I’m getting out of this funk I’ve been in for a long time. I’m starting to see through the fog in my head that has made everything seem lame or impossible or scary. A couple weeks ago, my heart was crying out for a change, for something that would release me from one mind to the next. I missed my BFF, who always pushes me to see and experience and learn something new. I called and said I needed him to appear, and he did!
I remember him saying, sometime this week during our shenanigans, that even when you just want to stay home and hide under the covers, you have to make yourself go out and do things. Now I’m ready and have so many plans! Sometimes you just need to know that there’s someone there to hold your hand when you get ready to take the plunge.
I bought a planner yesterday, which is helping me keep track and get excited about everything I want to do. And when I get stuck, I’m turning to John Cage for some inspiration to keep going, keep working, keep learning and connecting and giving and taking–mining all I can get out of this city.
Reading:
The Gift: How the Creative Spirit Transforms the World by Lewis Hyde
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell
The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano
Listening:
Hot Chip – One Life Stand
Florence and the Machine
Watching:
Burn After Reading – Coen Bros.
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john cage: some rules for students and teachers or anyone else
RULE ONE: Find a place you trust, and then try trusting it for awhile.
RULE TWO: General duties of a student – pull everything out of your teacher; pull everything out of your fellow students.
RULE THREE: General duties of a teacher – pull everything out of your students.
RULE FOUR: Consider everything an experiment.
RULE FIVE: be self-disciplined – this means finding someone wise or smart and choosing to follow them. To be disciplined is to follow in a good way. To be self-disciplined is to follow in a better way.
RULE SIX: Nothing is a mistake. There’s no win and no fail, there’s only make.
RULE SEVEN: The only rule is work. If you work it will lead to something. It’s the people who do all of the work all of the time who eventually catch on to things.
RULE EIGHT: Don’t try to create and analyze at the same time. They’re different processes.
RULE NINE: Be happy whenever you can manage it. Enjoy yourself. It’s lighter than you think.
RULE TEN: “We’re breaking all the rules. Even our own rules. And how do we do that? By leaving plenty of room for X quantities.” (John Cage)
HINTS: Always be around. Come or go to everything. Always go to classes. Read anything you can get your hands on. Look at movies carefully, often. Save everything – it might come in handy later.
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