Studio Sessions
Discussions about art and the creative process. New episodes every other week.
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Studio Sessions
38. The Mystical State of Paradox: A Journey Beyond Binary Thinking
This episode delves into the concept of paradox and its implications for navigating a binary world. We explore the limitations of either/or thinking and the importance of embracing duality, where seemingly opposing forces coexist and even necessitate each other. We discuss a range of paradoxes, including simplicity and complexity, certainty and doubt, ambition and contentedness, and how these concepts can be better understood as interconnected and complementary rather than mutually exclusive.
Drawing on personal experiences and artistic examples, we examine how embracing paradox can lead to greater understanding and creativity. We discuss the importance of maintaining a beginner's mind, the dangers of ego-driven art, and the delicate balance between self-indulgence and audience engagement. The conversation also touches on the role of technology, language, and the mystical in shaping our perception of reality. -Ai
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And it had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summons.
Speaker 2:So, before we decided that we should probably roll, we talking about this idea of, in the note I wrote, accepting or embracing paradox as an antidote to like a binary society. And the idea comes from this idea, this exploration of non machine thinking and thinking in ways that essentially machines aren't good at accepting two truths as both being equally relevant. So I came up with a bunch of quote-unquote paradoxes that we deal with Simplicity and complexity, certainty, doubt, ambition and contentedness, strength and vulnerability, independence and interdependence, tradition and innovation, success and failure, humility and confidence, planning and spontaneity, individual and innovation, success and failure, humility and confidence, planning and spontaneity, individual and collective patience and urgency, control and surrender, selfishness and selflessness. And the idea is that one that the kind of thinking of them in the framework of a paradox, or as we understand a Western definition of paradox, is limiting in and of itself, where it's more of a duality, where both things have to exist. And so I sent matt something yesterday where it was like darkness doesn't exist without light and right.
Speaker 2:Um, basically, just like two things have to exist, for without one, the other ceases to exist. And so I think it's an interesting idea where, a lot of times, we tend to ambition is the answer. No, being content is the answer. Or, you know, innovation will solve our problems. No, tradition has our like we need to respect. Or we tend to just go back and forth and then, rather than just accepting both as not even components, but just both having to be true simultaneously at all times, and uh, so I I wanted to explore that and kind of put that to you and see what you think about it, and maybe you have some other like this and this, um, I don't know.
Speaker 3:Paradox, presentations of paradox yeah, well, you know, I relate this a little bit back to personal experience and I was in a relationship with someone, um early in college or late in college, undergraduate, and I really struggled in my relationship with her because everything was so binary, everything was right or wrong, everything was was, um, it felt very uh I don't know if logic is the right term I use that word logic based on more of a computational logic rather than sort of rational thought logic right.
Speaker 2:I think this is. I think we've based a lot of the way we think off of a computational logic. I think it's influenced us in ways that we haven't quite grasped yet.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I think computational logic and that metaphor actually plays really well, and two things that would separate us often would be if I was going to drive somewhere.
Speaker 3:she could not comprehend that I based my routes, and this is back before GPS and you just are told where to go. I would design my routes to places based on what had the best emotional experience for me, maybe what was more scenic, or I liked that it had some S curves and I could zip around in my five speed through those curves and hers was all no time, no time, efficiency. This is the fastest route when traffic is under these conditions. This route, which might be slightly longer, but it gets you there like she had, this, just this very hard rule about how to go about navigating, how to get somewhere.
Speaker 3:And I remember talking all the time about how this stuff exists on a gradient, it exists on a spectrum, this stuff is all there's. It's not black and white, it's, it's the gray in between. And, yes, we may move from a darker gray to a, to a lighter gray, toward white, but you're never fully on one side, wholly. And I, earlier, when we started talking, I pulled off my shoe and showed you the, the shoelaces, because I, you know, I hear this and I think of imagery, I think of a DNA double helix, I think about the shoelaces, um, uh, crisscrossing, and if these words are on one side of the shoelace, you know the hole where you pull the lace through, and the other words on the other other.
Speaker 3:My life, I have peace and less confusion when I understand that I'm going to be vacillating back and forth between both, but never entirely occupying one over the other, that it's always going to have some mixture there, some alchemy there, um, uh, and that's. And that, for me, is why what you said earlier, you know, this one has to exist for the other one to exist, you need, you need that dual, the duality, I guess. But but again, never, never, just uh, occupying one over the other. Now, alex brought you know, brought this to me cold, you know I'm processing this in real time, and and and images come up and past experiences.
Speaker 3:This is how I start to contextualize this. I go back to my past, my own experiences, introspection, and then imagery as well. Um, but that's at least my contribution to kicking off, uh, any kind of conversation we have about that. Do you think it's useful?
Speaker 2:to almost dissolve these as binaries or as opposites.
Speaker 3:It's hard because I, you know, I talk about cartography all the time and I like using words that identify places in the greater map of the human experience, and so there are times where I think about art, or for commerce, or um one of the other ones that you had, you didn't have art or commerce, that's my own but, um, yeah, independence, interdependence, tradition, innovation.
Speaker 3:I mean just just just how I have gone back and forth. You could take, uh, and not that you haven't, but I think mine's a little bit more marked visually, um, from someone wearing black t-shirts and black jeans and black pants to someone who's um, you know, wearing more, you know different clothes, someone that was really focused on efficiency and commerce and um productivity, and all that to someone that's having more space for art and introspection and discussing ideas and taking the scenic route versus the more efficient route to a goal that I might have had. So I like the idea of identifying these things again, to better map the human experience, so that while we are navigating that experience, while we are navigating that experience, we have an idea of how we're behaving, what we're thinking, what we're feeling, where we are on that map, and not to say like, oh, I've given completely to strength, I've given for the sake of vulnerability. The other thing I'll say is this is incredibly helpful for me in order to map other people.
Speaker 3:Where is this person on that spectrum of strength and vulnerability? Well, they're. You know this person. I know that I tend to have conflict with or I struggle to feel at ease in their presence. Well, they occupy these things, maybe strength or interdependence, or insecure versus secure, whatever the dichotomy is. So I really like stuff like this.
Speaker 3:I like applying language and I actually like thinking about and we won't go into this I like thinking about how language limits us from further identifying and mapping these things.
Speaker 2:There's other languages that have words for that thing that we don't have a word for, and I'm certainly not, and I think that's kind of what I mean when I say is it worth exploring and dissolving these things a little more? Because, yeah, I think you can almost tie yourself down with English or I mean mean with just language in general, or, like you know, you're using the metaphor of a map, like that's automatically putting constraints on how we would imagine you know, we have a very fixed idea of what a map could be right.
Speaker 2:Usually it's two-dimensional. I mean occasionally you might have, yeah, elevation or you know, but it's it's two-dimensional. I mean occasionally you might have elevation, but it's a very fixed idea of what that concept is. And usually a map is used to navigate from point A to point B, which is already putting maybe more of a Western connotation on the metaphor.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think all of it is technology. Right, Language, a map, all these things are technology that allows us to try to get a handle on something that doesn't want technology might just not have.
Speaker 2:There is none, there's no handle to have, and this goes into social science.
Speaker 3:Yeah, speaking of paradox, right um uh, tying it into like postman yeah, just the idea that we can technology a fi. Yeah, the human experience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think so, where this came from, and exploring like duality, and I mean yeah, just also thinking a lot about just what separates, or, you know, could potentially separate, human experience from a pure technological existence. And you know, obviously just mysticism or spirituality are more harder to grasp, or ungraspable concepts, that kind of vanish when observed and like you try to quantify them and then they vanish.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Doesn't mean that they don't exist, but they are almost unquantifiable. You know, you call it a through line, or the source, or whatever you want to call it, or God, or yeah, but this, I think this idea comes very naturally from that. Yeah, but this, I think this idea comes very naturally from that. It's almost, you know, a mystical state Like paradox is almost a mystical state that really can't be understood well by machines in a sense. Well, I mean, I guess you have like quantum computing, which is in a sense paradox, but you're still working with two easily identifiable points. So I do think the metaphor stands up better to scrutiny when you start to remove the like, the, the clear point a, and you know counterpoint, or point and counterpoint, and you start to just see it as kind of an underlying paradox to everything. I don't know, I'm going down a rabbit hole that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, just again exploring an idea that don't necessarily, you know, any thought of coming up with the answer. You know I don't have any.
Speaker 2:I can read the passage that I sent you to yeah, from the doubt. Yes, that was, that was great, it was so. When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other, difficult and easy. Support each other Long and short, define each other High and low, depend on each other before and after, follow each other. Therefore, the master acts without doing anything and teaches without saying anything. Things arise and she lets them come. Things disappear and she lets them go. She has, but doesn't possess. Acts but doesn't expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That's why it lasts forever.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean that's kind of the line of thinking and just something interesting to explore, I think, in your work and just in general in the way that you approach, just in your being, yeah, just how you approach life, and I think we'll see a lot more exploration into the mystical as an antidote to technology, especially with language models and some of the progressions that we've seen. I could be wrong, but it tends to be historically how how the pattern shapes out, and I I do think you know, learning to embrace some of these things are are going to be a key component and you know, I just want to start to embrace some of these things in in my life and in my the work I create too.
Speaker 3:And and experiment. You know, I I've alluded to, you know, what I've gone through in the last two plus two ish years and I like the idea of, you know, really trying to actively experiment, consciously experiment between the duality, the two places you know, really explore that gradient to its edges as much as possible. And I feel like there has been some of that, maybe not consciously, and see, basically I want to feel now, this isn't about control, but I want to feel like I'm more in the driver's seat, not necessarily saying, well, you need, you know, I want to go over here right now for a little while, but sort of surrendering and letting it pull me where the current or the slipstream is going to take me, versus sort of having the wool pulled over my eyes, to use the cliche, and being pulled in certain directions or pushed in certain directions unknowingly because of the influence of culture, mass media, social media, et cetera, and sort of not realizing. I think there's always an element of that, again, a spectrum. You're always going to be influenced by things, your friends, the environment where you live, what you're seeing on television, on movies, social media, whatever, but just to have a deeper awareness and this is environmental awareness but also internal awareness of sort of what's going on, and, again, not to control it, not to have everything locked down and I don't mean locked down as in shut down or closed off, I just mean like you're not succumbing to environmental influences but you're also not succumbing to your own impulses or compulsions or indulgences.
Speaker 3:And even just in me saying this, I can hear myself talking about extreme states, right, but trying to occupy the gradient in between. But trying to occupy the gradient in between and that's what's exciting to me is reading stuff like that, reading Rick Rubin's book, reading Updike, listening to Updike's interviews All the things that we are consuming is to enhance our awareness of those things, but not necessarily to have clarity, definitive understanding, to know every. You know chasm and marsh and the map of the human experience, to know everything about every person you interact with and what the pitfalls and opportunities are with that person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just, uh, a desire for greater understanding how do you think you can push more towards seeing things as they are, like escaping that. So I I heard this. It's timely also, but I heard the story every. I I mean you've heard it. Everybody listening most likely has heard this, but you know the the emperor's new clothes, where it's? You know, this group sells the emperor a new set of clothes, right yeah. And he says you can only see these clothes if you are of a certain level of intelligence. And so in reality, the emperor is naked. He goes walking around town but nobody wants to say that he's naked, because then it means that they can't see his clothes. So that means that they're not of a level of intelligence. So everybody just buys into the delusion that the emperor has clothes on. And you know, am I crazy?
Speaker 2:I think he's naked but, it's a really powerful story and like I've probably heard it a hundred times and I've never really thought about it. I mean, obviously I've thought about it and you know it's a powerful metaphor, but just you know it's a powerful metaphor, but just you know it's timely right now and eventually, yeah, you know a kid is like why are you naked?
Speaker 2:Yes right and it breaks the illusion or the delusion. And yeah, like sometimes it just takes seeing the world. You know things. People love to complicate things and we've talked about this on the show a lot before, where people tend to over complicate things in service of their own ego or their own absolutely, and their own ambition and their own ambition and but also, yeah, it's it separates them yeah and so you know, people want to be seen as intelligent, so they want to see. You know the emperor's beautiful clothes, that's right.
Speaker 3:Well, what was that? I always ask you to tell me what it is, but it's like that, like the, the thinking, like a baby thing, like the baby brain or I don't know, baby brain there's something where, like I mean I guess, like there's the zen, like beginner's mind, or beginner's mind, beginner's mind, that's what it is.
Speaker 3:I always forget that? Yeah, and that, to me, is obviously the perfect example. A child just sees what it is for what it is why are you naked? And says what everybody else has been pressured or influenced to think or not think, right, I don't have a big point with that but I'm just pointing out like that's something that's interesting. You know, beginner's brain versus whatever the.
Speaker 2:the paradox or the opposing side of that is yeah Well yeah, you know the child isn't worried about how are people going to think about my level of intelligence or how are people going to judge me in contrast to the whole of society? And you know, I kind of part of me thinks that that's a big thing, or a key responsibility of the artist is to do whatever they can to maintain that vision of the world, or to get to that vision of the world, like to work through the you know, the pitfalls of modern society and get to a place where they can just see it as you know, why are you naked?
Speaker 3:It's almost like crazy that you, that we've come to this, because I pulled these clips from this john the couple of these john updyke interviews I was listening to as something to potentially talk about and hopefully this is the right one. Um, let me play this and this is perfectly appropriate play it into the microphone.
Speaker 2:You've mentioned several times self-indulgence and I imagine there's a problem there.
Speaker 1:You need to have a strong ego to be a good writer but then you get concerned that you might be writing just for your ego, not for your inner voice. You say a strong ego. I think of it more as innocence. A writer must be in some way innocent. He must innocently assume that what he has to say is interesting to others and that his life is somehow a significant, a usable index of life in general. So these are very dubious assumptions. Nevertheless, you do make them. And as to self-indulgence, I'm going to go forward oh.
Speaker 1:I wanted to hear the rest. You want to hear the rest. Okay, I've been ruined by listening to good advice from other people than by indulging yourself. I do get advice, of course I have editors and so on, and sometimes I take it, but in general I think a writer should have the courage of his own instincts and believe that the way you wanted to go and what you wanted to say is probably the the right the right way to go.
Speaker 2:It's also interesting because, yeah, he's getting at again two things that are opposite, but true.
Speaker 3:And the quite you know the, the thing that lights me up, bringing that soundbite up. Um, if anybody's sort of like, what does that have to do with any of this?
Speaker 3:You know, he's being asked like what role does that have to do with any of this? You know he's being asked like what role does outside influence play? And specifically in the publishing world, an editor or someone who's giving you feedback on something that you've written? And again, they're exploring these extremes right In this conversation about self-indulgence and masturbatory work, where it's all about you and ego.
Speaker 3:And I just love how he reframes ego as innocence, that innocence in opposition to indulgence. And the reason I brought that up too is because, talking about beginner's brain and the child sees like to me, I always associate and especially because I have two kids, the word innocence occupies my mind all the time. My kids do things constantly where it's just it is that child seeing that the emperor is naked. It is just this pure innocence that is so amazing to see because for the most part, I don't you know, you don't know in yourself what experience you've had or things that you do or say or whatever, where you know it comes from a place of innocence. And obviously we've had conversations all the time about me struggling with ego and hijacking art for some sort of commercial outcome or attention based outcome or ego based outcome.
Speaker 3:Um, so for him to, to, to use that word. That's part of why I pulled the. I literally downloaded the whole episode, went right to that clip, pulled that clip and cut that out as as. Again going back to this, how does the use of that word help me to create a sort of metaphysical map? And I use the word metaphysical just in the sense of it's not this hard, fast rule like go here, do this. It's just this sort of thing. It's just, it's a little bit more ethereal than that, a little bit more transcendent than that, to continue to help navigate those situations.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so Well, I think this might not be true for everybody. You know, with most things there's exceptions, but I do think you, in the process of making work, you have to navigate through a period of indulging your ego in the traditional sense, or maybe in more of the self.
Speaker 2:Um, like selfish sense, not where he's talking about, like when I hear him talking about you have to think that your story is, has relevance. Um, there's thinking that your story has relevance and writing about it, and then there's identifying yourself as just a component of the whole and realizing that you can use what you know and understand as a representation of something more you know, more whole or greater than yourself, and I think that's a very different concept than using yourself because you are indulging that I want people to see me in this light or I want to be associated with these things, or I want to be accepted.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those are two very and they look on the surface. They look like the same thing, probably to to more to certain people, but those are very different concepts, at least in my mind. Those are very different concepts and I think that's a very important important. It's a very important distinction to make when you are creating work, because one of them is is just going to crumble and one of them is going to actually have something worth worth saying. Yeah, typically, work that serves your, your own ego or yourself, is finite and it's probably not gonna. Yeah, it's probably not gonna. It's not, it's not gonna outlive the being that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he has a another thing where he says, um, uh, what does he say? Uh, lifting the ordinary into the eternal, lifting the ordinary into the eternal realm of art. Yeah, and obviously ordinary is a specific thing, but to me that, that idea that, um, occupying the gradient when making work and moving undulating back and forth between one side and the other, and let's say ego and self-indulgence and whatever the opposite of that is, I can't immediately think of the words, but innocence. Let's say, um, I think you need a little bit of one side, because you have to trust your instincts. You have to say yourself, especially if you're getting input or this or that you have to be able to say, sometimes in a harsh way I know that what I'm doing is the right way to do this. But then also there's a surrender, I think, to the other side of the spectrum, maybe not in that case of like talking to someone where you're like okay, yeah, let's try your idea.
Speaker 2:I think it does come down to the where's the feedback coming from? Because you can tell sometimes you'll work with somebody and they'll provide feedback. If you're versed in identifying between self and selfless, or like for the sake of the work or for the sake of the individual, if you're versed in creating and finding that distinction, then you can typically tell if somebody is giving a suggestion to serve themselves in the work or through the work or serve the actual work. I heard we were listening to something and they were shooting. Martin Scorsese was shooting something and Spielberg came onto set and he just let Spielberg kind of give input on all of these things and they're just discussing how that is like the lack of ego. You have to have to let somebody come and just kind of take over your set and then they're like that's almost the ultimate form of ego being so confident that you know you are just focused on getting the best thing.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And you're it's. You're completely indifferent to how you get to that state, whether that's from somebody else, like there is a best way to do the thing and, if you can separate yourself from, my way is the best or this way is the best, and just know that there is a best way and however you get there is the. That's the optimal, you know path, or the optimal result is getting to that. Yeah, best version of the of the thing. That's when you really open up the opportunity to create something that is transcendent or better than than just your individual idea.
Speaker 2:And so, yeah, getting back to just the idea of taking feedback, you have to be able to distinguish between. This person is giving me feedback to help get to that point, yeah, and that comes with trust, that comes with having a relationship with the person, but also having that you've seen the process take place or been through the process enough times to distinguish between the two. And a lot of times you get people that are just giving feedback to serve themselves, feedback to serve themselves, and it's very dangerous, um, because those are two completely different things, Right, and one of them, yeah, you'd be silly not to take the feedback extremely seriously, and the other, the feedback is going to be destructive, yep.
Speaker 3:And I think that relates to your own experience of making the work, speaking about the gradient and kind of vacillating back and forth between these areas. You can. You can have your work where it's really moving towards the self-indulgent side of the spectrum. You know the the I want this, I like this, this is, this is how I want it to be. You know the. I want this, I like this, this is how I want it to be.
Speaker 3:But if you're doing that at the expense of the experience that the consumer of that work is going to have, you're going on tangents.
Speaker 3:I'm speaking of writing or novels specifically, even though I don't write novels, I'm trying to relate it back to Updike. I'm trying to relate it back to Updike. But you can indulge in all these impulses or compulsions or instincts or whatever, and you can end up crafting something that might be interesting or have a vibe or be engaging in a sometimes painful way, but the audience is not being taken care of. But then, obviously, you can go so far that you are pandering to the audience so much that you're not actually making anything that's any good, but occupying that gradient going. What's the reader or the audience experiencing as they consume this with what I want, what I want it to be, that might be different than what's come before it. That might be, um, a little bit self-indulgent without being masturbatory about, uh, just taking the audience right to the edge of where you're going to lose them in the read because you really want to touch on this idea or go down this little rabbit hole or whatever, which we probably do in this podcast. Plenty of times?
Speaker 3:Do you have a place where you draw the line between self-indulgent and I don't, because I'm 45 years old and I've tried making all kinds of stuff from a YouTube video where I just sit in front of a camera and talk for 15 minutes all the way to something. That's what I think is created with the audience's experience in mind and, you know, one comes out feeling sort of hollow and empty and the other one comes out feeling interesting but poorly crafted and trying to figure out in that experimentation and exploring the gradient.
Speaker 3:And trying to figure out in that experimentation and exploring the gradient, you know how do you do this, and you sit down. You know, for me, I'm, I'm, I'm definitely keyed up on update, cause I read rabbit run and and I'm like he, he kind of took me to my edge, where I'm like I'm ready to be like are we going to? You know, this is beautifully written, but what are we doing here? And then, all of a sudden, holy shit. And then you're, I mean I'm just hooked, I'm like dying to read the next book in the series and all in on that. So he's someone with you know talent and craft all of those things, doing these things masterfully, and craft all of those things doing these things masterfully. And I mean, obviously I keep jumping from one one form of expression to another, whether it's whether it's um you know screenwriting or it's interesting.
Speaker 3:YouTube videos or writing poetry or whatever, but never enough time in one to really understand how to learn the self indulgent side.
Speaker 2:It's so interesting how some people can be so self indulgent, though, and still, and I have been no, but like in the sense of like. There I think of like. Maybe this isn't self indulgence, maybe this begs for a different categorization of um, but I think of somebody like henry miller and I'm not.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I terribly, and no of, no of. I can't.
Speaker 2:Haven't read any of it's just very like all over the place and like you're like, okay, wow, this guy you know he's essentially the character in a lot of his writing, um, and but it's somehow it breaks through that and gets to something that's just completely true and so it's. It's just very interesting how some people can almost be self-indulgent to the point that it breaks through to like the base reality in a sense, and then some people it's just completely it gets caught in there and maybe that's has to do with intention, maybe that has to do with execution, right, but a lot of you know I I watched um killer's kiss um over over christmas, uh, and that was kubrick's second film, second feature film yeah, I didn't even know.
Speaker 2:I hadn't even heard of it yeah, so it's, it's pretty quick watch it's like 60 minutes, but watching that it's very it's. You know you, my immediate thought was okay, kubrick had a film, school phase two, you know where. You're just making it and you're like it's hard to. I don't want to. We've all been there, everybody's been there. K Kubrick was there. But you're watching it and you're just like, okay, this is a very finite perspective and this is he's definitely. This is in there to show us that this is possible and he can do this.
Speaker 2:And yeah he's thought about this and it's a very it's a shallow, um. I mean, yeah, it's, it's a shallow um. I mean, yeah, it's, it's a bit of a shallow film and it's amazing to watch that and then see what went on to come, what he went on to. Author in the medium.
Speaker 3:And that's part of his gradient in his body of work.
Speaker 2:And you see, that with a lot of directors you watch you know, early, early. I'm just talking about, and you know, you see, that with a lot of directors you watch early. I'm just talking about you see this with literature too. I mean everybody who's written anything considerable over time. You go back to some of the early stuff. Photography's the same, Everything's like this. I think you have to work through that, yeah.
Speaker 3:And Updike talks about that in his pieces. He talks about his first novel that he calls an experimental novel, that he was just trying to see if he could write a novel and took a lot of liberty self-indulged. I don't know that he personally said I self-indulged, but he sort of knew he was doing something as an experiment.
Speaker 2:I don't think anybody's super aware of it. In a sense and maybe that is the superpower is you become aware of it and figure out how like maybe that is part of the genius of Henry Miller is that he figured out how to take it to such a level that it overcame the Right.
Speaker 2:He overcame the. You know the traditional constraints of the, of the format. I mean, maybe that is part of it, but I don't think anybody in film school is writing something and they're thinking that it's. I mean, yes, they're a bit young and naive and they're maybe approaching it and thinking that it's more important than it is, but I don't think they're sitting there and they're like, oh man, like. I mean, maybe you're thinking, man, people are going to like this or this, they're going to think about this, but they're not sitting there and thinking I'm being so self-indulgent, absolutely. That's the problem is.
Speaker 2:You don't know that, you don't know.
Speaker 3:And that's why we come up with words, and I think about maps and all this stuff, because I have done that stuff unknowingly.
Speaker 2:I had uh. What was the short film?
Speaker 3:No, well, I mean that those were elements of that completely. It was all sort of a. It was all like uh, um, uh, I don't know how, to what word to say. It's not virtue, but it's um, like gene, like art, genius, signaling. You know, like what would this short film look like if an artist, genius, filmmaker was making it? Well, do this. It's just bullshit.
Speaker 3:And I had two plays that I wrote because they started at Florida State a one-act play festival and the way that they were doing it. Anyway, we were the first class that did it. So we got to do it two years in a row and every other class only did it once. So I wrote a one act that was received really well. Um, when I, when I, when it was shown, like to the point where I was surprised, I mean I didn't think it sucked or anything. I mean I, I wrote what I wanted to say and I was really pleased that the feedback was there.
Speaker 3:So then, when the next opportunity came, I wrote the biggest piece of self-indulgent bullshit there is. I mean complete. I mean talk about the spectrum and the gradient on both sides. This thing was so pretentious and so self-indulgent and I had no clue, no clue. And then the audience watches it and people are like, I mean, people were just thought it was terrible. Now, obviously they didn't come up to me, but you could, I could see it on their faces.
Speaker 3:There were a couple of people who left early. I'm like, oh, this is not good, but I'm clueless. I'm like, oh, this is not good, but I'm clueless. I'm like, but this has all the ingredients of these plays that I've been reading all in class and I'm just harvesting these ingredients but not understanding how to actually make the thing. I don't want to get into baking metaphor, but it was just a total fabrication for what my ego wanted as an outcome to be perceived of as a playwriter.
Speaker 3:I remember sending it out to one of the faculty because he liked my first play so much that he wanted to direct my next thing and I sent him what the title was and he's like, ooh, I love that title. And then I sent him the play and he literally didn't say a word. He didn't even reply. He read it, didn't reply. And then he came to the play and I think, like literally the second it was over, he left, whereas with the first play that I wrote, he was excited to talk to me and came up to me and had a bunch of questions and all that stuff and I'm like, yeah, you just.
Speaker 3:But even then I still didn't understand that what I had done was just total bullshit. And then I wrote a 10-minute play for a 10-minute play festival after and it was less bullshit, but it was still bullshit. And that's been my struggle ever since including feedback from others, letting them basically turn into the writer. But I'm the one that types all the words Because I want their approval, I want the greater possibility of selling a screenplay and I certainly had work that I did early on that I felt had elements of self-indulgence, but it was more like the first play that I wrote where I was really exploring something and not trying to say something but asking a question and exploring those ideas through the writing but not taking care of the audience as much. Like a huge, big, bloated first act.
Speaker 3:The actual storytelling wasn't very well executed, but I think the intentions were from a better place.
Speaker 3:And then, as soon as I realize how difficult it is to um uptake has another um great quote, um in one of the interviews I pulled about let's not be so precious about what we do that, um, we're going to rail against the gatekeepers of the publishing industry. It's a capitalist enterprise. Like you got to write some good shit to break through and and get in there. Tough shit, suck it up and do it. Well, you know, part of me moving on past screenwriting, part of it not the whole thing was this is this is too hard to get past the gatekeepers, so what can I do? That gets me in front of an audience where I can really see a better measurement of what I'm making and how it connects with people. Um, and then, of course, finding out that that's happening with developing an audience on YouTube, but still realizing you're not as good with crafting something for the audience as you should be and could be, and you're also, at times, being too self-indulgent, thinking that they just want to sit there and watch you talk in front of a camera.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, yeah, I think it's interesting to you. You said you know how you in your, how you in your, how you were talking about what to aim for. You said you presented the question better, you presented, and yeah, just everything always goes back to that. I heard something in the last couple of days where it was. It's the quote a problem well stated is a problem half solved, yeah. And then you go back to the Winogrand quote where it's the quote a problem. Well, stated is a problem half solved, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then you go back to the Winogrand quote, where it's like the the per, the role of the artist is to state the question Right. And so you think of the interplay between artists and audience and it's like, yeah, the artist's role is to do half of the work.
Speaker 2:The audience's role is to do the other half. So the artist is to present the question, state it well, that's right, you're doing half of the work, and then the other side is the audience to come along. So the work is not, it's meaningless without that other half, that's right, and that's goes back to this. Absolutely Dwell construct.
Speaker 3:you know, the artist and the audience are creating alchemy in this middle gradient and this a work, a work you know, created to be, you can have a perfect work of art and it's not.
Speaker 2:it's still only half of the equation, right? Uh, to be I can actual work art and yeah, I think a lot of people, if you just if you, if you're working to try to, you know the audience is going to do their half. So if you're working to, you know do half of their job and then you sacrifice half of your job in order to accomplish that, then you're presenting something and they can only bring their half to it. So then you have an incomplete. You know a fourth of the of the final piece is missing.
Speaker 2:That's right, and I think that's a really interesting way to look at creating anything.
Speaker 3:And that's where, in making anything too right, like when you make something because, quote, I know versus and I don't know if this is the perfect, the perfect um, and not opposite, but perfect alternative to that, I wonder you know like I? I try to think of it as that, you know, because if you say I know, then you're just, you're just, you know like I. I try to think of it as that, you know, because if you say I know, then you're just, you're just, you know didactic, you're just dictating to it, to, to someone, what they should think and feel, but to me, you know, uh, like we said with Winogrand, then you're advertising.
Speaker 3:That's what Winogrand would say, yeah, you're selling, um, or you're, you know, gaining power, or you're, uh, creating subjects. You know that kind of thing, um, you know that idea of um, wondering and or having a feeling about something and asking a question what does that? You know? What does this mean? Or what is this about? Or, and then exploring it through art and then sharing it with an audience for them to bring the other side of the spectrum to it. That's where the excitement is, and certainly I've written things that are, or made things where it's. This is it. Here you go, you're welcome, and that's no good.
Speaker 2:So I think how do you work? And we kind of touched on this a little bit, but I'm just restating like, how do you get through that? Is it just keep doing it? Reflect after you finish.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think you know maybe it's not meant to be formula like a formulaic process, but yeah, yeah, definitely not a formulaic process, but I think you, you know, um, I think in general we have an understanding of when we're feeling something, wondering about something, curious about something, and we want to explore that through the work and ask a question, or you know a question and maybe sort of satellite questions. And maybe sort of satellite questions. I think you just have a sense of being in that state, versus you've consumed something or seen something or felt something and you come down with a hard-line stance on it and you're going to have the characters in your play or in your movie or in your painting or whatever, you know, puppet, your your views your belief, your stance, and not even a belief your knowledge.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, this is it.
Speaker 2:Um some of the biggest stinkers we've seen or read or whatever in the last year.
Speaker 3:And's usually what people are falling victim to yeah, I'm being told how to think and feel, instead of being presented with something that has me go I'm not sure, or I wonder I need to look into this or explore this more. There's that moment when this happened. Oh, that's interesting, and those are the things that are most exciting.
Speaker 2:Going back to the metaphor of the emperor has no clothes. I think a really big sign that somebody's naked in art is like when you're participating with their art or their work is, if they're coming from a point of view as the anointed passing their wisdom. Right, that's on to you, that's exactly right, that's. That's a pretty clear-cut sign that they're naked they have no clothes and so you can buy into that.
Speaker 2:Man. Maybe there is like a mass hysteria, there is a delusion, but if they're claiming to have the answer and this is the answer, then they they're not. They don't have the answer. Yep, and it's a pretty good sign that there's something that they haven't there's, there's a component to the work that they haven't contended with yet. Yes, so agreed, going back to the kind of the paradoxes or the, you know, dualities are there any?
Speaker 2:is there anything on this list that, excuse me, is there anything on this list that you've been, I don't want to say struggling with, but like maybe that you've?
Speaker 2:I mean, we've talked about a lot of these in you know, the past 37 episodes, or however many we've done, we've talked about ambition and contentedness and certainty and doubt and simplicity and complication or complexity. You know, independence and interdependence, tradition, innovation, like these are all subjects that we contend with and I think we've done a pretty good job of just not taking a side, because there is no side to be taken. I think that's one of the hardest things to kind of get a grasp on is there isn't a side, these things just are and they're both necessary components. But is there anything on here that you've particularly? I mean we've got like patience and urgency, control and surrender. I know we've talked about that a lot. That's been, yeah. Is there anything that's been like on your mind lately?
Speaker 2:All right, so those two and this is not an exhaustive list, obviously, this is. This is just what I, sitting down at the desk, what I came up with.
Speaker 3:I think a big, the two, the two big dichotomies or dualities that have been present most in our conversations have been control and surrender, selfish and selfless. Lately, though, the one that has been on my mind is and that I've just been exploring is and I don't know if this is a perfect duality but revolution versus renaissance, where, at least my understanding, revolution is sort of burn it down, build it up from, you know, from scratch, and Renaissance is bring these other things back to the forefront, while still maintaining some of what is and I feel like that is a lot of what I've been experiencing in my life literally bringing things back from the past, um, whether it's physical media, things back from the past, whether it's physical media, clothing, you know different things.
Speaker 2:That physical proximity to people and ideas.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, getting, yes, getting away from sitting in front of the magic rectangle and out in the world talking to people, third places, all that stuff and took that term revolution versus renaissance. I was listening to Bill Maher's Club Random podcast and someone that he was interviewing it might have been Jordan Peterson was talking about revolution. He said no more of a renaissance and they agreed on that distinction. Not that Jordan misspoke, but he sort of the first word that popped into his head was revolution and Bill sort of corrected and said I think it's more of a renaissance and I think not that I've been sitting here going. There's a revolution happening in your life, matt, but just understanding there's certain things that happen where it does feel revolutionary, present the things that I connect with most in my present being.
Speaker 3:This sort of renaissance is really helpful to me to have that language as a framework for what I'm experiencing, while still understanding. There's gradient in between, there's spectrums of these words that you're going to be touching on, just like with control and surrender, just like with selfish and selfless, just like the other spectrum that I came up with in the previous not the previous episode, but a previous episode indulgence versus sacrifice. And while that may not be linguistically the perfect whatever, in my mind those words and what they represent emotionally um occupy both sides of the shoe and and and understanding in between, um, how how that flow, how that flow works, and then that's just. You know, I don't know that fully answers your question, but those are the things that have been on my mind, with revolution and Renaissance being the immediate one, as indulgence and sacrifice has has settled into the map Like okay, got it. Now I'm seeing where revolution and renaissance maybe kind of fit in that.
Speaker 1:It had been a golden afternoon and I remember having the familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with the summits. Thank you,
