Where are the A+s? Who really knows?

ladder-climb-down-up

My generation was more like the Un-self-esteem movement. The Self-Disesteem Movement. We were constantly being told what bums and losers we were. Be a man! Suck it up! What’s wrong with you? Those were the child-rearing mantras that our parents, teachers, and coaches—the Greatest Generation—dished out to us. If you brought home a report card with straight A’s, the only question was, “Where are the A+s?”

[…]

Whose opinion counts most in the end?

Who’s the one person we can’t fool?

Who really knows how deep we dug or how true we played it?

~ Steven Pressfield, Giving Ourselves Some Props


Notes: Photo – Anja Matko, Self-Portrait, “Afraid of Falling” (via Mennyfox55)

 

Send the elevator back down

kevin-spacey

“If you’ve done well in the business that you wanted to do well in, then it is your obligation to spend a good portion of your time sending the elevator back down.”

– Kevin Spacey

Q: What keeps you going? What get’s you up in the morning?

KS: We had dinner one night on the beach.  We decided to play a game and the game was you had to describe the most important thing in life using one word.  So we went around table. You got health, wealth, family, money. It came to John Huston and he said “Interest.” “Interest.” “Interest” that’s the most important thing in life. And I feel that is something that I have adopted. The idea of being interested in things that I don’t know rather than things that I do know. Peeling back the layer again and again of putting yourself in situations that are challenging and new, that are compelling, and ask of yourself something different than you’ve ever done before. And sometimes this means doing things that scare you and things that you’re not sure you can succeed at.

I suppose that is why I have always loved the theatre and why I love doing plays over anything else. There’s a ritual to it.  There’s also this incredible thing about it where it’s like you are walking on a tight rope. Feeling like you have nothing below you but your faith in what you are doing, your appreciation of the words and the story the author has written and your trust in your fellow company members.

Q: Do you feel that taking risks gets easier and easier over time?

Continue reading “Send the elevator back down”

I’m too old to come to terms with…what do they call it? Low self-esteem

John Richardson

“Now, talking to you, I’m too old to come to terms with what I’ve done, this difficulty I have with – what do they call it? – low self-esteem. I’m thrilled to bits to be given this award and recognised. I never went to university, I’ve no proper education. I educated myself reading, reading, reading at the London Library – so there’s a certain justice to my getting this prize.”

~ Sir John Richardson


Sir John Richardson, 89 year old art historian, set to receive the London Library’s Life in Literature award, one of his many honours, including a knighthood, accorded him for his multi-volume, still unfinished biography of Pablo Picasso. Volume One appeared in 1991, Volume Four is expected next year.


Credits: Quote Source – ft.com. Image: rhsspeakers.com

Blue Nights…

Joan Didion - By Alisonperry.netEarlier this month, I shared a post on Joan Didion’s essays titled “One runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.”  One of my new blogger friends, Lori @ Donna & Diablo, mentioned in her response to my post that she planned to see Didion and was more excited about meeting her after reading the excerpts.  I asked Lori if she wouldn’t mind sharing her thoughts about the meeting in a Guest Post.  (I had never met a writer/author so I was looking to live the meeting-the-famous-author-moment vicariously through Lori’s post.) She graciously agreed.  Lori also also mentioned that she didn’t know if it was good enough to post.  I’ll let you make up your own minds.  (Note to Me: If I could BANG LIKE on my own blog and keep BANG, BANG, BANGING LIKE, I would do so now…).  Here’s Lori from Donna & Diablo on her meeting with Joan Didion…ENJOY!

Continue reading “Blue Nights…”

One runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home…

Back in 2005, I read Joan Didion’s book “The Year of Magical Thinking” after hearing much acclaim for the author and the book.  I was underwhelmed and said so in my Amazon Review at the time.  Yet, it rankled me that so many others were on the other side. (Why? Perhaps, I just missed what was readily understood by the intellectuals.  Maybe you just didn’t get it Pal.)

emilydaisypage - Self PortraitSo, more than 7 years later – I trip across a post at Brainpickings.org on Joan Didion’s 1968 collection of essays in Slouching Towards Bethlehem.  My head immediately snaps to attention.

Oh what delicious irony…the excerpts are “On Self-Respect.”  (Excerpts on ‘On Self-Respect.’ Deepak Sharma would say ‘Nothing is a Coincidence.’)

The post left me shaking my head.  (Sweet Jesus.  I did miss something.  Apparently I missed everything.)

On to the excerpts…

Continue reading “One runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home…”