is not a meritocracy. There are countless talented actors who toil in obscurity while bona fide hacks saw the air too much nightly across living rooms throughout the land. It has always been thus, and shall always be thus.

Professional ball players might get paid too much, but if you can’t throw strikes, you’ll be sent down the minors pretty quickly. Not so with entertainment. If somebody up there likes you, they’ll make the strike zone fit whatever you’re chucking down the pike. Your only talent could be in getting people to believe you have talent. Read more…

My friend and teacher Stephen Tobolowsky was fond of telling us, “If you’re going to steal, and by all means do, then steal good.” It’s a smart practice if done properly. Creative types are always “borrowing” ideas, often blurring the line of outright theft, but we should at least take something useful.

(Ultimately, my rationale is this: in the end, I’m either going to do it consciously or unconsciously, so I may as well fold it into my mindfulness practice and be aware of it.) Read more…

My concentration has waned miserably in recent years. (Thank you, internet, you are truly a blessing and a curse.) I find it hard to stay focused on any one thing for more than a few minutes, but the cultivation of concentration is the final step on the Path, and one that should be taken very, very seriously. Anyway, let’s break concentration into two categories: the short-term and the long-term. Read more…

In a business of perception, Right Mindfulness may stand apart as one of the most neglected concepts in a professional acting career. We are asked to hype things beyond recognition, airbrushing the truth to a nearly unrecognizable state. And there’s a real argument that if you don’t do these things, you’re not using a major tool in the proverbial toolbox. So much for seeing things as they are, the basis of Right Mindfulness. Read more…

A year and a half ago I came to the conclusion that my life was floundering.  And to remedy this I was doing… nothing. I had been scrounging for work I didn’t care about and didn’t believe in, and all for… nothing. It was a horrible time. Opportunities were passing me by, and I curled up and did… nothing. Though I did not understand it at the time, at the root of my troubles was the complete renunciation of Right Effort. Read more…

The trickiest step on the path in the modern world is Right Livelihood.  Our interdependence has become such that the days of making a living either in a purely “good” way or a “bad” way are long gone, if they ever really existed.  I consider myself a conscientious guy, but aside from the question of whether I am part of the systematic dumbing down of the world – I have worked on some pretty inane things over the years – I have also helped line the pockets of corporations that exploit laborers, give money to political causes I find morally repugnant, and widen the gap between rich and poor with little apology. Read more…

As the name suggests, Right Action is about what we do.  It’s one of Right Speech’s two siblings in the “conduct” portion of the path, but rather than being about words, it’s about deeds.  My experience has been that it’s easier to follow Right Action than Right Speech.  Somehow the idea of doing something to harm requires a greater depth of malice than saying something to harm.  And I think this may be true for most people.  Perhaps we just can’t be bothered. Read more…

Right Speech is the step on the Path that always spoke the loudest to me, no pun intended.  It seems to be the easiest one for me to forget.  Having refined a cynical, biting view of the world starting at age 12 I’ve used words as blunt instruments more often than I care to mention. Read more…

In the second and final step of the so-called “wisdom” part of the Eightfold Path, we get Right Intention.  It is less about the intention toward others – we’re not there yet – but more about intention towards the self, and a commitment to improving that self by developing compassion, among other things.  Once we understand Right View (see things for what they are, and that includes the difficulties inherent in life), we commit to ourselves to do something about it.  There really is great logic in all of this. Read more…