“Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poem, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable, originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery—celebrate it, if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from —it’s where you take them to”- Jim Jarmusch
Under certain circumstances, stealing is inevitable.To say, that you sat in an empty room and nothing or no one affected your genius but yourself is absurd. You are giving yourself too much credit here. You develop your own style, persona, you errrr…..”make yourself” by subconsciously interpreting the world around you. Everyone has the moment when they relate to something or someone and have that, I-totally-know-where-you-are-coming-from kind of moment. Your relationship with love and life give you the inspiration to be who you are in the physical world. Your “authenticity” depends on how far you are willing to take your inspiration and make it your own.
xo
Don’t surrender your loneliness so quickly. Let it cut more deep. Let it ferment and season you as few humans or even divine ingredients can…
Hafiz
Every woman has to find the melody to her own song. When she’s found it, she’s found herself. There is an intimate harmony between her inner and outer self, a harmony called style. The clothes must be forgotten and any impression that something is being worn must disappear. The problem is not to follow fashion. What fashion? You have to follow your path, go toward your own truth. I want liquid fashion, I want the work behind it to be imperceptible. I want everything to flow, color to flow, sentiment to flow, beauty to flow.
Emanuel Ungaro, 1972 Issue of Vogue
Typically, the question of which career path I want to go has been unquestionably steadfast, unwavering in it’s certainty. This summer found me with sudden amounts of free time leaving me open to a new direction, new opportunities, and a refreshing state of mind. I recently read, Paul Graham’s The Anatomy of Determination aka The Grand Hustle, where major points on how determination conquers all—even talent were addressed. Through conversations, research, and err…subtle soul searching, I’ve realized how much determination matters in the creative field or any field at that. Graham breaks it down into 3 parts: a balance of willfulness, discipline, and ambition will create DETERMINATION. I don’t know if it’s the recession anymore but there is a sense of hunger in the air. I’ve always been one to look to the past for it’s originality, energy, and just plain dopeness that ceased to exist in my own generation—not savoring the right here and right now. Maybe, our revolution is slowly stirring within us to stop looking back at the past and simply, CREATE THE FUTURE. The greatest minds of the past never looked back, they had a vision and just did it. A lot of exciting things have been happening on the career front, which have left me inspired to create, now exactly what I will be creating? I don’t ask myself that question anymore, I stopped looking at my life through a sliding door.
In a society that moves as fast as ours, where every week a new “blockbuster” must be enthroned at the box office, or where idols are fabricated by consensus every new television season, the promise of something everlasting, something truly eternal, holds a special allure. As a seductive figure, the vampire is as flexible and polyvalent as ever. Witness its slow mutation from the pansexual, decadent Anne Rice creatures to the current permutations — promising anything from chaste eternal love to wild nocturnal escapades — and there you will find the true essence of immortality: adaptability.
Via: Nytimes- By GUILLERMO del TORO/CHUCK HOGA
In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, you can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if you are unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.
Edith Wharton