FireVaney's

Do something long enough and you’re likely to develop a certain proficiency, or, at the very least, a certain degree of confidence. Ideally, you’ll achieve both proficiency and confidence. However, is confidence alone demonstrative of success? Confidence, as you know, does not prove competence. (And , oh , the examples I could provide!) But must success be measured in terms of amassed wealth and/or fame? Generally, yes, I suppose so. But only generally, and very generally. Specifically , things can be very different. Yet we all adhere to our own measure—the standards of which will fluctuate throughout our lives; the limits of which will be adjusted depending upon the exhaustion of our mental and/or physical facilities. We’ll all keep butting into that brick wall ( some brick wall), until we burst through…to the next—each one more tenacious than the last (perhaps). As you know , They say: “Persistence.” But one never knows…until, perhaps, one becomes one of Them . They/T

…and then again… “Let me put it this way—someone once told me never to listen to advice from anyone who doesn’t have a vested interest in your success.” –David Mamet

…but then this occurred to him: that you must have—that you must apply and commit yourself to — some “School of Thought,” some “Technique,” or some “Approach” in order to abandon it, Some Day. Yes—it occurred to him, and perhaps not for the first time in his life—that you must have “rules,” and you must embrace these “rules,” so to one day, of course, bend, and then break them. Otherwise, there is no true Liberation; no “Original” or “Pioneering” Artistry, if ever.

“Artists don’t wonder, ‘What is it good for?’ They aren’t driven to ‘create art,’ or to ‘help people,’ or to ‘make money.’ They are driven to lessen the burden of the unbearable disparity between their conscious and unconscious minds, and so to achieve peace.” –Mamet, 3 Uses Of The Knife

A: I don’t trust compliments. B: Why not? A: Because there’s rarely anything to be gained from a criticism. B: Wait. Who rarely gains what ? A: Whoever is issuing the criticism. There’s rarely anything that person can gain. B: And the one being criticized? A: A world of knowledge.

“…art, the organic medium for arbitration between the conscious and subconscious…” –Mamet, 3 Uses Of The Knife

A: He says, over the past month, he’s been somewhat self-destructive. B: Why? A: He says there’s never just one reason. In fact, he says, the reasons keep piling on.

“It is not that great art reveals a great truth, but that it stills a conflict—by airing it rather than rationalizing it. (The repression is the neurosis, as Freud said.)” –Mamet, 3 Uses Of The Knife

Some of us implode or explode in order to pick up the pieces— just to have pieces to pick up; just to have something (different) to do. Some of us are just THAT bored, or just THAT lonely, or just THAT human, or just THAT fill-in-the-blank.

“We will have drama in that spot, and if it’s not forthcoming we will cobble it together out of nothing.” –Mamet, 3 Uses Of The Knife