Talked. Past tense. How come?
No I didn’t. Well, I haven’t yet.
There is no ‘yourself’ to be. There is only a succession of attempts to do one thing as opposed to others. This is exactly the point - the search for self is a bottomless pit, and makes for a tedious literary subject. And one that has been done to death.
This appears to contradict your previous point.
Alright, alright, you’re really technical and philosophical. You’re picking at the technicalities of the argument, but it’s art, man. It’s not about truth or accuracy. It’s about being interesting, fun, scary, etc.
What isn’t interesting is repetition. What is interesting is things that are different, but similar enough to be digestible or recognizable. Like, you should use the English language and write using sentences like everyone else, but from there you’re be different and be yourself.
You’re right everyone is writing about what they know. That’s repetition. That’s boring. Still, you can’t be someone your not. I don’t care how true it is that you cannot know yourself. I don’t even know what that means, but you know something and I would start there. You know you hate what’s out there.
You’re probably wise though to throw away that advice. The people who told it to you probably didn’t even understand what it meant. They just said it cause someone else said it.
Like the people who say ‘live for the now’. I’ve never met one that actually knew what that meant, or the people who say ‘America is free’. They don’t know what freedom is. They just say it, but I’m telling you I know what people mean when they say write what you know and they’re right.
I gave up my arts when I found love.
But I didn’t “give” them up, I just shifted priorities.
Skateboarding and composing music is what I have been striving to do for years, and I have had moderate local success in both, but not yet to the point where I can use it to buy all my bread.
When I feel in love, my priorities changed, I still love those things, and study them, and study how to be successful in them, and how much personality plays into it and such, but I found something that means more, and that is spending time with the woman that I love.
and that is what makes me ultimately happy!
ps. but your art should continue if it is in you, and you have been doing it for 10 years, keep going, but be a bit more taoistic about it you know. Don’t do it for recoqnition, do it for other more important reasons, b/c then you don’t set yourself up for disapointment if it doesn’t sell or whatnot.
MOst things that sell in america is … Suprise suprise… shit!!!
Why thank you.
There is such a thing as an intellectual way to approach being an artist. To me, there’s no real difference between ideas and emotions. I have the same sorts of responses to both.
Then why are comedy catchphrases so popular?
Indeed. A balance of entropy and redundancy makes for good communication. That’s all in Shannon and Weaver’s work on Comms. Theory. It’s good stuff, and I strongly recommend it to all writers and other artists.
Firstly, I struggle to take this statement about ‘being yourself’ seriously when you’ve started your sentence with the popular piece of verbal punctuation ‘like’. Secondly, there is no self to be. There is merely intention, history and action in the present. I couldn’t give a damn who you are, or who Shakespeare was, or who Houellebecq is, or who David Mitchell is, or who Virginia Woolf was. I care more than anything what people say and do. ‘To be’ is the most abused and useless verb in the history of language.
Yes you can. You simply act differently. The rest is words, chemicals and metaphysical hoodoo.
I don’t know any of that. I like what’s out there. To me, if you don’t like the world, then there’s no point being an artist. On the other hand, if you don’t have problems with the world then you have nothing to be artistic about. After all, the materials for art all come from the world and are part of it. All art is simply rearranging the world (hence what connects it to science and engineering).
Of course. About thee quarters of what most people say they say because they’ve heard it. Orwell’s ‘Politics and the English Language’ and the metaphor of the whistling washer woman in 1984 explain all this in detail. Also well worth looking up.
It means that you should stand around telling others to ‘live for the now’, apparently. Never made much sense to me either.
‘Freedom’ is probably the most over-used word in the American English vocabulary, hence the most redundant, if you use Shannon and Weaver’s model. This is probably why America is not the free democratic nation it so often claims to be. We have the same dialogue/politics in the UK, though there are some differences.
I love the way siatd manages to just obliterate simple notions of the modern mind. Expressions like - Be yourself. Know yourself. Freedom. Live for the now.
We all fall into the trap of thinking these things time and again…it’s refreshing to have the error point out now and then…
There is no Self - there is merely intention, history and action in the present - but this indeed what the Self is - a shifting Self - not concrete.
Know yourself - is merely understanding your intentions, your history, your actions and motivations in the present.
But I understand the sloppiness of simply repeating the phrase: Be yourself or Know yourself. As any expression nothing follows from it.
Judge a man by his actions - not his words. But similarly - judge a man by his actions and his words. Particularly if he writes his actions down.
Give up the struggle, my brother. Like is the greatest word God ever created. Once you recognize this you will be free of the demons that possess you.
Wilson…[cries]…oh, Wilson…
I’m here!
Oh.
Thank god.
That was a close one.
You don’t have to worry yourself. We’re friends.
When life is hard you have to change. I was just listening… I can’t tell if it’s there or not. I like to think it is.
Just saw the movie today. It put things in perspective, that is, it gave me some courage to face the reality that I’m not a good artist. There is freedom in that recognition, I just dont know what to fill my time in with instead.
I dont know what to be, other than a hermit. Sounds like a problem, but I I really like my time alone. Thats why I always chose art: because it allowed to me to still communicate, albeit from a distance.
art has been placed placed on the backburner.
Jeez, I feel bad. I didn’t mean for the story and how you felt about the story to lead you to a decision.
it’s okay. no worries. I dont know it I could quit writing even if I tried. It’s one of those obsession things. But thanks anyway.
Thanks for what?
honestly just for taking an interest. and for recomending a good movie
if you are not a “good” artist, then you probably have not studied your technical skills or are still in the mode of impressing others.
You just need to clear some stuff out, and then continue.
art is for inriching your life, and those who hear it, not becoming like elton john. elton john wears to many weird clothes anyway.
yeah . . . probably.
figure out what particular technical areas you are lacking, and then get material and just blow it out of the way, so you can channel your feelings clearer.
then make sure you tweak your style a little. It is always fun to do something a bit different, it sets you apart, but it has to come naturally.
what particular art medium are you into?
I think I may be slowly giving up on being an artist.
I was mostly confident and content with my work before I went to my college’s art class. The fellow classmates work is so great, that it is soooo discouraging.
Of course, the obvious answer to this is to “not give up.” But, I’m starting to think that art was not made for me.