The Layer Between the Daily Improviser and Reality

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I’ve posted a number of articles in this blog on the topic of “nothing between” – that supposedly ideal state in which we directly experience reality and respond intuitively, in the moment. As much as this might sound like the quintessential “improv state,” on the contrary even performance improvisers use structures and mechanisms that do in fact “come between” them and their environments. Similarly, the Daily Improviser’s interaction with his world involves less a continuous filling in of a Blank Slate and more a dependence on useful shorthand to help him make sense of his environment.

I like to think of this “something between” as a set of layers, each representing a level of abstraction that serves as an interpretive guide for the Daily Improviser. (For the purpose of simplifying the point, I’ll apply my own abstraction to this concept and refer to this set of layers as simply the Layer.) The Layer can be counter-productive if we use it to blind ourselves to the world around us, but it can also be as comfy and cozy - and as functional - as a thick blanket on a cold winter's night. 

I think the Layer presents itself in many different ways.

For example, in their book Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath refer to the notion of a schema – a mental representation of a concept that everyone understands and that can thus be used as a springboard for communicating similar yet unique concepts. Rather than having to describe a “pomelo” to a novice by articulating a precise botanical definition, the describer only has to say that a pomelo is “a supersized grapefruit with a thick, soft rind.” No Blank Slate is needed – just start with the shared concept of a grapefruit and proceed from there.

In an earlier article, I also cited another example of the Layer while describing an article by Keith Sawyer concerning the mechanisms we use to facilitate our daily communications. Sawyer notes that, rather than writing fresh scripts for our every interaction, we commonly use such structures as catchphrases and overall frameworks to serve as useful shorthand for concepts that we wish to get across.

And just today, I happened upon another example of the Layer while browsing through the book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow. In the very first paragraph of the book, Mlodinow recounts the following story:

A few years ago a man won the Spanish national lottery with a ticket that ended in the number 48. Proud of his “accomplishment,” he revealed the theory that brought him the riches. “I dreamed of the number 7 for seven straight nights,” he said, “and 7 times 7 is 48.” Those of us with a better command of our multiplication tables might chuckle at the man’s error, but we all create our own view of the world and then employ it to filter and process our perceptions, extracting meaning from the ocean of data that washes over us in daily life.

So, yes, the man was in error – but it was a useful error, one that allowed him to rationalize a decision that led to a huge payoff. Doubtless, each of us (with different degrees of self-awareness) makes snap decisions based on bits and pieces of perception through which we’ve sifted. We then generalize and make abstractions about reality from the collage of sensation we craft. Failure to create and act upon this Layer would result in complete paralysis while we try to stitch together a “complete” picture that accounts for “all” the information we can gather and process.

I’ll continue to develop this idea of the Layer in upcoming articles.