TRUE TELLING, GOOD ACTING

Life lets one live mimetically and diegetically by way of one's imagination - at the moment one acts, one's conscience is at once considering one's action while ready to judge what was done and what is to be done next. This conscientious judgment may be considered the running narrative that accompanies contemporaneous conduct.

Mimesis is no mere copy of an idealized past but an effort to create an ideal present-to-come. Diegesis sets the conceptual framework within which mimesis acts, describing what is to be done.

Mimesis	Diegesis
(Greek `imitation' or `to copy')	(Greek `to narrate')
shows rather than tells, by means of action that is enacted.	the telling of the story by a narrator.
represents	reports
embodies	narrates
transforms	indicates
knows only a continuous present	looks back on a past

Doing is always present tense. Once something takes place, mimesis is necessarily replaced by diegesis. This is the dynamic of rehearsal – one considers what is to be done, one does it, then one discusses what was done so that it can be done again, whether the same way or better or perhaps just differently.

Discuss, do, discuss.

Perhaps this nexus of diegesis and mimesis is an aspect of love that lets two individuals act as one – the two hold in common an imaginative narrative that constrains each one's actions to follow a similar direction; one is constantly considering the other, doing what the other wills as well as one can. We learn to work with others in such a way that, given the intimacy of our relationship, we become aware of one another's non-verbal narrative that may not necessarily be explicitly expressed. We know one another well enough to have a good idea of what one another may very well be thinking.

Actors do this more easily when they have a script to follow and much rehearsal prior to performance. People do this when they have been working together over time – it defines a dynamic essential to teamwork.

Living the truth in love, as Scripture commands (Ephesians 4:15), demands that diegesis and mimesis be congruent; otherwise, one is in danger of hypocrisy – one does what is not consistent with what one thinks. We are called to be imitators of God (the Greek word behind imitators, mimetai, gives us our English word "mimic" or "actor"). However, we are admonished severely not to be hypocrites (the Greek word hypocrites also meaning actor).

Counter to how our current culture prizes effective presentation without regard to truth, Christians are called to do what is true - it is simple as that.