What makes a great song great is not its close resemblance to a recognizable work. Writing a good song is not mimicry, or replication, or pastiche, it is the opposite. It is an act of self-murder that destroys all one has strived to produce in the …
There’s really only one question that can be answered, Genry, and we already know the answer….The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty: not knowing what comes next.
“…frequently my sense of what’s urgent is really a matter of someone else’s priorities or anxieties… But that doesn’t follow. It’s not that other people’s priorities don’t count at all. It’s just that they needn’t obliterate all other considerations.”
Social media users documented in the moment, rather than retrospectively. What we have now is a cognitive state more akin to a coiled spring, where we consume “content” with the expectation of engagement rather than of participation.
“Oh, sure, I have control over some things. That’s called responsibility. But trying to take responsibility for what isn’t mine, for what I can’t, or shouldn’t rightly, control, isn’t taking responsibility. It’s grasping for control. And it’s no good.”
No One Cares - “People care about how your output helps them. No one cares about much else.”
It’s a cynical take, and I know it isn’t healthy, but I’ve been feeling this a lot lately.
“I still trust comics, but the jokes, memes and comments of internet trolls are different. Trolls don’t seek to demonstrate and celebrate trust; they strive to destroy it. The troll does not want to use offense as a tool to get to shared humanity. There is no bravery.“
“One of the biggest sins on the modern internet is trying too hard to be funny. It has caused the internet’s sense of humor to turn cruel in the last decade and our knee-jerk response to earnest humor to be negative. Putting oneself out there …
“We exist in a state of continuous and conscious attention triage, which can be exhausting, disorienting, and demoralizing.”