What I Would Do if I Were the Tutor

I was watching the credits of a film yesterday when the name of the on-set tutor caught my eye. I began thinking what would I do with that job. I decided my first lesson for young Hollywood would be an old one. I would send them back to Plato and simple idea. A thing is made up of only that which cannot be separated from that thing and have that thing retain its identity. This seems to be useful when combined with a conception of identity. Young Hollywood especially, but all of us to a degree begin to define ourselves by things which are not proper to ourselves. Our wealth, our things, our job, our activities, our stuff, our affiliations. All of these things can be separated from me and I remain fundamentally me. Perhaps sadder, less fulfilled, less interesting, but still certainly me. Life often works to separate us from these things and we resist tooth and nail. I suppose my exile in Oregon was an example writ large of this. I was deprived of almost all stuff and most affiliations and I met someone there who was a bit different than I presumed him to be. I met what was left once the trappings of my identity had been thoroughly shaken. It was not of course purely and essentially me - I had a job, I made friends etc but it was much closer to me than the person who left Colorado. I imagine that most of young Hollywood (or their parents) would have me removed from the set for suggesting that their fame, fortune and craft were not somehow inherent and deserved, but imagine what might happen if one Lindsey Lohan or Paris Hilton realized that lost on a desert island where no one was there to care who they were they would be forced to meet a person altogether different than the one they imagine to be themselves.