[ This entry originated » here. ]
» You Still Need to Continue to Do the Personal Work Toward Growth
One of the things that I caught myself thinking about .. regarding girls like you and Ariana .. is something that I found true in my own life.
Just because you have this thing .. doesnt mean that you dont need to continue to do the personal work involved in personal growth .. which includes (among other things) educating yourself, and becoming a student of what you do.
When you have the thing, then you can't help but think, "Oh, I have the thing .. I got it made. I got it made forever."
But in practice, it does not work this way. 'Fraid not.
[ One of my 'things' .. is that I experiment with such things. "I wonder what happens if I do this."?
Oh, I see .. I get this result. Very cool.
Joyce knows what I am talking about. ]
I mean, you certainly can avoid doing the work .. because sometimes it is not so much fun to do the work associated with personal growth. (More than just sometimes, actually.)
It requires that you take stock of yourself in an honest way. And some people would rather you stick needles into their eyes.
Everybody knows that the end of growth represents the beginning of death. So you either grow or die. Or at least continue to develop in some meaningful sort of way.
Artistically speaking, you eventually come to the end of the line .. if you just run with your thing .. without doing the personal work .. then you sort of come to the end.
I feel confident that you know exactly what I am talking about. There is an element of public-life vs private-life at play here. You need balance.
» Personal Growth is Non-Linear
I have found the growth thing tends to come in spurts. You do much work .. and then something happens that triggers the growth. It's not a linear thing.
But you can definitely feel all that work that you did coming into play .. when it is triggered. And, yes .. it is a very fucking cool feeling.
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••• today's entry continues here below •••
Notice in the 4th paragraph of this column by Michael Gerson .. where he writes:
"Advocates of a cause can push for a long time with little apparent effect. Then, in a historical blink, what seemed incredible becomes inevitable."
It is a different application of a different kind of effort, but the same principle applies. The effect does not respond in a linear fashion to the effort applied.
» Working Toward a Future Goal Requires Persistence
The same principle can be applied to your time in the gym. It really takes 3-to-6 months of consistent dedication before you start to see real results.
If you quit after only a week or two of muscle-aching effort, you are just wasting your time.
If you want to look good in a bikini, you need to start toning and exercising in early spring, not in the summer.
Everybody already knows this, but it is more difficult to execute than it is to talk about it. Much more.
» The Well vs the Rivers
Scripture talks about the believer having both "a well of water" inside of them, and also "rivers" flowing out of them.
Floating down a river is the easiest thing. The river takes you to where you need to go. All you have to do is stay with it.
It requires more effort to draw water from a well. The well is for you .. while the rivers are for others.
The River is a push-based system. This comes on its own. The well is a demand-based system.
Sometimes the River compensates for a lack of well work. But not always. And the further you go, the more that is expected of you.
There is no way around this .. so its just best to get with program post haste .. has been my experience.
The River-based system is very cool .. I will be the first to admit. But the well-based system is actually afforded a higher degree of esteem. A higher priority. A higher priority perhaps?
I may not be saying it correctly .. but if you have much experience with these systems, then you know exactly what I mean.
To a degree, this entry is about the rivers vs the well .. in that you can go only so far without doing the work necessary to take you to the difficult places.
Easy is nice, sure .. but easy can become boring. Growth requires conquering ever greater challenges. No?
» Knowing Things that You Can't Possibly Know
I like this section on the well of water because this where she says, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet."
Do you ever know things that you cannot possibly know? You know what I'm talking about.
John says that believers "know all things." That is the literal translation of what he wrote.
Newer translations phrase this as "you all know" and "all of you know the truth." But this is not the same thing.
Obviously nobody "knows all things." But if you have the Spirit of the Living God residing inside of you .. then somewhere inside of you is Someone who does .. who does know all things.
No?
» Tarantino on Harvey Weinstein
Speaking of continuing to do the work associated with personal growth regardless of the perceived results ..
What do you think, Selena, about what Quentin Tarantino said about the accusations regarding Harvey Weinstein sexually harassing and raping aspiring actresses?
Notice in particular where he says "If I had done the work I should have done ..."
What 'work' do you think he is talking about there, Selena? This writer/director creative type. One of us.
He does not come right out and say, "I did not do the work," .. but that is definitely the takeaway, no?
It is not easy to do the work. A million things try to climb in your way .. of doing the work. Persistent little fuckers.
And that's not even doing the work. That is just getting to a place where you can do the work.
I saw where Tarantino said that he needed to take a few days to digest things before he commented. Uma, also.
This speaks to me. Tho I am not going to tell you what it says. Not right now, anyway.
I was very much impressed by Tarantino's response. You learn a lot about people when the shit hits the fan.
We had a saying in the nuclear world » "Anybody can steam steady-state."
Anybody can handle life when everything is beautiful and hunky dory. But wait until their world starts to crumble. Wait until their reactor starts to meltdown .. then we will see what these fuckers are really made of.
» Guilt by Association?
More than anybody, Tarantino was linked to Harvey Weinstein. Guilt by association?
» There is Something Going On with Tarantino
Tarantino has some kind of thing going on with him. I do not really know what it is .. but I can sense it whenever I write about him. It makes me feel sympathetic toward him.
(I dont think that I would want to be Tarantino .. even tho the gig looks amazingly good from the outside.)
» Tarantino Speaks to the Treatment of Women by Men
Remind me later to touch on some of the prophetic aspects of his last film » The Hateful Eight.
What do you think about the way Tarantino portrayed Daisy Domergue as the Prisoner?
With her bloody nose and her black eye? And as literally chained to the John "the Hangman" Ruth.
Jennifer Jason Leigh was nominated for an Oscar (2016) for her performance in that role.
Tarantino has said that he knew bad things were happening to girls. That is naturally going to bother anybody with a soul.
How, exactly, this bother will manifest itself .. who can say?
Do you think that Tarantino's inside information about how women in Hollywood were being treated .. do you think that these things worked their way into his movie?
» The True Artist Simply Gives Voice to the Thing Rising Up Inside of Them
Anyway .. I think that it is common knowledge among artistic types that the artist simply gives voice to the things that rise up inside of him.
At one time, I thought that the art and craft of writing, or creating stories, was about concocting stories in your head .. as if dreaming them up.
But in practice I have found that the stuff you really want is the stuff that rises up from someplace deep. And you are simply there to honor to, and do justice to, this thing rising up from your guts.
My ego, sometimes, does not like the idea that my coolest of creative things come from someplace beyond me. My ego wants to take credit for my coolest things. I mean, this is what egos do.
Anything less is a humbling thing.
» Neil Young Says that the Creative Thing Comes and Goes Through You
Notice at t=16:15 here (and also at t=1:30 here) where Neil Young is talking to Charlie Rose about Bob Dylan, and where he is referencing the creative process .. he says, "You can't keep that. That comes and goes through you."
Neil Young talking about Bob Dylan and the creative process .. this gives me a total boner.
Neil Young is definitely in Dylan's orbit .. far as songwriting skills are concerned.
I dont think that you can really compare them side-by-side .. because they each head off in their own direction. Each emphasizes different things.
But I can say that there are more Neil Young songs that speak to me than there are Dylan songs.
Neil Young got me through many tough times growing up in an often dysfunctional family.
» How Can Such a Bad Man Make Such Good Movies?
Regarding Harvey Weinstein himself .. how can such a bad man make such good movies?
Whenever I would start one of my Netflix movies, and I saw the grayscale Weinstein company logo appear on screen ..
.. it always gave me a good feeling. Because I knew that the movie was going to be good. I knew that it would speak to me in a way that I could appreciate.
In an intelligent and unique way. In a real sort of way .. that resonated with me in my life. My uniquely crazy life. (That's a good trick.)
I didnt even know very much about the Weinstein company .. but I knew that their logo meant good movies.
On a remarkably consistent level. And yes, I could go into excruciating detail here.
» Separating the Man From His Art
Some people are of the opinion that disagreement with an artist in some meaningful way, be it philosophical, or moral, or ethical, or religious, or cultural, or political, or whatever .. means that you shun appreciation of anything they touch.
I do not feel this way. I think that you can separate the artist from the art. Because so many different artists are involved in making a movie.
Also, their art might give you insights into things that you had not considered. From perspectives that you were not familiar with.
Things that appear clearly black-n-white from a distance become remarkably grayscale when you find yourself caught up in them. Who does not know exactly what I am talking about here?
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This theme continues here » When Justice Comes Out Perverted for a Very Long Time (05 Oct 2017).
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