“Always move towards pain when making art.”
J.M. Coetzee via pieratt
I wasn’t going to post this. I liked it, but it felt too “tumblr” for my sensible ways. But this morning as I’m editing the book, there’s just one fk’n painful thing – editing this one meandering chapter – and I went to the easier things and edited the rest of the entire book.
Move towards the pain.
“Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do.”
Last night I thought of this tweet:
Working in a movie for edgy, thoughtful Catholics+Quakers. So far I only have Act2, line 1:
“Henri Nouwen, mutherf*ckrz; that’s how.”
It’s a silly thing that 2 of you may find chuckle-worthy. Henri Nouwen wrote a lot about the spiritual life… I read a lot of his books and liked him a bunch. His thoughts were exceedingly gentle and loving and real. That’s why I shat my pants when I thought of this line.
But man, can you imagine a movie where that’s the turning point? So awesome… (more…)
“Life isn’t something you possess, it’s something you take part in.”
Louis C.K.
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
“I am in competition with no-one”
… though the other parts of this letter are a bit over-ripe for me.
“First, you need a round hole in your chest that goes all the way through you… Sit or stand in front of paper or a computing device and turn your back to everything, which will incite it to attack you. Everything preys on humanity and goes for the heart, so hold still, arch your back and it should shoot through your hole and onto your keyboard. As it passes, it will be tainted and scattered by the inside rim of whatever you’re made of, which some would call your “voice”but which I call “filth.””
“All dads are scared of failing as a dad, scared about being on the wrong side of an adolescent who has the right to resent us. And make no bones about it: we’re very capable of ruining our relationships, of acting selfishly for long enough to keep us from connecting in any real way with our kids. But all dads also, at one point or another, feel pangs of that deep love, those real, sincere shots of care and hope for our kids that make us feel like we may be able to do this dad thing well after all.”
That’s a snippet from an upcoming book-ish thing I’m putting together. I really like this passage, but it needed to be cut for the sake of the chapter.
There’s that quote about writing and killing your “darlings”…
“I am at my emotionally healthiest, or so I would have myself believe, when I have 100 percent transparency of intent and result with as large a sampling of humanity as possible. Blogging was always my most effective form of therapy.”
Dan Harmon via Pieratt
There’s a saying about comedians, something about how they become funny people because they’re afraid of others laughing at them, so they spend their lives controlling when and where those laughs happen.
There’s underlying fears we’re really afraid of. These fears aren’t easy to talk about, they’re actually scary. They’re raw fears, like the fear of a lost 4 year old who really believes he’ll never see mom again. (more…)