oh, there is a murderess amongst us!
I want to re-engage my creativity.
I haven't really created anything substantial in a while, but I'm going to change that. For starters, I'm going to begin writing more regularly (both in this journal, and in a nice little moleskin diary I have not touched since I bought it 4+ months ago). I've also started writing (real) songs, which has been fun (although recording them has proved more frustrating than I expected). Still, it's good to feel like I'm expressing myself in a way that doesn't involve casual conversation or writing an essay for class. It's like stretching after being cramped in a car after a long roadtrip, I suppose.
Amy (who is currently living the high life over in India) recently sent me a rather depressing article saying that tight government control has repressed creativity in China. This was one of the conclusions drawn from the central question of why Kung Fu Panda, a film that is so deeply inspired by oriental culture, wasn't made in China. You can read it here.
Actually, the article is really more concerned with China's abandonment of its own culture. Still, given my recent itch to expand my own creativity, I found this article more than a little depressing. How can a country be so fixated on rote memorization and following a "standard career path"?
Then again, isn't that kind of what's happening to us over here in the United States? Maybe it's me, but sometimes I wake up in the morning and worry that I'm being slowly digested by the capitalist career machine, whether I like it or not. It would be so easy to set my life to "auto-pilot", and then I would be safe in a bland, meaningless existence. That's how it could work for a lot of us privileged Pittsford/UVA folk, I think.
Yeah, that's a little cynical, but it's how I feel sometimes. But I want to live a meaningful, interesting life. And it's times like those that I like to write and play guitar and remind myself that yes, I have some things to say and sing that are all my own and nobody else's. It's therapeutic in its own way.
What do you do, dear readers, to set your mental gears in motion? Let's clear out some cobwebs.
- Ethan
P.S. Will recently sent me a (positively genius) letter that I am working on a response to. Actually, I don't know if the word "letter" does it justice. The "letter" is really more like a storyboard, complete with color (for emphasis), illustrations (for clarification), and engaging academic considerations (such as establishing a scientific formula explaining why some people enjoy listening to Interpol and others don't). I want to do his "letter" justice by sending him something interesting and well-considered in return.
For all you Pittsford readers unfamiliar with Will's work, I strongly suggest that you read this: A Group of Words Which Might Resemble a Bubble Released Into Water by the Exhalation of a Diver With Minty Breath: Less Substantial Than That Which Surrounds It, But With a Slightly Different Scent.
P.P.S. I need to reduce my dependency on the good ol' parenthesis.
I haven't really created anything substantial in a while, but I'm going to change that. For starters, I'm going to begin writing more regularly (both in this journal, and in a nice little moleskin diary I have not touched since I bought it 4+ months ago). I've also started writing (real) songs, which has been fun (although recording them has proved more frustrating than I expected). Still, it's good to feel like I'm expressing myself in a way that doesn't involve casual conversation or writing an essay for class. It's like stretching after being cramped in a car after a long roadtrip, I suppose.
Amy (who is currently living the high life over in India) recently sent me a rather depressing article saying that tight government control has repressed creativity in China. This was one of the conclusions drawn from the central question of why Kung Fu Panda, a film that is so deeply inspired by oriental culture, wasn't made in China. You can read it here.
Actually, the article is really more concerned with China's abandonment of its own culture. Still, given my recent itch to expand my own creativity, I found this article more than a little depressing. How can a country be so fixated on rote memorization and following a "standard career path"?
Then again, isn't that kind of what's happening to us over here in the United States? Maybe it's me, but sometimes I wake up in the morning and worry that I'm being slowly digested by the capitalist career machine, whether I like it or not. It would be so easy to set my life to "auto-pilot", and then I would be safe in a bland, meaningless existence. That's how it could work for a lot of us privileged Pittsford/UVA folk, I think.
Yeah, that's a little cynical, but it's how I feel sometimes. But I want to live a meaningful, interesting life. And it's times like those that I like to write and play guitar and remind myself that yes, I have some things to say and sing that are all my own and nobody else's. It's therapeutic in its own way.
What do you do, dear readers, to set your mental gears in motion? Let's clear out some cobwebs.
- Ethan
P.S. Will recently sent me a (positively genius) letter that I am working on a response to. Actually, I don't know if the word "letter" does it justice. The "letter" is really more like a storyboard, complete with color (for emphasis), illustrations (for clarification), and engaging academic considerations (such as establishing a scientific formula explaining why some people enjoy listening to Interpol and others don't). I want to do his "letter" justice by sending him something interesting and well-considered in return.
For all you Pittsford readers unfamiliar with Will's work, I strongly suggest that you read this: A Group of Words Which Might Resemble a Bubble Released Into Water by the Exhalation of a Diver With Minty Breath: Less Substantial Than That Which Surrounds It, But With a Slightly Different Scent.
P.P.S. I need to reduce my dependency on the good ol' parenthesis.