Comments on: The Most Surprising Most Wanted List You May Ever Read

By: misfits' miscellany

misfits' miscellany — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:39:01 +0000

There’s certainly lead in that joke.

By: Quieter Elephant

Quieter Elephant — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:35:37 +0000

I’ve often wondered how one would ever select a pencil in such a home. 2B or not 2B?

By: misfits' miscellany

misfits' miscellany — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:22:36 +0000

Not for all, of course. For many success is measured by money, no matter how it’s acquired. Since money has great influence, many of the people who will do anything for it, have more influence than they should. I wish I was a bit greedier for money. Don’t get born into a thespian household.

By: Quieter Elephant

Quieter Elephant — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:15:53 +0000

I just read about Mats Wilander refusing to accept match point in 1982 because it was a bad call. He replayed the point (and won “properly”). http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/news/articles/2012-07-05/201207041341419690858.html
Worth and value only come through sense of earning it. Throwing money at people without them feeling they’ve earned it does nothing for loyalty.

By: misfits' miscellany

misfits' miscellany — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 15:00:24 +0000

I like “Golden handcuffs”. I might use it. I’m glad you’re getting satisfaction. I’ve only ever experienced fleeting satisfaction, but it’s own fault. I don’t dwell on anything good I do…I degrade it.
I wrote a poem about it:
http://www.zygoteinmycoffee.com/100s/issue138thingsitellmyself.html

By: Quieter Elephant

Quieter Elephant — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 14:55:47 +0000

I agree with the satisfaction thing too. I walked away from my last job just before they handed out the largest bonuses they’d given ever. Like 2-3 times bigger. Best thing I ever did. I love my new job because I am contributing. It’s not about the money (once it’s above some minimum required to live OK-ish). A big pay-rise is nice… but it wears thin. “Golden handcuffs” I used to call it.

By: misfits' miscellany

misfits' miscellany — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 07:57:55 +0000

Ah, yes, De Bono, I’ve read some of his books. So I’ll put on my red hat with black slippers and channel Marx, (Karl not Groucho), and say that creativity which is void of internal motivation other that job survival, is merely a contemporary and harder-to-pinpoint form of his old production-line alienation–job satisfaction must come from a feeling one is contributing to something more worthwhile than capitalism.

But I do understand, I do.

By: Quieter Elephant

Quieter Elephant — Wed, 04 Jul 2012 00:57:41 +0000

Haha… I always enjoy your comments MM, and I agree with much of your post. In a more “average” context though, I do think people with some creative potential can be worn down by their environment, and so not actually produce it. Particularly in a work environment where the motive to create isn’t from within, such as with art.
I learned a lot from reading Edward de Bono’s book on lateral thinking. I don’t think he can write to save his life, but I found much of use in his ideas of “how to think better”.

By: misfits' miscellany

misfits' miscellany — Tue, 03 Jul 2012 15:54:08 +0000

I’m not sold. Too easy, a bit glib. Things like pain can make you think. If the pain is great, you will pass through pessimism and cynicism and apathy. But if you’re really thinking, you’ll be able to contextualize them as only a part of the whole. And if you’re driven enough to try and understand, then nothing will stop you creating.

And an artist must sometimes insulate themselves in order to create. I know the reference is about insular thinking, but many many artists work for long periods alone with the dark and the light, and so are able to explore the contrasts and contradictions of human experience. So do scientists, who are also creative.

I will not the trust the food critic who hasn’t eaten lousy food, because their measure of good food has no basis for comparison.The same goes for artists, mirrors of the world. I don’t want to learn about life (which may not be the only thing to get from art, but it’s the stuff that makes me focus the most) from an artist who doesn’t understand what negativity, darkness, is about. Because pessimism and all those things are part of the world.

I read something, a quote by a cognitive psychologist, who suggested that the artistic temperament has a lot in common with dyslexia, the rearranging of things in a way that makes sense in a new way. A form of derangement, in the purely scientific sense. When your perspective is partly defined by a variation from the standard, then, however consciously or subconsciously, you must experience a form of alienation.

I’m aware that it’s not the same for people to release their creativity as it is for an artist, and I’m talking about art rather than learned craft–not that each can’t have a bit of the other. The artists and scientists are the end measure. Do I get out of jail free for this acknowledgement?