The problem is: how to proceed without a shared language of scriptlessness. If we adopt, say, the Buddhist or Attachment theoretic model of descripting, then we will be at odds with others who practice different traditions of descripting – we may even wind up defending our practice as if it is a script!
One way forward, perhaps, is to identify the practical conditions and behaviors that help people reduce scripting – rather than language about descripting. Here are a few possibilities.
- The unscriptedness can come from the other person
[Scene: David’s dorm room. The door is ajar. He’s at his desk with papers scattered around. Eve passes by in the hallway.]
Eve: (knocks on the open doorframe) Your door’s open. Is this an Invitation?
David: (turns, smiling) Yeah. I thought I’d leave it open in case someone wanted to drop in. I’m glad you did.
Eve: (steps inside) That’s a good policy. What are you working on today—analysis, algebra, or something more terrifying?
David: Number theory. I just wrote a whole page and had to throw it out, because I made an error in the third line.
Eve: (sits on the bed) You looked like you were talking to the page.
David: (grins) I am talking to the page! If only the lemmas responded back and told me the answer.
Eve: You know, in theater, we practice that. There’s a technique called Meisner—it’s about paying attention and responding truthfully, moment to moment.
David: I’ve never heard of it.
Eve: One exercise is simple: you repeat a phrase back and forth, and it changes naturally as you react to each other. Want to try?
David: (after a pause) Sure, why not?
Eve: I’ll start. “Your door was open.”
David: “My door was open.”
Eve: “Your door was open.”
David: (more thoughtful) “My door was open.”
[They repeat a few times. The tone shifts—playful, serious, questioning. Then both fall silent, waiting to see if the other will continue. The silence lingers.]
David: (softly) That silence feels like part of the exercise too.
Eve: (nods) Sometimes it’s the strongest part.
David: (sits forward, suddenly animated) You know, this gives me an idea. What if we made a play for the math society?
Eve: (raises eyebrows) You mean for the talent show in two months? I don’t think there’s ever been a play before.
David: It could be a satire. We could take the quirks of our professors and exaggerate them. Like Professor Aldridge arguing with the chalkboard until it “gives up.”
Eve: (laughs) And Dr. Lin with that “goat” that kept running around the complex plane.
David: Exactly. And we could use that repetition thing—Meisner style—to make it sharper.
Eve: (grinning) That would be hilarious. And different.
David: So—want to make it our shared project?
Eve: (offers her hand) Shared project.
David: (shakes it) Done.
- Silence
When you do all the talking, it’s easy for you to manage a conversation using a script. Just as a teacher can give a one hour lecture using a plan, so too a one-sided conversation is more likely to follow a script. If you allow a period of silence, it opens up the space for the other person to contribute. With two people building on what the other has to say, the conversation quickly deviates from any script – and by allowing silence, you’re contributing to that dynamic. (However, if the silence is filled by both people checking their phones, it doesn’t work!) - Leaving the door open
Do what you can to allow other humans to intrude on your life. You can respond to them authentically. Welcome interruption. - Practice the Meisner technique
Sanford Meisner developed his acting method around presence, responsiveness, and spontaneity, rather than premeditated lines or intellectual concepts. The cornerstone is the repetition exercise: two actors repeat a simple phrase back and forth, but the meaning shifts as they respond to each other’s tone, energy, and presence. Over time, they may change to a new line. For instance, the Wikipedia article has the actors starting with the sentence “You’re wearing a red shirt” and graduating to “You look unhappy with me right now.” - Shared projects
If you co-create something with another person, your reactions will relate to them particularly, so they are less likely to be scripted.
B. The unscriptedness can come from deliberately ruling out scripted behavior.
From: Eve
Subject: Shared project idea
Hi David,
I’m still buzzing from our conversation earlier. I think the “math satire play” could actually work, especially if we lean into repetition and silence like we practiced. It might feel risky for the math society, but that’s part of what makes it exciting. What do you think about starting with short sketches instead of a full play? That way, we can test the waters.
—Eve
From: David (first draft, unsent)
Hi Eve,
I was just thinking today about how every time I try to explain number theory to my roommate, he looks like I’m speaking another language. It makes me realize how much I want math to be seen differently, not just as something intimidating. That’s what excites me: math as a performance, as something you can watch.
Best,
David
(David rereads, frowns. He likes what he wrote—it matters to him—but he notices he hasn’t actually responded to Eve’s idea about short sketches or risk. It’s just what’s been on his mind.)
From: David (revised, sent)
Hi Eve,
I like your suggestion about starting with short sketches—that feels right. It’s a way to test the tone and see how the society reacts without overwhelming them. And your point about risk—yes, that’s what gives it energy.
Your idea also connects to something I’ve been mulling over: how math can be made visible, almost performative. Sketches seem like the perfect way to try that out.
Looking forward to sketch #1,
David
- Ask yourself whether what you’re saying comes from you alone
Focus on this specific encounter with another person. A response rooted in contingency (responding appropriately to the other’s specific statements) resists becoming generalized formula. Pay attention to your words. Are they shaped for this moment, for this person? Or are you replaying something you’ve said before? Try to empathize with people who aren’t there for all of your moments of innovation: if you haven’t talked to someone in a year, rehashing all your ideas from that year amounts to being scripted. Instead, create new things with them. They’re not your student – a recipient of a one-way information transfer. - Novelty
Step into new activities and environments—plant a garden, learn a skill, travel somewhere unfamiliar. New ground disrupts old grooves, and surprise makes authenticity easier. A teacher can resist repeating the same phrases. Like a jazz improviser, they can find new expressions, metaphors, and gestures—continually breaking their own grooves. (Novelty, can be a helpful step toward scriptlessness, but it is not the same as scriptlessness – if you have a rule “always be novel” then that is a script, too.)
When doing chores, rule out old ways of doing them – think of a new way that you haven’t thought of before. It could be new in a subtle way – that only you can distinguish – or in a more extreme way. It could be serious or silly, practical or absurd. - Discrepant events
Seek out discrepant events – that is, events that contradict your scripts. Instead of writing down events and trying to see the pattern in them, try to see the lack of pattern. If a pattern or script seems obvious to you, it may represent a real trend – yet there may be other events that break the trend. What could you do to question the trend?
C. The unscriptedness can come from seeking out new contexts for old ideas
Essay by Eve
Literature 204: Comparative Texts
Rumi writes, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” The line suggests a place beyond judgment, where meeting is possible without the weight of categories. Hamlet, by contrast, is trapped inside those categories. His hesitation over killing Claudius shows him caught between “wrongdoing” (murder, sin) and “rightdoing” (justice, duty).
What Rumi imagines—a space of encounter beyond the binary—never appears in Hamlet. Even moments that hint at it, like Hamlet remembering Yorick in the graveyard, collapse back into rivalry and debate. The tragedy is that Hamlet never finds Rumi’s “field.” Instead of transcendence, he remains imprisoned in moral oppositions, and the play ends in destruction.
- Re-reading in new contexts
Don’t just repeat “beyond righting and wrongdoing.” Instead, see how that insight plays out in Hamlet, in Harry Potter, in history, or in everyday life. Each context refreshes the idea, making it feel alive again. The unscriptedness comes from seeking out new contexts for old ideas. - Cross-pollination
Put two things side-by-side that don’t obviously match; try to think or write about fitting one with the other.
Look around the room or think of something that’s important to you recently. What does that mean about how you will do your chores?
D. The unscriptedness comes from yourself
David often finds himself unsure of what he’s feeling until long after the moment has passed. Numbers and proofs make sense to him because they have rules, but emotions seem slippery, hard to pin down. When Eve talks about “responding truthfully” in acting, he realizes how often he skips that step in real life, defaulting instead to analysis or habit. He wants to get better at noticing his reactions before they calcify into silence. Sometimes he tries journaling or pausing to ask himself simple questions—“Am I angry? Tired? Excited?”—but the answers don’t always come. Still, he senses that learning to meet his emotions directly could matter as much as solving any theorem.
- Be in touch with your emotions
Emotions vary from moment to moment, and come from you, so responding to emotions is a way of being unscripted. Being in touch with your emotions can also help you relate to other people’s emotions and respond to them too. You can use body scans to practice interoception or awareness of body sensations.
In the chores example: do chores based on your mood. Experience your mood, then decide what that means about how you will do the chores.
E. The unscriptedness comes from the environment
David picked up crumpled papers from the floor and stacked them into neat piles, then tugged the fitted sheet tight across his bed. Outside, rain pressed steadily against the window, soft but insistent. He put on a song about rainy days—something slow, with a gentle rhythm that matched the sound of water on glass. As the music filled the room, the act of cleaning felt less like a chore and more like a way of syncing himself with the weather: a chance to reset, to order his small space while the world outside dissolved into gray.
- Let environment guide timing. Before doing chores, attend to the environment – the weather, the state of your home, or the people around you. What’s different about the environment today vs. other days? What does that mean about how you will do the chores?
Together, these practices help keep scriptlessness from becoming just another script. They invite presence, surprise, and responsiveness—so that what’s said or done emerges from this encounter, not from habit.
Nexus State Theory 