Find a crack in the road: fix it. Cause a foolish fender bender: learn from it. Develop a better highway ramp: build it. In the churning, maddening mass of growling engines, I sometimes cling to the thought that genuine progress might be afoot.
Read MoreRICHARD WAGNER IN TEL AVIV
When we respectfully engage those who philosophically challenge us or even provoke anger, we open the potential for new understanding and a wider middle ground. Perhaps that’s the most profound value of a creative life in the first place.
Read MoreEVIDENCE OF HUMANITY
The lights in the darkness are evidence that people have accumulated themselves and their energies. Behind these lights are stories and sorrows, triumphs and traumas, pleasures and, above all, perseverance. In the bright patches of light shining from a darkened globe there are concentrations of humanity, and come what may, they represent forces beyond any singular individual anywhere.
Read MoreTHE WALKING DEAD
That mortal fantasy is the crux of the show’s genius and the singular reason why it’s so successful. Without a complex and sophisticated playbook of narrative rules governing the program’s engine, the action would be little more than splashing around in a shallow pool. Instead, The Walking Dead taps into a deep sea of anxieties and simultaneous wish fulfillment and social means testing.
Read MoreELATION (1st of a two part series)
Filled with lightness your heart is so full: it's not crazy at all to think the novel that you've been longing to write could just come out, right now— I'll just drop into my seat for a moment or two, sketch it out—easy!—and fill in the blanks this afternoon! Anything is possible. Songs come into being unbidden. Hunger makes you feel good, as if those cranky pangs were just life's way of helping you savor your own wonderful, scintillating senses. You must have been doing something substantial to grow so hungry, right? Right on!
Read MoreTHE PROBLEM WITH POLITICS
The creative process is one of figuring something out that has little to do with gaining popularity. Politics, conversely, is all about popularity. Politics is about getting enough people to like you so that you can do things to perpetuate the trend of people liking you. Creativity is about solving problems.
Read MoreDECEPTIVE HIERARCHIES
For creative people there's a compelling moment to consider when approaching complex projects. Ask yourself if the organizational structure of your idea and your organization simply exists because you understand it. Ask yourself if the hierarchy is fundamentally sound for the particular project. If it exists because that’s the way things have always been done, you might want to start over.
Read MoreACTS OF REBELLION (first of a two part series)
Acts of rebellion are always disruptive. Acts of creativity are almost always acts of rebellion. Therefore, acts of creativity are almost always disruptive. Creative acts are always the result of what’s come before, and while new works emerge as a result of incremental modification, those modifications are always about one thing fading out while another thing begins to glow.
Read MoreHEARTS AFIRE
A romantic existence, just like a romantic story, deals with extending life into the future. Ultimately the extension of all of our lives into the future is why we invest ourselves in our children, in our values whatever they may be, or in our great creative enterprises big and small. Romance is about preserving a moment or an idea into timelessness.
Read MoreFIVE REASONS TO AVOID ARTICLES THAT LIST THINGS
Not too many years ago short-form non-fiction was called a magazine article. Then the world melted into “listicles”.
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