Your Favorite Quotes!

[scottydog]

"What, Me Worry?" -- Alfred E. Neuman

[RJDiogenes]

You forgot about your Emerson quote.

[scottydog]

Humanity is a wayward teenager. Our species has its whole life ahead of it, but the decisions we make now will irrevocably shape the course of our adulthood. We could recognize the stakes of this critical moment, buckle down, do our homework, drink responsibly, eat sustainably, prepare for pandemics, avert robot apocalypses, realize our full potential, and live a long, prosperous, meaningful life before dying peacefully in a supernova at the ripe old age of 1 trillion. Or we could party all the time, get into fights, start a nuclear war, create doomsday bioweapons, tremble before our new robot overlords, live fast, die young, and leave an irradiated corpse. We owe it to our future selves — which is to say, to the hundreds of billions of potential future humans — to choose wisely.

This is from a nice article in the New York Magazine on the future of humanity.

[RJDiogenes]

It's also just about every episode of the original Star Trek.

[scottydog]

It's also just about every episode of the original Star Trek.

Very true

But I like this idea of "longtermism". I may have to add it as an entry in our heroism encyclopedia. Surely it is heroic to look out for the well-being of future humans.

[RJDiogenes]

That's a good idea. Maybe you can get this writer to contribute, or get permission to include the article in the Encyclopedia.

[scottydog]

I just saw this on Facebook. I did some fact-checking, and it appears to have really happened. Regardless, it's pretty inspiring and may motivate me to actually do something creative.

In 2006 a high school English teacher asked students to write a famous author and ask for advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond - and his response is magnificent:

Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:

I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.

What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.

Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.

Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?

Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash receptacals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.

God bless you all!

Kurt Vonnegut

[Lupine]

^Great response.
Reminds me of a "music" video I saw some years ago.

[RJDiogenes]

I just saw this on Facebook. I did some fact-checking, and it appears to have really happened. Regardless, it's pretty inspiring and may motivate me to actually do something creative.

Kurt Vonnegut being unable to spell receptacle makes me slightly suspicious, but it's a nice story. Except that I could never write something and tear it up and throw it away. That's my baby!

^Great response.
Reminds me of a "music" video I saw some years ago.

Nice one. Except I never fantasize that politicians used to be honest. I especially like, "Remember compliments and forget the insults." That's great advice.

[scottydog]

^Great response.
Reminds me of a "music" video I saw some years ago.

That's a great video. I think I watched it years ago, and it did have an impact on me.

I could never write something and tear it up and throw it away. That's my baby!

I did his 6-line poem exercise. I wrote a crappy poem on my computer and deleted it without saving it. I'm slowly getting his point.

"...to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow."

You and Lupy have written fiction, and I haven't. Has this been your experience? Has your writing and artwork made your soul grow? Did you experience "becoming"?

I'm assuming that by "becoming", Vonnegut (or whoever wrote that letter) meant that doing art and being creative helps us "become" our true selves. It helps us unlock our true expressive potential.

[Lupine]

You and Lupy have written fiction, and I haven't. Has this been your experience? Has your writing and artwork made your soul grow? Did you experience "becoming"?

I'm not sure. I started writing in elementary school- initially with an ET rip off. Started again in high school as a hobby. Again nothing good, just adolescent wish-fulfillment of having adventures and getting the girl (which I never did and still don't). I did start thinking about writing more seriously after school though. My first really serious attempt, which eventually turned into Children of Ares, was inspired by another "docu-drama" book called The Greening of Mars. I found the narrator so obnoxious and the Martian government so implausible that I realized that what the authors had set out would lead to a Martian war... Which made me starting thinking how colonization would likely play out with various people going to Mars for their own agendas that wouldn't necessarily coincide with each other. This would lead to the development of nation-states rather than some world-government. It made me start thinking differently and I realized that my writing could be used to explore concepts that weren't really be touched on by other mediums.

[RJDiogenes]

I started writing in elementary school- initially with an ET rip off.

I think my earliest surviving story is a Kolchak rip off.

You and Lupy have written fiction, and I haven't. Has this been your experience? Has your writing and artwork made your soul grow? Did you experience "becoming"?

I would say yes, because when I write, especially when I write poetry, I try to be as concise as possible and to communicate my meandering thoughts and conceptual philosophy as potently as possible-- so I try to drill down to the quintessence of the idea and turn it into a laser beam that I can shoot directly into the reader's brain. This results in my own thoughts being more crystallized when I'm finished. Come to think of it, this also applies to Trunkards, where I only have six panels to work with.