After all the eating and the coffee drinking, after the Monopoly and the wine, I settled down to watch some SlateV (read: sla-TV). I ended up watching some Charlie Rose. I most enjoyed Neil Young and Steve Martin for the following reasons: Neil Young said that song writing is his job, "This is my boss," he said, which reminded me of all the discussions lately about who is or is not the boss of me. It seems right, somehow, that creativity be ones boss. Young said that if he has an idea he'll just get up and go work, no matter what's going on. "It's a gift," he said. "And you can't just let it sit there." So that's one.
Then Steve Martin talked about how he stopped doing stand up because he had nothing to say. He continued talking and then he said he and an artist friend were exploring the similarities between making art and therapy. His friend replied there was one difference: with therapy, you want to retain your discoveries, and with art, you abandon them.
Those seem like two truths worthy of Thanksgiving Day: your gift is the boss of you, and you make discoveries in order to abandon them, to move on.
I'm thankful for all of you, for all of your abundant gifts, for your presence in my life.
Thank you!
4 comments:
Two inspiring insights, and thank you very much for sharing them.
I've been thinking a lot about who is the boss of me. Perhaps I will make breakfast for no one today. I like this idea of abandoning through art. Steve Martin. Smart guy. So are you. Thank you for being you and for always being there, even if only electronically (which makes you sound like a robot but that's cool too).
Thanks to you too. I heard some of these interviews. I love the thought of creativity being the boss of me!! A thought I will pass on to the preservice teachers who are my students so they can pass it onto their students. Think about what our world would be like if people listened to their inner artist. Lovely!!!
Very nice. Both give me some comfort in the realm of my art--teaching. Because I often struggle to know who/what should be the boss of me and think I get too pragmatic in figuring it out. And because I spend too much time worrying about the insights I've forgotten. But I think I would disagree with S.M.'s friend that therapy (life?) is about retaining discoveries, that there is a huge divide between life and art.
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