Who the f*ck are you? | 941
My Author Journey, Thursday, August 24, 2017
# 941 (countdown)
—

I’ve been thinking about the name I gave this diary. My Author Journey. But it isn’t exactly a journey of me as an author. It shows my other creative pursuits, like photography for example. So who or what am I really? A writer? A storyteller? A photographer? A Quorer (someone who writes answers or questions on Quora on a regular basis)? A motivational speaker who uses a written word only? A mentor / coach? An artist?
In one of his interviews Philippe Petit said:
I’m not a wire walker. A wire walker walks in a circus 365 days a year, and me, I draw, I do so many things in so many directions, although for me it’s all connected.
I called my diary My Author Journey but I don’t want to be a slave to a title I came up with. I also have no regard for other people’s expectations. Does it bother them that I called myself an author / writer when in fact I’m also a photographer, someone who dreams of being a contemporary artist (maybe I am becoming one?), and who knows what else?
You should decide at a long last who / what the heck are you, like we all did, most people would tell me.
It’s this society’s self-imposed limitation again. You need to tell us who / what the f*ck are you in this world and once you have this college degree or a title you need to stick to it because that’s how it should be done. You need a career or else you’ll be nobody.
Bullshit!
See that’s the reason, in my opinion, why people who didn’t get an education that will give them a job (because they were too poor or slept through their late teenage years and early 20s), or who lost their jobs to robots (automation), or whose life events had thrown them overboard at one point in their lives and they can’t get on that ship again, why all those people have no hope. They immediately conclude that they have no future, that because this shit happened it’s no longer possible to be somebody. They become nobody because they believe that they could only be somebody if they hadn’t slept through their 20s, if their parents could have afforded to send them to college, etc. and if they had stuck to this one thing.
They give up because the society asked them this cliché question Who the f*ck are you?and they couldn’t answer it because they either didn’t decide on a particular career in their early 20s or they didn’t stick to it like they were supposed to, can’t go back and be 20 years old again so how the heck can they function in this world? Clearly they can’t.
And it all starts with this cliché innocent, and dumb, question What do you want to be when you grow up? We can be sure that no later than elementary school someone will ask us this dumb question and there is a huge chance we will hear it a couple dozen times more by the time we finish this school. It’s so obvious, so “proper” that adults ask this question of all children that no one even dares to ask whether this question actually helps those young people. Maybe it doesn’t help them? Maybe it cripples them? I think it cripples them. It does more evil than good. But the intentions of those who ask it (and not dare to ask why they ask it) are of course noble.
I want to go where life (chance) will take me. I want the surprises, I welcome them. I fully embrace the unknown nature of the future and I won’t try to harness it only because the society wants to know the answer to its stupid questions, and because that’s what I’m supposed to do. F*ck ‘supposed to’!
I want things to unfold and my path being unveiled to me, not the other way around when I need to decide on a career and become a slave to it. F*ck being a slave to anything!
Recently I have been drawn to photography so I tried it. Got hooked and do it every day, alongside my writing. If at a later point in my life I will be drawn to painting or other form of art I want to be able to do that. What Philippe Petit said therefore speaks to me.
Reading.
In the Shadow of the American Dream: The Diaries of David Wojnarowicz (20 min; on scribd app).
This caught my attention
He started rambling about language and writing, how one should write what they speak rather than play with imagination: You stand up and write, ya know … standin’ up is good for writing because you don’t use your imagination, you let come from yourself what would come if you were speakin’ to someone … when you sit down to write, it’s no good ’cause the whole weight of your body centers down in that position, the weight carried by the head, through the head, so you end up writing with imagination instead of natural speech.
People should sing all the time … ya know … if you say five words very very slowly then you end up singing … if everyone were to speak very slowly then everyone would be singing … then things would be nice. How can you be fucked up when you’re singing?
Listening to audio.
The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future by Kevin Kelly (25 min, on my scribd app).
Movies
Harry Benson: Shoot First (on Netflix).
Meditating: 10 minutes (before falling asleep, on Headspace). Sixth day in a row now.
My today’s answers on Quora:
Answer to Is it okay to follow passion?
Answer to Can one live without marriage?
Answer to What can you do with a degree in philosophy?
Music for this writing session: Down to Earth by Flight Facilities (on spotify). Glass Piano (Extended Version) by Philip Glass (on spotify).
My today’s route.



My today’s favorite.

My today’s photos on flickr Warsaw, August 24, 2017

