There’s Nothing Worse than a Purist , Save for Maybe a Non-Purist…
In art, business, writing, and life it’s important to know the rules so you can break them
We need you to break the rules. But we also need you to know your roots. There are too many shortcuts taken. Too many overnight success-seekers and too few rebels — those experts of the giants on whose shoulders they now stand.
We need you to break the rules.
There’s nothing worse than a purist who refuses to change her ways. Well, there’s one thing worse — a non-purist who assumes he knows better — that everything is subject to change and adjustment.
I believe a lot of this changes with age. When we’re young we take more shortcuts . We think we know better. We see the purists as people who are stuck in their ways. It takes a lifetime of experience to recognize how little we knew when we thought we knew everything. When there’s only one way to do something the argument is easy to win.
“This is the way it’s always done,” is the canned answer.
We need you to break the rules.
But first, we need you to know the roots. Writers get wrapped-up with fighting against grammar and dialogue, but wont take the time to understand the basics. Artists feel they know better — skipping the classical training…
