Dave Eggers (& Me) on Selling Out
What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips’s new album is ravishing and I’ve listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who’s up and who’s down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say. Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.”
Dave Eggers (emphasis added)
Dave Eggers was asked about selling out. His response (reprinted here) is long and windy and ends up being deeply rewarding… like everything I’ve ever read from the guy.
I come from a culture of sell-out seekers. We longed to write off anyone that smelled like money or main stream success.
I see now 2 things:
1. I wanted what I listened to to be cool because of what it said about me. It had little to do with the insights or spirit or heroics of the artists I was championing… it had a lot to do with my identity issues.
2. I said money and success but what I meant was greed. This is something Dan Harmon helped me understand in his (absolutely fucking stellar) XOXO talk. Success (financial or artistic or main stream) is not greed. Greed is something real and dangerous and terrible, but don’t make the mistake of equating it with success.
Donald Miller’s World Domination Summit Presentation
This might be a perfect talk. It’s Donald Miller’s (pronounced Doñalda Moillleur) World Domination Summit presentation. Great work from a good man.
Dan Harmon on Heroes
Whereas the health of an individual depends on the ego’s regular descent and return to and from the unconscious, a society’s longevity depends on actual people journeying into the unknown and returning with ideas.
In their most dramatic, revolutionary form, these people are called heroes, but every day, society is replenished by millions of people diving into darkness and emerging with something new (or forgotten): scientists, painters, teachers, dancers, actors, priests, athletes, architects and most importantly, me, Dan Harmon.”
This was one of the best short article excursions on story theory I’ve read.
I think I love this story stuff (find more here) so much because it’s like learning about myself, our humanity, what we’re really like.
That, and it helps me become a better marketer and thing maker.
Chase Reeves Interviewed on Business Republic
I’m a little embarrassed about this because it’s so wordy and the audio’s clipping, but there’s some good stuff in here about how I think about design, doing work, and what I was like in high school (such a great question). My thanks to Omar for the conversation.
George Sanders on Built-in Confusions
Each of us is born with a series of built-in confusions that are probably somehow Darwinian. These are: (1) we’re central to the universe (that is, our personal story is the main and most interesting story, the only story, really); (2) we’re separate from the universe (there’s US and then, out there, all that other junk — dogs and swing-sets, and the State of Nebraska and low-hanging clouds and, you know, other people), and (3) we’re permanent (death is real, o.k., sure – for you, but not for me).
Now, we don’t really believe these things – intellectually we know better – but we believe them viscerally, and live by them, and they cause us to prioritize our own needs over the needs of others, even though what we really want, in our hearts, is to be less selfish, more aware of what’s actually happening in the present moment, more open, and more loving.”
On Books & Movements
Books do not start movements; movements start books.”
Simplicity on the Other Side of Complexity
For the simplicity on this side of complexity, I wouldn’t give you a fig. But for the simplicity on the other side of complexity, for that I would give you anything I have.”
Be This Guy
Be this guy. Via Danforth.
Raymond Carver on Disappointment & Drink
I began to drink heavily after I’d realised that the things I’d most wanted in life for myself and my writing, and my wife and children, were simply not going to happen.”