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Tag: Einstein

Being An Artist

May 9, 2021

Starting to catch up on texts now. Feeling better after Wednesday’s peocedure 👍. Last night i read one where someone, younger, had texted me asking me “how do you know if you want to be an artist? How do you know if you’re good?” I must have replied right before falling asleep, because I didn’t remember any of this until I saw it this morning. But I did indeed reply.

“Well to begin with, those are two totally different things. Im not even sure they’re related. And secondly, an artist never questions those things. An artist knows they’re an artist from early on. You know this, right? (Not to say it’s not a valid or interesting question… as a contemplation maybe…) but it’s not something an artist thinks about or asks… because it implies art as some sort of vocation one chooses. Like choosing a college to choose a major to choose a career….

“But art doesn’t work that way. There’s no choosing going on. Artists already know they’re an artist. Because every waking moment of their entire life since they can remember has been spent thinking about, planning and creating art. See? You either know because you KNOW, because you’ve always known, as any artist does, or you don’t know.

“Pretty much the same thing with being “good” as you called it. (Assume and see quotes around the word “good” from now on; because we can’t use that term without having it in quotes. It’s just too subjective and insignificant to the subject to not have in quotes.) Not sure being good is related to art to be honest.

“Craftsman are good. People can have good skillsets. But that doesn’t make them artists. And vice versa. We all know people who are really skilled at something, heck even like playing the piano or something “in the arts” but they’re not artists. And vice versa. Some of the greatest artists of all time were never very skilled at anything. You know? Because art transcends all that.

“That’s an important point. The other, perhaps more important here, is that being good is such a subjective idea, it’s so momentary and fleeting, completely dependent on the viewer the audience the culture and geography and time they’re from, their mood… artists know this… and trust me, artists are never wondering if they’re good. Number one, they’re way beyond that. They KNOW they’re good. Always have. What they’re focused on is getting better and being fucking great. On transcending the art form itself.

“You mentioned earlier that you’re “still working on your technique”. But remember, technique has very little to do with being an artist. It can’t hurt. Unless it does. Then you need to be prepared to scrap it entirely. If it ever threatens your art.”

“If I’m not focusing on technique what am i focusing on?”

“On creating incredible art! Silly. Look, technique is just one of those things along for the ride for a while. Until it’s no longer useful. Then you ditch it to create better art. Because you’re an artist. Not a technician. You wanna become a radiologist? Master a technique. You’ll do a lot of good in the world and you’ll make a lot of money. Both of which are awesome.

“So you didn’t practice a lot when you were a kid?”

“Hell yeah I practiced. Obsessively. From the moment I got my first guitar I did nothing but play guitar. And years before that it was the piano. Every day all day long. But once I got that guitar man all i did was practice guitar. First thing I did when I woke up, before getting dressed for school. First thing I did when I got home from school till dinner. And then all night till I fell asleep. Obsessively.

“And very soon after it turned into being more about songwriting. The guitar itself became secondary to the real art-form, writing songs. Creating. I realized pretty early on that there were a lot of people out there who were very “skilled” at playing the guitar, or any instrument, and they could practice twenty hours a day and may become great at it or not, but they weren’t creating anything new. They weren’t pulling new creations of artistic divinity out of thin air. They were just getting really good on the guitar. Or piano. Or violin. More power to them.

“But I recognized early on that wasn’t art. That was technical skill. I was about ten when that hit me. And if there’s one thing an artist doesn’t have its patience to develop technical skill. Too busy trying to create something out of thin air. That’s what artists do.

“Think of Einstein and his theory of relativity. Pulled that thing out of thin air. Or that John Lennon quote where he said “give me a tuba and I’ll create art with it… because that’s what we do.” See? His playing the guitar was totally secondary to his art form. Really just a tool. But he could have had any tool. It wouldn’t have mattered.

“How do you ever reach the point where you think you’re as good as the artists you really love and admire? Who inspired you?”

“Well again, with that “good” idea again. Look, an artist knows they’re the shit from the day they’re born. It’s a knowing. You’re not comparing yourself to anyone. You KNOW you’re incredible. You know you’re the future. You know you’re creating magic. And it’s got nothing to do with other people. You just know that what you’re doing, who you are, is important. Really important.

“And trust me, you need to KNOW this. Because artists sacrifice their entire lives for their art. They sacrifice fitting in, friendships, being a part of the gang, relationships, feeling a part of society, marriages and kids, feeling “normal”, having money…. on and on. Because you’re so completely obsessed with and committed to creating art, creating the next big thing, besting yourself, transcending art and life itself, you end up sacrificing almost everything else in life because of this obsession and commitment to being a great artist. So you HAVE to KNOW.

“And it’s not arrogance. It’s a confident knowing. People who accuse you of arrogance don’t feel that way about themselves. So they don’t know. To them it may actually seem like arrogance, because they’ve never felt that way about themselves. They don’t wake up living 24 hours a day thinking they’re one of the greatest artists in human history. Great artists do. It’s just part of their nature. No one is going to talk them out of it.

“Do art from that space. From that place of being. Like Mozart. Or Van Gogh. Or Eddie Van Halen. But as YOU. One of the greatest most important artists of all time. You know already if you’re that or not. You always have. Now just go be it and do it.”

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Art and Entertainment, Music, Personal Life, Psychology and Human Behavior being an artist, Eddie Van Halen, Einstein, john Lennon, knowing you’re an artist, mozart, sacrifices artists make, sacrificing for your art, technicians versus artists, Van Gogh

article 2019-04-29 124624_7.html

February 21, 2005
My heart has broken open. not broken. Just broken open. love… wow… it had been a long time. I feel completely raw. I had forgotten what it was like. No wonder it is all the talk of the world.

Break…

There is the theory of the hypnogogic state of consciousness… this is the state just before you fall asleep, or just after you have fallen asleep. Just when you begin dreaming, but you are still awake enough to be aware that you are asleep. It is as if you are watching yourself. Your dreams are very vivid. Ideas abound. I don’t remember who it was off the top of my head, maybe Davinci or twain or Einstein… perhaps none of them, but I remember the story where he used to sit at his desk with a string attached to a bell hanging above him. just as he fell asleep his arm would fall which would make the bell ring. He would then wake up out of dreaming and immediately start writing down everything he could remember from the dream great thoughts can come out of this state of consciousness. There is another story about another man, again I cannot remember who it was, who used to do the same thing by holding a ball in his hand so as soon as he fell into sleep his grip would loosen and the ball would drop to the floor waking him up and he would also immediately write down everything he could remember.

It is a given that artists of all kinds, writers, composers, etc leave pens and notepads by their bed and all over their home so as not to miss an idea. as Loren eisley contemplated once ideas are so fleeting… one minute you are in the center of it and in the next minute you don’t even remember that you had an idea at all about anything. It is quite remarkable how the brain works like this. kind of sad and frustrating but very true. I do have a pen and pad next to the bed of course, and in every room of the house. always have. in the car. in my back pocket of course. and it is true, I find that some of the best ideas come just before sleep…. in that hypnogogic state somewhere between being awake and dreaming… when it is hard to tell if you are thinking or you are dreaming. This is a magical place. some of the best ideas come from this state. But the problem of course is in the remembering. Hence the tricks that past creatives have invented to wake themselves up out of it and take advantage of it. By my bed I keep a special pen I found online that has a light at the very tip of it so you don’t have to turn on a light in the room. You just give the pen a little twist and this light comes on, enough to light up the paper you are writing on. It’s a brilliant invention. I would be lost without it.

When I am really knocked out and can’t even sit up to write, I use another method whereby as I get a thought that I wish to remember the next day I hold my hand up in the air for a few seconds with my forefinger up signifying that I have one idea to remember in the morning from the night before. if I get another I will hold my hand up again for a few more seconds with two fingers up to remind myself that there were two ideas. And so on. I have become accustomed to automatically asking myself how many fingers I had held up the night before just before I fell asleep in order to re-trigger those thoughts. It almost always works. 90% of the time I can remember upon contemplation what the thoughts were so I can get them down when I first wake up.

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Uncategorized da vinci, Einstein, hypnogogic state, Labels: being in love, love, matrix, pheromone research, smoking, transcendence diaries

A private little world for me… a private little world for you. The online journals and musings of singer-songwriter author and activist Ed Hale. The Transcendence Diaries have been posting regularly online since 2001. Comments are always welcomed. And so are YOU.

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