According to a recent New York Times article, our minds are just a little monkey riding a tiger:

A bevy of experiments in recent years suggest that the conscious mind is like a monkey riding a tiger of subconscious decisions and actions in progress, frantically making up stories about being in control.

The same can be said of a screenplay. The tiger is the story you want to tell. The monkey jumps around and fills in all the little details, makes you laugh, flings poop, and grinds his little organ, but the tiger just goes where he's gonna go anyway.

But sometimes, the monkey tries to take over. "Look at me! Look at me!" he says, as he distracts you from noticing the tiger has gotten up and left. So you're there sitting around like a jerk watching some monkey fling poop, while the tiger's off doing something cool, like gracefully stalking it's prey. While he's at it, he'll probably eat the monkey too.

The point is this. When the monkey and the tiger disagree -- always go with the tiger. Get that damn monkey in line. Watching a monkey on the back of a tiger is pretty cool. But watching a tiger eat a monkey carcass and fall asleep gets pretty boring pretty quickly.

posted by geverend  # 9:38 PM