I count Eliot Rausch as one of the greats in our generation of storytelling, and this new short from him is no different. He essentially takes an old parable and turns it into a beautiful and soul-shattering visual based on the ideas of money, greed, happiness, and life. Here’s a thought for the weekend: what are you fighting to attain, that you might already have? Have a good one folks!
When her site turned 7 years old, Maria Popova (founder and editor of Brain Pickings) found herself questioning how she would stay true to her focus, as the work she produced evolved. In October of 2013, she put out a great essay on her reflections and all the lessons she’s learned in “7 Things I Learned in 7 years of Reading, Writing, and Living.” It’s an incredible and focused list of small verses that have massive meaning behind it.
About a year and change later, the good folks over at Dissolve created a video surrounding the essay. Animation, orchestral music, and moving imagery really make this essay come to life – one of my favorites here on Silo Number Seven.
What you should not do, I think, is worry about the opinion of anyone beyond your friends. You shouldn’t worry about prestige. Prestige is the opinion of the rest of the world.
[…]
Prestige is like a powerful magnet that warps even your beliefs about what you enjoy. It causes you to work not on what you like, but what you’d like to like.
[…]
Prestige is just fossilized inspiration. If you do anything well enough, you’ll make it prestigious. Plenty of things we now consider prestigious were anything but at first. Jazz comes to mind—though almost any established art form would do. So just do what you like, and let prestige take care of itself.
Prestige is especially dangerous to the ambitious. If you want to make ambitious people waste their time on errands, the way to do it is to bait the hook with prestige. That’s the recipe for getting people to give talks, write forewords, serve on committees, be department heads, and so on. It might be a good rule simply to avoid any prestigious task. If it didn’t suck, they wouldn’t have had to make it prestigious.
A great article by Paul Graham here.
“First of all, don’t worry about the money. Love the process. You don’t know when it’s gonna happen. Louis C.K. started hitting in his 40s; he’d been doing it for 20 years. And don’t settle. I don’t want to ever hear, “It’s good enough.” Then it’s not good enough. Don’t ever underestimate your audience. They can tell when it isn’t true. Also: Ignore your competition. A Mafia guy in Vegas gave me this advice: “Run your own race, put on your blinders.” Don’t worry about how others are doing. Something better will come.” – Joan Rivers
Another great piece of art and inspiration by Gavin Aung Than over at ZenPencils! Did you know he has a book out filled with comics like these?
It was only appropriate! Happy Thanksgiving folks — I know I’m thankful for the opportunity to share inspiring videos to the few and many that may frequent this end of the internet. Make sure you take some time out today to reflect on all of the things that make this life worth living 🙂
| In the year 1621, the Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving feast. They invited the great Indian chief Massasoit, who brought ninety of his brave Indians and a great abundance of food. Governor William Bradford and Captain Miles Standish were honored guests. Elder William Brewster, who was a minister, said a prayer that went something like this: ‘We thank God for our homes and our food and our safety in a new land. We thank God for the opportunity to create a new world for freedom and justice.”
– Linus Van Pelt, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving
(photo credit: Reuters)
——
“I, too, sing America.
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.
Tomorrow,
I’ll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody’ll dare
Say to me,
“Eat in the kitchen,”
Then.
Besides,
They’ll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed–
I, too, am America.”
― Langston Hughes
O world of spring and autumn, birth and dying!
The endless cycle of idea and action,
Endless invention, endless experiment,
Brings knowledge of motion, but not of stillness;
Knowledge of speech, but not of silence;
Knowledge of words, and ignorance of the Word.
All our knowledge brings us nearer to our ignorance,
All our ignorance brings us nearer to death,
But nearness to death no nearer to God.
Where is the Life we have lost in living?
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
The cycles of Heaven in twenty centuries
Bring us farther from God and nearer to the Dust.
I came across this quote by T.S. Eliot recently and it got me thinking – specifically the lines I bolded above. So much information, but so little knowledge; so much Life, but so little living.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” -Theodore Roosevelt
Let’s face it, Theodore Roosevelt might have been the burliest man in history. For God’s sake, the guy was shot at close range, suffered a flesh wound, and still managed to continue his presidential speech with the bullet still in his body — the guy knew what he was talking about. “The Man in the Arena” is one of my favorite quotes, and the video above is a great visual addition to inspiring words. Have a good weekend folks!