“I think it’s important in creativity to understand the value of hesitation, to not be in a rush, to pull back and pause — not because you’re blocked, not because you don’t know what to do, but just to let things enrich themselves.”
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John Berger: ‘You can plan events, but if they go according to your plan they are not events’
‘You break experience up into pieces…’
“You break experience up into pieces and you put them together in different combinations, and some are real and some are not, some are documentary, and some are imagined…It takes a pedestrian and literal mind to be worried about which is true and which is not true. It’s all of it not true, and it’s all of it true.”
— Author Walter Stegner in an interview with Richard Etulain
Fact or fiction, our lives are but are an amalgamation of experience and imagination, neither of which explains the factual nature of our origins. Context fence-sits to prove no foreseeable answer, one that needs no seeking anyway.
The above quote is lifted from the afterword in Wallace Stegner’s novel Crossing to Safety, a highly recommended read.
Nassim Taleb: ‘The best way to verify that you are alive is by checking if you like variations.’
“The best way to verify that you are alive is by checking if you like variations.”
— Nassim Taleb, [easyazon_link identifier=”0812979680″ locale=”US” tag=”wells01-20″]Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder[/easyazon_link]
Daily prompt: Pleased
“Success blurs. It rounds off the rough edges.”
The power of rituals
Rituals: They drop heart levels. They alleviate anxiety. They deaden the fear by practicing it beforehand, strengthening confidence.
At the end of the day, you’re either ready or you’re not. But priming the mind with a ritual — whether it feels random or not — may just be the thing that gets you over the hump.
“Habits are more important than fears.” – Seth Godin
Read The power of rituals: they calm nerves and boost performance
MLK Day: “This ‘Wait!’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’”
“This ‘Wait!’ has almost always meant ‘Never.’”
His message: Own up. Take responsibility now. No fence-sitting.
So many of us hesitate, waiting for mass acceptance. Believe in what’s right and push for it. Don’t wait.
John Peel on discovering new music
John Peel on vinyl
“Somebody was trying to tell me that CDs
are better than vinyl because they don’t have any surface noise.
I said, ‘Listen, mate, life has surface noise.”
“A good picture is a bearer of new information…it advances the state of knowledge.”
Art is one way to get people to care about the data.
“My ideas usually come not at my desk writing but in the midst of living.”
“I invent nothing, I rediscover.”
“I think that anybody who is a creative artist, who is making something out of nothing, has got to be allowed to explore and go into the wild, even if that is in the middle of a city.”
“Inspiration is for amateurs”
“Inspiration is for amateurs; the rest of us just show up and get to work.” – Chuck Close
Inspiration strikes when you do the work, not when you wait for it to come.
Seeking inspiration is an excuse for inaction. It’s the reason why so many of us start but never finish.
What you need instead of inspiration is a willingness to be ruthless and consistent about an idea.
Productive people are a bit mad and selfish for a reason. They don’t want to wait for the rest of the world to push them or agree with them. They want to make their own contributions right now.
This present moment is all we have. The more you do in it, the more you have to play with and refine. The endless need for output and perfection are true inspirations that drive the need to ship something that matters.