a very significant tenet of my overall life philosophy.

one of my brothers is being hunted in a good'ol salem-style witch hunt.

one of the hunters sneaked onto his blog and tried to use my brother's humour as proof that daniel is, indeed, a witch.

(i only wish he would have come to me first, as i have much more interesting proof -- for instance the one evening at our family cottage when daniel levitated while humming latin phrases so ancient, that even my father, who was high school latin king at Soo High Blue Devils (ahem, see?) - Go Devils!, couldn't translate it. once daniel started spinning on the ceiling he got sent straight to bed.)

so anyway. Daniel is forced, on his blog, to say some straightup stuff to any other potential witch hunters, and he writes:

You may find what you are looking for, but it won't be a satisfying as you think it will.

i love this. the idea that work done out of vengeance and revenge and malevolence of any kind -- yields nothing but more of the same.

it seems like the yang principle to the yin i promised in my title.

it's in a little prayer that i read in playwriting -- ascribed to Ray Bradbury --

Remind us to know that the more we create out of love of an idea, the better our work, our lives, our influence, becomes.

Tammie, my friend who i work with, gave a talk three(?) four(?) years ago where she said this more pointedly about the work that we're (hopefully? mostly?) up to in our academic department...(i can't quote -- but i'll summarize)

Work done out of love brings us joy, makes us whole, gives us meaning, gives us LIFE. That's the kind of work we try to do here (in the theater). Not work done out of fear. That kind of work just brings DEATH.

So much of the work of the world is done out of fear....

(BTW ~ thanks to my friend Clifford for passing the Bradbury prayer on to me (read whole thing in the comments). His film finds its first big audience tomorrow morning & is a great example of work done out of love...)