After viewing David Mamet's latest film, The Spanish Prisoner, pondering its hopeless, cynical slant, several thoughts ran through my head, the predominant one being, what isn't a con, what constitutes an honest activity? Hopefully, this question intrigues Mamet, as well, and though I don't presume to know if he's posing questions about the larger Con we all participate in (including him), I will readily offer my interpretation and give him an answer he's unlikely to
have thought of.

He must assume that many have already seen House of Games and understand that a con is also being run on the audience as well. But after you've given over to the con, he seems to be cleverly saying that the dupe in the film is not someone you're superior to. You might not obviously be getting duped like him, but, hey, you're conning yourself into believing that you're not getting conned. Particularly, if you find the Process (the mysterious formula that is going to get everyone rich) an unquestioned object of desire; the notion that the market can be rigged in your favor, providing untold material rewards. If this is something you find attractive, then you have been duped into the Great Con, the illusion that free-market capitalism, wherein there must necessarily be a small number of "winners" and a globefull of "losers," can work to bring your dreams to fruition.

A great allure of this con is that the images of wealth and celebrity can be yours by merely incorporating them into your inner life and emulating them. That is, by desiring to be like them - winners by definition - and acting like them, seeing yourself in their surroundings, you can miraculously become a winner yourself. So, part of this con, (one which Mamet seems particularly aware of) is that only "actors" are acting and the rest of us are living "real" lives. The fact is that most people are "acting", in the sense that they are being manipulated by a Game they're not even aware is being played, acting out roles that would be non-sensical if the Game were different than what it is. Particularly, the Game of getting Famous or Successful in the nebulous worlds of entertainment and art. Or, more insidiously, the Game of defining oneself by identifying with the famous or successful. It's all wrapped up in a larger game called "Who Am I?" and the degree to which this answer is determined by those who control the images of success and those who accept this world-view as a desired reality.

Because, unless we know who we truly are, we're always open to getting conned into trying to be like someone else. The whole purpose of advertising, to give the most blatant example, is to try to influence the viewer/listener/reader toward a "better" self; accomplished ostensibly by consuming this product over that but moreso by accepting the illusory 'better world' as real. Usually, this is done by identifying with a successful or 'hip' person who's aligned themselves with the product and who gain our 'confidence' by fostering a false sense of intimacy; that we can get close to them by imitating their buying habits and, thus, move ever so slightly into their world. Those satisfied with themselves, however, are much less susceptible to the advertising; in effect, the self-esteem equivalent of "you can't cheat an honest man."

Unfortunately, the net effect of years of getting bombarded by advertising and veiled threats that if you're not a "winner" (by rules the winners have established) then you have to be a "loser" is that no one feels totally secure with themselves. This worldview fosters anxieties and fears which, it comes as no surprise, can only be alleviated by continuing to play the game, but better luck next time. And, as it grows larger and larger, no one is protected from having to play the game whether they want out or not. That is, it's utter folly to think you're 'above' this game by not participating in it; this form of delusion, a stable of the counter-culture, tended to yield cynicism and bitterness from those who couldn't develop a true alternative to the Main Game. Even the financial elite, who "control" the game, are not immune from the delusion that theirs is the only game to play.

So, back to the original question - what isn't a con game? Is there such thing as an honest activity, one not requiring a mark in order to complete itself? One that doesn't depend on false desires, driven by illusory needs to control or win or get ahead? Well, my friends, I think there is, and it's the practice of free improvisation which, when practiced correctly, bypasses the Main Game and its hollow core of value altogether, creating an area of authentic autonomy. It is a method to access one's individuality which lies beneath the constructed, surface self: the one shaped primarily by values associated with winning the predominant Societal Game, mistaking it for reality; conned, as it were, into over-looking the difference. In its purest practice, which necessarily takes place outside the halls of money and prestige by its conscious disavowal of their value, free improvisation can help in re-discovering the voice of one's truest self. There is little or no value in its practice other than this discovery, and it is the recognition of this need that helps keep it a rigorously honest form. (Of course, there are some doubly deluded souls who think free improvisation can help them become players in the Main Game and who bring Main Game values to its arena, but the shallowness of their voice and intentions guarantees a short-lived dalliance with the practice. There are far better avenues for societal reward than becoming a free improviser. If the motives are shallow or suspect, the dedication soon flags - the revelation of the self-con comes rather quickly.)

And should there be any doubt as to the "honesty" of this activity, I think there's nothing more telling than how the voices of commercialism (including the education Business) de-cry it as illegitimate; trumpeting it as the providence of "put-on" artists and charlatans, trying to put one over on the audience and themselves. And, though it gives the appearance to some of undisciplined 'fooling around', I'm reminded that the Fool in the Tarot masks a similar subterfuge: the symbol of the highest consciousness hides behind the mask of blitheful self-delusion. That which requires the most discipline is disguised as the least demanding; the form requiring the most self-awareness appears as the most self indulgent; and the most collective of forms seems dependant on the most selfish of individuals. Discounting the value of free play by deeming it the province of fools whose only desire is "something for nothing" makes for powerful propaganda (and no doubt helped along by mis-guided dilettantes), but it also reveals an unrelenting fear that this activity undermines the entire scaffolding upon which the whole big con is built: that one can only play with the 'cards' already dealt; that new cards aren't available; and to invent your own 'deck' is to remove yourself from society. But, in fact, if pursued with diligence and purity, free improvisation, built as it were on a dis-trust for pre-conceptions and preferred outcomes, constitutes a truly honest activity, concerned neither with conning or being conned, but with excavating and revealing the reality of the situation and the true self's response to that situation. One's reaction toward a 'dangerous' predicament - working spontaneously, without a script, possibly in front of a doubting audience - leads either to greater self-armoring or to greater openness to self. And while it's possible to 'act out' a part - the Spontaneous Person - that strategy is far less reliable in shifting situations than becoming a spontaneous person, which occurs naturally over time as a result of the practice of improvising. And, in my opinion, the only spontaneous person within is the real self - that self which identifies with the permeating consciousness of nature and which freely chooses which stimuli to play with, neither reflexively responding to the nearest or loudest one or relying on fantasy to motivate its creativity.

This self - which revels in unbounded play and free association - knows that the winner/loser reality is a society created game and an artificial construct posing as reality. Not that reality can't be revealed in these games, it can, but the games themselves are not real - they are only the means by which limited human consciousness deals with the terror of exposed, naked, undifferentiated reality. The games are civilizing agents whose usefulness eventually gets outstripped by greater appetites for reality. Science, popular culture, politics, the market all tell us something about being real, but the narrowness of their forms excludes the complexities which make reality such a harrowing thing to bear and yet such an exciting realm in which to improvise.

It is no wonder that free improvisation doesn't fare well in the larger con of societal manipulations: it neither reflects nor re-enforces the values of that game and is necessarily ignored and marginalized by vested interests in that game and the many marks it has already conned.

I wonder if David Mamet has ever been moved by or actively engaged in free improvisation. I kinda doubt it.