Some take nothing into account, and others want to take account for everything. They are always talking importance, always taking things too seriously, turning them into debate and mystery. Few bothersome things are important enough to bother with. It is folly to take to heart what you should turn your back on. Not the least of life’s rules is to leave well enough alone.
~ Baltasar Gracián
slip:4a339.
Cinematic Portraiture … I try to make a picture that draws elements of a larger scene happening. For me it’s always that challenge of how do you come up with a picture that gets the essence of the person, but also does a little more.
~ Sam Jones starting around 44:50, from How to Cultivate Your Authentic Voice
It’s different depending on the medium, but there are some things that are the same throughout. One of them is, you have to know or define your narrative because you’re always telling a story whether it’s in a single frame or in a two hour documentary. The first thing for me is to know what story I’m telling. With photographs it’s often, I read about the person, I start sketching ideas, and hopefully I can make up a story that I can tell that is true with that person. If it’s a music video, I’ll try to get what I want to say about the song; Whether it’s trying to be very literal or trying to be very opposite, I still have to know the story I want to tell. With doing Off Camera, it really is— You could talk to anyone for 100 hours and not get even close to their whole deal, so the idea is to try to pick the things you really want to look into and develop a little narrative.
slip:4c2na1a.
Sam Jones is well-known for his Off-Camera project. Each “episode” is a photoshoot, documentary video, podcast and print magazine. This interview from 2015 on Rich Roll’s podcast covers a wide range of things related to being creative. This podcast episode is a true gem.
ɕ
It’s hard to quarrel with that ancient justification of the free press: “America’s right to know.” It seems almost cruel to ask, ingenuously, “America’s right to know what, please? Science? Mathematics? Economics? Foreign languages?” None of those things, of course. In fact, one might well suppose that the popular feeling is that Americans are a lot better off without any of that tripe.
~ Isaac Asimov from, (Newsweek Jan 21, 1980) A Cult of Ignorance
tripe n. 2: something poor, worthless, or offensive
That’s the second definition, and is clearly the one Asimov was using. For some reason, I believe I would have said that the first definition had something to do with fish. (It does not.)
In addition, suspecting that Asimov knew a thing or three more than me, had not made a capitalization error in writing “mandarin minority”—you’ll have to click now, won’t you?—I spent several minutes in my Dictionary and learned a second thing.
And finally a third thing: 1980. 2021. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
ɕ
Philosophy does not promise to secure anything external for man, otherwise it would be admitting something that lies beyond its proper subject-matter. For as the material of the carpenter is wood, and that of statuary bronze, so the subject-matter of the art of living is each person’s own life.
~ Epictetus
slip:4a524.
Just as with job-related admin, “life admin” represents some of our least favorite, and most procrastinated on, to-dos. And yet completing them is essential to keeping our lives organized, functioning, and moving ahead.
~ Brett McKay from How to Better Manage Your Life Admin
slip:4uaoai7.
A couple years ago I simply threw my hands up in the air and picked one day of the week which I’ve literally labeled as my “admin” day. On that day each week, I tackle everything related to life admin. It’s awesome; Stuff gets done.
But even better than that: It frees me on the other six days of the week. During the other six days each week, whole swaths of things are trivially lobbed onto the pile for the next admin day.
Try this: Pick a day of the week to be admin day, and start lobbing stuff to that day. Laundry, housecleaning… hell, I don’t even open postal mail until admin day. Pay bills, schedule things, shopping, errands…
ɕ
The bullshit— …well, it disappears for a fleeting second.
~ Ryan Holiday from, The Guilty, Crazy Secret That Helps Me Write
slip:4uryte4.
I have playlists for this exact thing. Hundreds of individual songs selected and shuffled, for very specific purposes.
Sometimes I go “hunting” to find new tracks for these lists; My Mac says my music library has 9,121 items, 26.5 days, 77.96 GB, and I have a “smart” playlist which grabs 250 least-recently played. It avoids some genres (like “Spoken Word” so it doesn’t pick out French lessons, etc) and it avoids any track I’ve one-starred (my way of saying omg no)… It’s basically an endless series of, “I forgot about that!” I often flip over to the original album, start from the front, and sometimes I add a track to one of my play lists.
What? Why? …best of both worlds. I have playlists that do what I need—hide the world, hide everything. And I’m continuously startled with delight by my tiny music collection.
ɕ
The greatest crime is the overlooking of who you really are in favor of the story of who you think you are. This preoccupation with your personal drama is the cloud that masks the sun.
~ Wu Hsin
slip:4a359.
All people have a “tact filter”, which applies tact in one direction to everything that passes through it.
~ Jeff Bigler from, Tact Filters
slip:4umija1.
A short and startlingly insightful idea about— …well, no. I’m going to make you click.
Also: Cue my misty-eyed nostalgia. That’s what the web looked like in ’96. Back when I proudly wielded the self-selected job title of “spyder.” (Do I have to explain that? Please tell me I don’t have to explain that.)
ɕ
As we leave childhood, we unwittingly dial down our imagination and our ambition, because an ancient and out-of-touch part of our minds tells us they are dangerous. Creativity suffers, and so do our prospects for personal greatness and happiness. […] The purpose of this book is to illustrate this great discrepancy — between what is normal and what is possible — and give you some stepping stones to begin crossing the rift.
~ David Cain from, On Becoming an Individual
slip:4uraoe1.
Ignore me. Click the link.
…you’re still here, why? Seriously the entire point of this post is simply so I can link to Cain’s post, and the sublime 46 page PDF attached to it.
Go. Go now!
ɕ
slip:2oe2.
Don’t be overheard complaining about life at court. Not even to yourself.
~ Marcus Aurelius
slip:4a521.