Category Internals

Needs Revision

On Confidence (3/3)

“Confidence is not the belief that we won’t meet obstacles. It is the recognition that difficulties are an inescapable part of all worthwhile contributions. We must ensure we have plenty of narratives to hand that normalise the role of pain, anxiety and disappointment in even the best and most successful lives.”

The School of Life, Confidence – The Battle Against Timidity

On Confidence (2/3)

“The topic of confidence is too often neglected by serious people: we spend so much time acquiring technical skills, and so little time practicing the one virtue that will make those skills effective in the world.”

The School of Life, Confidence – The Battle Against Timidity

On Confidence (1/3)

“One of the greatest sources of despair is the belief that things should have been easier than they have turned out to be. We give up not simply because events are difficult, but because we hadn’t expected them to be so. The capacity to remain confident is, to a significant extent, a matter of internalizing a correct narrative about what difficulties it is normal to encounter.

The School of Life, Confidence – The Battle Against Timidity

Crisis Competence

A surprise of the pandemic has been how well many older adults have adapted to the restrictions. “There’s crisis competence,” said Mark Brennan-Ing, a senior research scientist at Hunter College’s Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging. “As we get older, we get the sense that we’re going to be able to handle it, because we’ve been able to handle challenges in the past. You know you get past it. These things happen, but there’s an end to it, and there’s a life after that.”

How the Oldest Old Can Endure Even This” – The New York Times

Inaction.

“We always overestimate the change that will occur in the next two years and underestimate the change that will occur in the next ten. Don’t let yourself be lulled into inaction.” – Bill Gates

Wallace

“He learned his lesson in third year, when, after he had passed his preliminary exams, Simone pulled him into her office to debrief. She sat behind her desk with her legs crossed, a beautiful winter day lying white and smooth behind her, all the way to the lake, that blue-white churn and the trees like delicate woodwork in a diorama. He felt good about himself. He felt, for the first time since coming to grad school, like he was finally doing what she always urged him to do — catching up — and he imagined that he saw pride in her eyes. He was excited. he was ready to begin in earnest — to really begin. And she asked, How do you think that went? And he said Oh, well, I thought it was okay. And she shook her head grimly. She said, You know, Wallace, that was … frankly, I was embarrassed for you. Had that been another student, it might have gone differently. You might not have passed. But we talked a long time about what was feasible for you, what was reasonable for your abilities, and we decided we’d pass you, but we are going to watch you, Wallace. No more of this. You need to get better. She spoke as though she was bestowing blessings. Bestowing beneficence. Bestowing irrefutable grace. She spoke as though she was saving him. What could he say? What could he do?”

Nothing. Except to work.

Real Life, by Brandon Taylor

Bernard Herrmann

“He was a genius at thinking of combinations of instruments to produce the effect that he wanted. I remember on ‘Twisted Nerve’ he showed me some of the score, there are like nine bass clarinets and three contrabassoons, and he said, ‘What do you think?’ I said, ‘I think it’s going to sound very dark.’ He says, ‘I want it to sound very dark.'”

“He was such a fierce proponent of people pursuing an individual style. He hated the idea of fads and fashions in music, from what I can gather, and in film that’s very often subject to fads and fashions, and you also have to really work and compromise with other people – so it’s really interesting that he found himself in film.”

“The easiest advice to give can be the hardest to follow. Lurking in the back of the mind of anyone making music will be a mental note to do their own thing and not follow the pack, but it takes strength to not be influenced by the greats, especially in an industry that, whatever sense of experiment it likes to pay lip service to, is often magnetically attracted to the tried and tested. Herrmann, whose emotions ran, like his music, on a romantic cocktail of agony and ectasy, had an honest need for acceptance, but he would never let that stop him going his own way, however lonely that path was.”

Spitfire Audio Annual, Issue 1

Tacita Dean

“I would describe Tacita as an artist who can really make anything.
She can paint, she can draw, she can work on a monumental scale.
She works with photographs. She makes films. And she follows an interest. And then allows that to reveal itself to her.”

Julie Mehretu, Tacita Dean Looking to See

Une Noix