Chuck Close writes to his younger self

As you will have noticed reading my blog I am a fan of inspirational people. Artists have always given me special outlooks and insights, because their work consists of introspection and measuring their own reaction to things they like or don't like to a higher degree than less aware people.
I aspire to that level of awareness where I can recognize what I like and what I am good at more easily. To define this clearly for myself is a task that I would give my younger self. So I am happy to have found these words by Chuck Close, an American portrait painter and photographer, who writes to his younger self and all of us what hindsight has taught him.

Source: Video on CBS News / Picture by John Agoncillo, check out his beautiful blog

This is a note to myself at age 14: 

I WAS in the eighth grade and was told not to even think about going to college. I couldn't add or subtract, never could memorize the multiplication tables, was advised against taking algebra, geometry, physics or chemistry and therefore would not get into any regular college. Since I was good with my hands, I was advised to aim for trade school, perhaps "body and fender" work. 

NEVER let anyone define what you are capable of by using parameters that don't apply to you. 

I APPLIED to a junior college in my hometown with "open enrollment", got in and embarked on a career in the visual arts.

VIRTUALLY EVERYTHING I've done is influenced by my learning disabilities. I think I was driven to paint portraits to commit images of friends and family to memory. I have face blindness, and once a face is flattened out, I can remember it much better. 

INSPIRATION IS for amateurs -- the rest of us just show up and get to work. Every great idea I've ever had grew out of work itself. 

SIGN ON to a process and see where it takes you. You don't have to reinvent the wheel every day. Today you will do what you did yesterday and tomorrow you will do what you did today. Eventually you will get somewhere. 

NO ONE gets anywhere without help. Mentors, including your parents and an occasional teacher, can make you feel "special" even when you are failing in other areas. Everyone needs to feel special. 

MY FATHER died when I was 11. That was the tragedy of my life, a horrible thing to happen when you are so young. Oddly enough there was a gift in this tragedy. I learned very early in life that the absolute worst thing can happen and you will get past it and you will be happy again. Losing my father at a tender age was extremely important in being able to accept what happened to me later when I became a quadriplegic. 

IF YOU are overwhelmed by the size of a problem -- break it down into many bite-sized pieces. 

QUADRIPLEGICS DON'T envy the able-bodied - we envy paraplegics. We think they've got an easier row to hoe. THERE IS always someone worse off than you. 

I AM confident that no artist has more pleasure day in and day out from what he or she does than I do.

"Go have fun now"

(thanks to Roy for that advice! Glad to report a successful mission.)

My trip is drawing to a close and I look back on months of traveling and getting to know people in many ways along the road. In Mississippi I talked to a man on a train, who was trying to convince me that the government should never interfere with the economy because (quote) the market always works (end quote).There was Nicolas Cage starring in a brilliant subplot to my travels, where he almost assaulted my host in New Orleans at her workplace and now got arrested in recent days. Hopefully he gets his life in order! I have ridden a bike on Beale Street and across a university campus. Old friends and their families have provided me with food, shelter, dog walks, dance parties, tours to graveyards, and afternoon tea in the sun. My host in Austin showed me a place where he used to float along a river with his buddy on inflatable rafts, drinking beer. I went hiking with an extraordinary new friend, who I hadn't met until we shared the same room for two weeks all through Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Mexico. In San Francisco I have connected with some gentle *g* people that I had only known via the internet. A podcast led me to a meditation center, where I got to know a peace activist, who gave me a place to stay. A blog led me to the house of an Iranian journalist, who is everything I had hoped for after having read her blog some years ago: warm, engaged, strong, and loving.

I have slept in tents, motels, on couches, on beds, on the floor, even in the back of my car. When I took along a hitch-hiker in Sonoma County, I was not murdered, and when I was hitch-hiking for a couple of miles in Flagstaff, I got to know a Texan couple, and a guy with a bed in the back of his van. I have not felt unsafe or unwelcome anywhere I went and can truly say that this is a hospitable nation. Certainly I will be back here.

After three months on the road the world has become smaller for me, more beautiful, and more colorful! When the world comes knocking on my door I will be sure to let it in and give it a big hug :)

Words to live by

On this day, you read something that moved you and made you realise there were no more fears to fear. No tears to cry. No head to hang in shame. That every time you thought you’d offended someone, it was all just in your head and really, they love you with all their heart and nothing will ever change that. That everyone and everything lives on inside you. That that doesn’t make any of it any less real.

That soft touches will change you and stay with you longer than hard ones.

That being alone means you’re free. That old lovers miss you and new lovers want you and the one you’re with is the one you’re meant to be with. That the tingles running down your arms are angel feathers and they whisper in your ear, constantly, if you choose to hear them. That everything you want to happen, will happen, if you decide you want it enough. That every time you think a sad thought, you can think a happy one instead.

That you control that completely.

That the people who make you laugh are more beautiful than beautiful people. That you laugh more than you cry. That crying is good for you. That the people you hate wish you would stop and you do too.

That your friends are reflections of the best parts of you. That you are more than the sum total of the things you know and how you react to them. That dancing is sometimes more important than listening to the music.

That the most embarrassing, awkward moments of your life are only remembered by you and no one else. That no one judges you when you walk into a room and all they really want to know, is if you’re judging them. That what you make and what you do with your time is more important than you’ll ever fathom and should be treated as such. That the difference between a job and art is passion. That neither defines who you are. That talking to strangers is how you make friends.

That bad days end but a smile can go around the world. That life contradicts itself, constantly. That that’s why it’s worth living.

That the difference between pain and love is time. That love is only as real as you want it to be. That if you feel good, you look good but it doesn’t always work the other way around.

That the sun will rise each day and it’s up to you each day if you match it. That nothing matters up until this point. That what you decide now, in this moment, will change the future. Forever. That rain is beautiful.

And so are you.

(I am very thankful to the poet who created this and gave it to the world through this blog)

A Sea of Green

I have been reposting and retweeting and sharing links on facebook and through Skype these days. I followed all the news and spent hours reading articles and refreshing my twitter page. I feel involved in this historic event that is the so called Green Revolution of Iran. Although I am usually careful about what political statements I make publicly I think in this case facts are facts. These days I am learning once more how wonderful it is to live in a country that actually allows me to speak my mind whenever and however I choose to.

I feel like a part of this movement not only because I know people there or from there, but because all those individuals' opinions, their wishes and aspirations are resonating enormously with mine. Today more than ever, Iranians and people all over the planet seem so close. The feeling of solidarity is immense among those who share the daily news about this movement. It is so impressive what happens when people are allowed to connect at an individual level as the internet and its tools have made possible.

As some of my friends have been doubtful I hereby tell you this: That this election was fraudulent has been out of the question for some days. The only question for me is whether Ahmadinejad cheated by 10, 30 or even 50 percent. Just look at these graphs by fivethirtyeight.com:

This is a graph of the provinces that Karroubí, the second reformist candidate besides Moussaví had won in 2005






In 2009 the same people in the same provinces voted for Ahmadinejad and less than one percent of them for Karroubí.






Today, Khamenei has threatened his people, who have been peacefully marching in silence for days. He told them basically 'to stop protesting or else'. He justified again what all reasonable people already see has been a wrong step. One twitterer commented: "Khamenei, the election was not fair. Look at faces of mullahs at Friday Prayer, they knew this was a mistake."

My urge to share this with you comes from the deep belief that what is happening in Iran right now is of concern to the whole world. So much depends on whether this ends peacefully and who comes out of this strengthened or weakened. Peace in the Middle East and the whole region is hugely determined by how Iran is governed. And as we have seen in the past with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, what happens there can change the balance of the world. Everything is connected.

I am impressed by how this crisis is being handled by most people involved and I am praying for non-violence to persist as it has before. May it lead to a peaceful revolution in this beautiful country for the betterment of humanity. I for my part am hopeful.

If you have 5 minutes more to spend on this, please read what some people in Iran have written and how they describe their situation. It is heart-breaking as well as heart-warming: 'The fear is gone'

Be good everybody, stay safe, and don't lose hope :)

Driftwood

These days I listen a lot to a Berkeley social psychology class, which I downloaded for free from here and then here: iTunes. I have started to put recommendations from my google reader to the little gadget you see at the side and hope you enjoy some of the things I don't find the time to blog about, but really liked, without much of a comment.


When I surf the web I usually go about collecting a lot of little bits and pieces everywhere, like meaningful aphorisms, funny pictures with meaning and nice quotes. I am gonna share a pretty random selection with you today, so I hope you enjoy!





Learn from everyone! Follow no one! Watch for patterns! Work like hell!




Moral skill is chipped away by an overreliance on rules that deprives us of the opportunity to improvise and learn from our improvisations. And moral will is undermined by an incessant appeal to incentives that destroy our desire to do the right thing.
Barry Schwartz on TED.com

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

Lawrence Lessig

Colbert Report Full Episodes
Funny Political News

Christian Bale Parody
Joke of the Day

And I will leave you with one of my favorites : )

Engaged Filmmaking

Garbage Dreams A friend recommended this short film to me and I found it fascinating. Imagine how you can be so very passionate about garbage! These people in Kairo, the Zaballeen, are proud of their knowledge to recycle and of their service to the community. They seem like really happy people! They are going to suffer from the profit approach multinational corporations take to the business those people have been in for generations. Instead of thinking of ourselves and our economy as top notch we could choose to learn and ride the wave of development these people are generating...

By-standing: The beginning of an American Lifetime This one hit me especially, because it I think that the pain we suffer too often comes from our own complacency. It comes from our readiness to accept and tolerate the fate of others and our own. It comes from our helplessness while we deem ourselves to be progressive or green or pacifists: Are we not "people who think it's hip to be radical and don't strategize, vote or DO shit beyond talk"?

You see, sometimes I am so impatient. I tell myself to wait for my time to come, because tomorrow, with the right education and at the right age, when people start taking you more seriously, with a university degree and ideas and hopefully a job, THAT will be the time to DO something. What I am doing today, blogging about it, seems so much like just talk, no action. Yet...

... I am working on the building of global consciousness. I am trying to have people look at the problem and I am convinced that my contribution counts, or else I would not do it. I just appeal to all of you out there who read this, grab a shovel and plant a tree, spread happiness in your surrounding and further away, as far as you can reach. Be passionate about your life and know that you are in control, whatever your fears may tell you! I know you can. I know I can. And I will. Have a wonderful week!

Life is in our hands

Nothing more important at the beginning of a new year than to make one thing perfectly clear: 2009 is ours to shape in a positive way! If we mess up, well, then it will be our problem for next year, and who wants that?! ;)

I just found this on a friend's blog and although I did not quite agree with the message at first I watched the whole two and a half minutes. And YES, what earth has to say is exactly my point.



I feel if we need to worry at all, we should be worried about our own fate, not the planet's. We need to start doing the things that are good for ourselves in the long run.
My suggestion: One less war would spare many lives. It would also mean one less argument against the rotten idea that we just can't live peacefully and have to fight for our lives...NOOO, we need to cooperate for our lives! Trust each other. Man is not only man's biggest enemy, but also man's biggest asset. If everybody on earth could see this truth we would start thinking of each other as partners for our common future. What we need for that is in us, the capacity to trust. Let this be my message for the new year: Give trust freely and be trustworthy yourself, the reward is mutual :)

Freedom of Blogging

I came across the letter below on Nazy's blog and would like to share it with you. For me this is a symptom of our time, a time that brings a lot of new freedoms confronting us with old fears and all sorts of oppression.
A critical blogger community is among the most democratic instruments we have today, because all mass media are biased to some extent (no denying that), but blogger-to-blogger-reporting is a contribution to grassroots democracy in a way that was unimaginable before the internet. I think it is well worth the support and protection.

On a less extreme, but also quite important note, we who are not in danger of being arrested should think about the problem more like Randall Monroe does in this xkcd-comic strip

****************

Following is an open letter in protest of circumstances surrounding the arrest of Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian blogger who has been detained in Tehran for over a month now.

We, the undersigned, view the circumstances surrounding the Iranian authorities' arrest of Hossein Derakhshan (hoder.com), one of the most prominent Iranian bloggers, as extremely worrying. Derakhshan's disappearance, detention at an unknown location, lack of access to his family and attorneys, and the authorities' failure to provide clear information about his potential charges is a source of concern for us.

The Iranian blogging community is one of the largest and most vibrant in the world. From ordinary citizens to the President, a diverse and large number of Iranians are engaged in blogging. These bloggers encompass a wide spectrum of views and perspectives, and they play a vital role in open discussions of social, cultural and political affairs.

Unfortunately, in recent years, numerous websites and blogs have been routinely blocked by the authorities, and some bloggers have been harassed or detained. Derakhshan's detention is but the latest episode in this ongoing saga and is being viewed as an attempt to silence and intimidate the blogging community as a whole.

Derakhshan's own position regarding a number of prisoners of conscience in Iran has been a source of contention among the blogging community and has caused many to distance themselves from him. This, however, doesn't change the fact that the freedom of expression is sacred for all not just the ones with whom we agree.

We therefore categorically condemn the circumstances sourrounding Derakhshan's arrest and detention and demand his immediate release.

*******************

Yippieh, it's winter

Enjoy the season everybody!
This one is especially for you, Nazy!

Always something there

From A Man called Old Fashion

A new blog

In an attempt to wear less and less masks in life I have decided to drop one that I felt time ago was important! I do not want to fear the discovery of myself by the world and have no business thinking about the possible abuses of the personal thoughts I write down. So I will provide you with the link to this blog. It has been mine for a long time and I will follow here in its tradition. This blog will use English as primary language, but from time to time I might just switch to German or Spanish. Regard it as a way of expanding your mind just as I regard it as an exercise for my capacity to think in different languages (German being my mother language).
Off we go! I hope you enjoy :-)