“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didin’t really do it, they just saw something. It seems obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”
I still don’t know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I’d got it made
It seemed the taste
was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I’ve never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I’m much too fast to take that test
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don’t want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the stranger)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can’t trace time
I first heard of Ernesto Sabato on Gavdos island. I went to that earthly paradise for a ten day break some years ago and I left on a brilliant day almost two months later. There, in the community of free-campistas I dwelt in silence and in beautiful conversations that kept the same gentle rhythm of rising and passing away, as the sea, the days and the season’s imprints on nature at that dear beach that was our home. While there, we used to call that place the Epicurean Garden.
Just yesterday I found this interview Sabato gave at the ‘Unesco Courier‘ journal for the August 1990 issue. I have highlighted so many phrases in my personal copy, so I thought of sharing some here as quotes but to also include the entire interview at the bottom:
“Is Don Quixote “unreal”? If reality bears any relationship to durability, then this character born of Cervantes’ imagination is much more real than the objects that surround us, for he is immortal.”
“Art can no more progress than a dream can, and for the same reasons.”
“I must be a reactionary because I still believe in dull, mediocre democracy, the only regime which, after all, allows me to think freely and to prepare the way for a better reality.”
“The places in which any significant event occurred become embedded with some of that emotion, and so to recover the memory of the place is to recover the emotion, and sometimes to revisit the place uncovers the emotion. Every love has its landscape.”
“This isn’t a photograph of her — it’s too soon. This is someone else. I keep the real photos hidden, so I won’t stumble upon them accidentally. But I keep them, because they are my story. I know that one day I’ll start a new story with someone else, a better story, and I’ll be able to revisit these images. When I do, it will heal more than hurt. May that time be soon.”
Joshua Longbrake’s caption on his image “The Stand In” on The One Who Got Away in Pictory
Pictory is a site for showcasing captioned photographs from people around the world. From what I have understood, founder and editor Laura Brunow Miner suggests a theme and members can submit one captioned image to illustrate it from their personal, cultural point of view.
Some theme galleries are really interesting. All past theme galleries exist in their archive. I first noticed this site when its ‘current’ gallery was presenting the theme: “The One Who Got Away”. I thought and still think it was a very touching one…
TED is one of my favourite platforms / sites out there. I always try to be updated with its events and event uploads and most of the times I am amazed by the people, ideas and material there is! Creative minds from all sorts of walks of life and fields communicate their creative thinking, they get attention and hopefully further their funding options, while we get to have “shining eyes” out of excitement and wonder. TED has become super trendy and popular these days, but there are older talks that might get ‘lost’ on TED’s always expanding video bank. So I thought of sharing today a talk I love from Benjamin Zander, an orchestra conductor, that gave a presentatiom at TED 2008, on music and passion.
Zander uses this talk to communicate his sense of fulfillment when he shares his love of classical music and of empowering people.
At some point during his talk he says:
‘The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound, he depends of his power on his ability to make other people powerful…. I realised that my job is to awaken possibility to other people”
You know if you are doing it “if other people’s eyes are shining.”
Because the question is, “Who am I being that my players’ eyes are not shining?”