(no subject)
This came up and kept tapping me on the shoulder while I was riding the train today. So have it, and feel free to take as many grains of salt as you chose to with it--I'm not sure if this shouldn't be categorized as a work of fiction instead of philosophy, to tell you the honest truth.
I will start at the end of the piece with the moral. Though you don't necessarily know me, the fact is that I am complete crap at beginnings, but I love my endings: pithy, insightful, fraught with memorable phrases. And my beginnings are less so. Watered down, thin. Meaningless. So I will give you the best part first, and you can skip the rest if you feel like it.
The fact of the matter is that you can be almost anything. The question is, then, beyond the simple, "well, why aren't I, already?" is the "what are you beside it?" Pepole don't always want to give up the and. And there is always the supports of temperament that comes through in art. But really, this is meaningless in the long range of things. As the guy on the train, sitting across from me says, "that ain't nothing." Unless you are concerned with appearances, the point is to simply be.
Now I'm going to back up a bit. Bear with me while I try to make the two ends meet.
Good writing has more to do with talking then most pepole want to admit, perhaps even writers. But good writing--good prose, I guess would be better way of putting it, although really, this is true of all art--begs to be said out loud. To be talked about. And when pepole judge your writing, your art, they're going to judge it based on the little voice in their head, the one that talks to them when they see a word, that savors it with a intensity that one might find frightening, but is in actuality just a few neurons in their head that's letting them know that they found something really awesome. Or cool. Or meaningful. You get the point.
The best way I know of to start writing something cool is to learn how to find cool and awesome things. Which sounds like something you've been doing your entire life. But have you really? How many of us are just passive observers churning the fatty cream of the details of their lives into a thick, creamy froth of the accomplished, that someone can taste and go, "yeah, you did something. I can tell, because this is real butter."
Okay, so the metaphor is a little weird, but bear with me for a second here. The fact is, you've got to be watching. And not only do you have to watch, you've got to use what you watch. It is one thing to know that crayon and that crayon make green, and another to reach out and start playing with the blue and yellow to see what kind of patterns you make.
Not only that, but to remember it, it'd better has some meaning. Otherwise, why are you bothering? The good thing is that the brain is set up to help you here. Your brain is here to glean meaning out of anything. However, this doesn't make real meaningful things any easier: in a sense, it's harder to find, because you could make it just about anything in the right context. You could make it about anything. This isn't a bad thing, however--again, it's just an is thing. But maybe you don't want to be drawing gundams your entire life. Or maybe you do. In other words, watch what you are shaping: it will be what you become.
So you could be an anything--you could be an sculptor, for example, with all the bells and whistles of the Real True Thing. But are you also willing to be the Stranger? The Cluttered Home? The Meaning of Space Reformer? Are you going to try to define it in your own way? Are you going to be a person who sculpts things every now and again? Are you going to put the work together, the rocks in between a and b, or are you going to be a little cluster of near misses?
Because, remember--it's as much about others as it is about yourself, but you can only change the things that want to be changed. Some things won't change. Some things will budge by inches. Some things will go like a house on fire. But nothing should have to be changed in the way you want it to be. Because it's also itself. Just keep trying if it's not there yet, otherwise it won't ever get there.
I will start at the end of the piece with the moral. Though you don't necessarily know me, the fact is that I am complete crap at beginnings, but I love my endings: pithy, insightful, fraught with memorable phrases. And my beginnings are less so. Watered down, thin. Meaningless. So I will give you the best part first, and you can skip the rest if you feel like it.
The fact of the matter is that you can be almost anything. The question is, then, beyond the simple, "well, why aren't I, already?" is the "what are you beside it?" Pepole don't always want to give up the and. And there is always the supports of temperament that comes through in art. But really, this is meaningless in the long range of things. As the guy on the train, sitting across from me says, "that ain't nothing." Unless you are concerned with appearances, the point is to simply be.
Now I'm going to back up a bit. Bear with me while I try to make the two ends meet.
Good writing has more to do with talking then most pepole want to admit, perhaps even writers. But good writing--good prose, I guess would be better way of putting it, although really, this is true of all art--begs to be said out loud. To be talked about. And when pepole judge your writing, your art, they're going to judge it based on the little voice in their head, the one that talks to them when they see a word, that savors it with a intensity that one might find frightening, but is in actuality just a few neurons in their head that's letting them know that they found something really awesome. Or cool. Or meaningful. You get the point.
The best way I know of to start writing something cool is to learn how to find cool and awesome things. Which sounds like something you've been doing your entire life. But have you really? How many of us are just passive observers churning the fatty cream of the details of their lives into a thick, creamy froth of the accomplished, that someone can taste and go, "yeah, you did something. I can tell, because this is real butter."
Okay, so the metaphor is a little weird, but bear with me for a second here. The fact is, you've got to be watching. And not only do you have to watch, you've got to use what you watch. It is one thing to know that crayon and that crayon make green, and another to reach out and start playing with the blue and yellow to see what kind of patterns you make.
Not only that, but to remember it, it'd better has some meaning. Otherwise, why are you bothering? The good thing is that the brain is set up to help you here. Your brain is here to glean meaning out of anything. However, this doesn't make real meaningful things any easier: in a sense, it's harder to find, because you could make it just about anything in the right context. You could make it about anything. This isn't a bad thing, however--again, it's just an is thing. But maybe you don't want to be drawing gundams your entire life. Or maybe you do. In other words, watch what you are shaping: it will be what you become.
So you could be an anything--you could be an sculptor, for example, with all the bells and whistles of the Real True Thing. But are you also willing to be the Stranger? The Cluttered Home? The Meaning of Space Reformer? Are you going to try to define it in your own way? Are you going to be a person who sculpts things every now and again? Are you going to put the work together, the rocks in between a and b, or are you going to be a little cluster of near misses?
Because, remember--it's as much about others as it is about yourself, but you can only change the things that want to be changed. Some things won't change. Some things will budge by inches. Some things will go like a house on fire. But nothing should have to be changed in the way you want it to be. Because it's also itself. Just keep trying if it's not there yet, otherwise it won't ever get there.