“Art should offer an opportunity to recognize our common
humanity and vulnerability” – Charlie Kaufman.
Charlie Kaufman is an American screenwriter and film
director renowned for his uniquely structured, reflexive, and
theoretical writing style. A style that pushes against the
borders of conventional story telling and pursues new entry
points into the creative space of communication. Kaufman has written films such as Adaptation,
Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless
Mind, Synecdoche, New York, Anomalisa, as well as several other
works. Kaufman’s films contain incredible cinematic technique,
surrealistic senses of time, confusingly poignant character
developments, and many other distinctive qualities. However,
this will not be so much about Kaufman’s films, but rather Kaufman’s
apparent philosophy.
Most of Kaufman’s work deals with the concept of self- identity. More specifically, our
awareness and concern with who we are and how we are experienced in the minds of others.
This idea can perhaps be neatly expressed with a quote by 17th century sociologist,
Charles Cooley, who said, “I am not who you think I am; I am not who I think I am;
I am who I think you think I am.” Which is to say, we are who we believe others see
us as in an constantly evolving feedback loop created out of our actions,
other people’s perceptions of our actions, and our assumptions
of their perceptions. Throughout his writing, Kaufman explores how
we work through this convoluted house of mirrors,
attempting to find and live with our true self.
We all have sides of ourselves that we hide. We have things
that we do and like that we are ashamed of. Things we don’t
understand or can’t seem to control. No one exists without
vices. Without flaws. Some flaws and traits so unpleasant and
off from the shared game of normality that we can sometimes
become insufferable to those who get close enough to us.
As a result, most of us exist socially more on the surface
of our self, omitting the more complex and difficult elements of
who we are in order to fit in or experience smoother social
interactions. It is perhaps reasonable, to some degree, to play
along with this social game and to withhold some heavier, darker
information and qualities of our self, so to avoid burdening
others with our dysfunction, very well knowing that everyone is
also dealing with their own. However, there also needs to be a
place and opportunity to access, share, and connect over these
dysfunctions for the same reason; be it that everyone is dealing
with them, but rarely is anyone sharing or talking about them.
We spend so much of our life trying to contrive and exist
as the best versions of our self in the minds of other people
and thus, we can easily become lost or in a strange state of
confusion over who we really are, or who people really are.
Arguably, it is art, philosophy, and any other creative act that
allow us to somewhat turn our perspective onto our true self and
dig deeper into the core of who we really are as individuals and
as a collective. Art and philosophy let us say what we cannot
normally. They let us meet with others in the deeper
or darker recesses of our minds, talk about what’s there, and
connect on a level only possible in such a place. However, in order
to successfully do any of this, we must first be willing to face
and share our self with complete vulnerability and authenticity,
or at least try. When writing and discussing writing, Kaufman
defends with great conviction the importance and value
of pursuing and expressing art, creativity, and perhaps life
in general with honesty and self-truth, no matter how convoluted,
dumb, strange, boring, or scary we might feel in the process.
Through the creative process and perhaps in
many other aspects of our daily life, it can be found
that in order to do anything novel or earnest, we must risk
having our deepest and most vulnerable qualities be rejected.
We must risk sounding dumb, acting weird, being wrong, or feeling
bad. We must risk all of this in order to ever share anything
real about our self,
and avoid living and dying without the world ever really seeing
who we are. In Kaufman’s screenplay, Adaptation, he
writes a film literally about him writing a film more or
less about him. Charlie Kaufman, the character in the film,
struggles constantly with the feelings that he is wrong, boring,
cliché, self- indulgent, and disingenuous while writing
the film he is in. To avoid any possibility of spoiling the film,
all that needs to be said here is that Kaufman obviously still
wrote the film in spite of these things. Likewise, by facing
our insecurities, fears, confusions, and whatever else. By recognizing
that we probably are all of these things, and still
muscling through the process of sharing or expressing ourselves
anyway, we might find some truth in our self worth sharing, and
more likely than not, we might help others find some truth in themselves
as well. Kaufman often appears to address the idea
that we are all struggling with the same fundamental thing.
Whether we realize it or not, we are all condemned by the same
consciousness and the same condition; an awareness that we are
trapped in a mind, in a body, in a world, in a universe ‘thing,’
with no idea what any of it really is or why it is.
Your brain right now doesn’t know why your brain right now
can wonder why your brain is right now. As these words hit the
the part of your brain that processes words and ideas, known as
Wernike’s Area, your brain thinks about itself, wondering what
IT is, somehow using you as a method of inquisition, horribly
failing, and then putting the burden onto you.
Like how a plant is confined to it’s fixed roots in the
ground, destined to grow, contribute some purpose towards the
ecosystem around it, of which it will never understand or care
to understand, and then die off with the changing of seasons, so
to do we live inexorably confined to the roots of our being.
Different than the plant, though, we of course live knowing that
we are, in the same sort of way, stuck in the ground, destined
to live and die with the seasons. Whether we are aware of this
awareness or not. No matter how rich, famous, smart, or powerful
anyone might be on the surface, we all share in this.
In Kaufman’s film Anomalisa, the main character is a
successful motivational speaker, almost worshiped by those he
encounters, but yet as an audience we see how broken, confused,
and flawed he really is, perhaps even more than those that
praise him. For Kaufman, rather than hiding or being dishonest
about the struggle we all go through, it is the sharing of our
experience of this struggle with authenticity and honesty that
helps us uncover it so we can face it, grapple with, and
hopefully transmute it into something beautiful or helpful.
Ultimately, no matter our efforts, to know who we are and
who we aren’t is an incredibly hard, constant, and abstract
effort. It’s fair to argue that as we live our life and
encounter more and more of the world our sense of self is sort
of like a target, always changing or moving away from us, just
close enough to see but too far away to ever really hit.
However, regardless of how hard, Kaufman and his work offers us
a reminder that in each moment, we should aim and shoot towards
it as best we can; in our work, our relationships, and
our
everyday life.