“Innocence brings forth innovation. A lack of knowledge can create more openings to break new ground. The Ramones thought they were making mainstream bubblegum pop. To most others, the lyrical content alone- about lobotomies, sniffing glue, and pinheads- was enough to challenge this assumption.
While the band saw themselves as the next Bay City Rollers, they unwittingly invented punk rock and started a countercultural revolution. While the music of the Bay City Rollers had great success in its time, the Ramones’ singular take on rock and roll became more popular and influential. Of all the explanations of the Ramones, the most may be: innovation through ignorance.”
“When most drivers see the first “lane closed ahead” sign in a work zone, they slow too quickly and move to the lane that will continue through the construction area. This driving behavior can lead to unexpected and dangerous lane switching, serious crashes and road rage.
Zipper merging, however, benefits individual drivers as well as the public at large. Research shows that these dangers decrease when motorists use both lanes until reaching the defined merge area and then alternate in “zipper” fashion into the open lane.”
Most well-meaning motorists succumb to “motive misattribution,” “assuming someone’s intentions are evil or misguided while your own are virtuous,” thinking if one zips they they are “a selfish, reckless cheater who cuts in line, when actually, if we all merged one at a time as he had, everyone might get where they were going faster.”
“Today Mark Borchardt looks less like an amusing hustler, and more like a poetic and even tragic hero; the living embodiment of unfulfilled dreams. Even that scene with the unforgiving cabinet door takes on a deeper meaning. It’s still funny, but it also summarizes the lives of dreamers like Mark in a single image. The pursuit of something bigger than yourself so often feels like banging your head against the wall. And when you bang your head against a wall, the wall always wins.”
“…the person who emerges from quarantine doesn’t have to be the same old you. Scientists say that people can change their personalities well into adulthood. And what better time for transformation than now, when no one has seen you for a year, and might have forgotten what you were like in the first place?
It was long thought that people just are a certain way, and they’ll remain that way forever. The Greek physician Hippocrates believed that people’s personalities were governed by the amounts of phlegm, blood, black bile and yellow bile that flowed through their bodies.
Modern science, of course, has long since discarded notions of bile and humors. And now,it appears the idea that our personalities are immutable is also not quite true. Researchers have found that adults can change the five traits that make up personality — extroversion, openness to experience, emotional stability, agreeableness and conscientiousness — within just a few months. Much as in Dr. Steffel’s case, the traits are connected, so changing one might lead to changes in another.
Changing a trait requires acting in ways that embody that trait, rather than simply thinking about it. As Richard Wiseman, a psychology professor at the University of Hertfordshire, put it in “The As If Principle,” you can behave “as if” you are the person you want to be. Pretty soon, you might find that it is you.”
How are you? What are you working on, artistically or otherwise? Who or what has shaped who you are? What inspires you? What do you love? Send a letter to luke@retroduck.com and let me know.These letters inspire me. I hope they inspire you, too.
William Sterling is a podcast editor by day, and aspiring (and talented!) actor and writer by night. Here he is on the pressures of productivity during the pandemic. Stills from The Dinner Parting, which we shot last December.
Hi.
I’ve been working on a book. As such, my prose might seem stilted. Or there might be long run on sentences where I’m endeavoring to, like Hemingway, bring more thoughts together than deserve to be brought together and I will use more “ands” than any writer should ever use and you’ll understand it’s all because I have so many important things to say and these words will spread this brilliance and everyone will cheer and there will be roses and I will sleep well.
Or, at least, that may be my inner dialogue.
I suppose I struggle with this actor’s/writer’s need for recognition. And by this, I mean my own. Please pardon the disjointed cocktail of the actor and the writer like Jekyll and Hyde. Quarantine does not do well for my state of my mind. Instagram helps. I haven’t been able to bring myself to brave the world of Tik Tok considering I feel like only yesterday I was twenty-one.
I have had a lot of thoughts recently about the pressure of productivity. About how much I think I should be creating and how much I am creating. I do believe there is such a thing as too many voices. Too many pressures outside the pressure cooker of the self. Because we really are too hard on ourselves.
Prior to this version of the end of the world, my personal world ended a few months ago when I lost my dog. My best friend. The sometimes-uncontrollable fate of cancer consumed him, and I was crushed. But this was early November. Just before my thirty second birthday. And before I traveled to Michigan to star in a feature film co-written and produced by none other than Mr. Luke Allen Hackney. There I met so many souls and felt so much love and stretched so many creative muscles it felt like, finally, I was swaying in that hammock of doing the thing I had been destined to do.
But much to, hopefully all, of our woes, we had to wrap and go our separate ways. And then there was Christmas. And then the New Year. And I told myself 2020 would be the year of me. Because I had spent so many years at the beck and call of my day job. Answering the midnight calls of any pseudo-celebrity that needed an edit or a way to make them look better. But no, this year was going to be mine. I was going to learn the power of now. I was going to push back a little. I was going to set some healthy boundaries. I was going to make the others, not just see but, feel my presence and ability.
And it seemed to work for a few weeks.
But then the sickness came, and everyone forgot. And I can’t blame them. There are a lot of things I have forgotten or foregone or ignored because of the stress of this event. An event everyone is likely tired of hearing about or reading about or thinking about. But from this pressure I have also felt the core of my creativity push back.
For the first two weeks I pretended like every hour was the happy one. For the third, I wandered the wasteland of the mind wondering what it was all for. The fourth, I found productivity. The fifth I found tequila. And by this, as of now, end of the sixth I have completed what, by word count goal, will be one quarter of a book. One I began while filming in Michigan.
But I also dragged my ass through a vomit draft of a screenplay with my writing partner. And I’ve taped monologues and done scenes with my roommate and read books and newspapers and caught up on old New York Times magazines and watched some television and spent quality time with my girlfriend and become pretty good pals with her cat; monster. (Remember the “ands?”)
Needless to say, I think what I’ve discovered most in my process of writing this book and being way too hard on myself, upon forcing myself to reflect I realize I have accomplished quite a great deal. And if you’re willing to look at it from the outside in, you have too. That when push comes to shove and we’re not going into work and we’re left to our own devices, eventually the depression will dry out and the self-doubt will come up short and we’ll realize; we’re doing just fine. Because at the end of panic is peace. If we are willing to give ourselves grace, at the depth of that dramatic self-reflection is a determination that even nature cannot diminish.
I am, therefore I create. Not the other way around. And you are too.
It has been a blessing to be reminded by the clay that my hands have molded, even if I were left with nothing at the end of this; I would still be someone. I would still be me. And that me had enough to say to dig my way out of the holes that misfortune has created. And I take confidence in knowing that we can do this together. Because I’m still just a boy with a dream. Still an unpublished writer. Still an actor who hasn’t broken through to the other side of having no day job.
The truth is, at the end of it all, all the work in the world is only part time. And we all know that part time on this earth is borrowed, still. So why not listen to the call of the wild? The beat of the heart that continues, despite our desire to give up. Art is never ending. And just like you and I, it pulsates and pounds in the temples, and it cannot be stopped. During times of doubt, do not lean into disbelief. Remember that, even at the end of it all, all this, ourselves included, may only be temporary. But our art is not. The only positive thing to come from a pandemic is passion. And that is permanent.
“In any great outcome, there is a component of luck. Yet if life were all about luck, the same people wouldn’t repeatedly do great things. When someone repeatedly does great things it is because they prepared in advance to advance to recognize, work on, and fill in the blanks when necessary. This is the essence of intelligent preparation.”
“I can’t give my students more time in their lives; but what I try to do is change the way they think about and value it in the first place. There is no Soylent version of thought and reflection — creativity is unpredictable, and it simply takes time. “
“Comparing ourselves to others allows them to drive our behavior. This type of comparison is between you and someone else. Sometimes this comparison is motivating and sometimes it’s destructive. You can be anything but you can’t be everything. When we compare ourselves to others, we’re often comparing their best features against our average ones. Not only do we naturally want to be better than them, the unconscious realization that we are not often becomes self-destructive.”
Cannot understate how proud I am of the cast and crew of The Dinner Parting. Like at work, like in life, I only want to surround myself with people better than myself. Always build the best team you can:
“One of the best pieces of advice I ever got, back when I was 23 and newly out of school, is this: look around and figure out who you want to be on your team. Figure out the people around you that you want to work with for the rest of your life. Figure out the people who are smart & awesome, who share your values, who get things done — and maybe most important, who you like to be with and who you want to help win. And treat them right, always. Look for ways to help, to work together, to learn. Because in 20 years you’ll all be in amazing places doing amazing things.”
…I made a consciousness decision not to post anything negative on social media. I understand the need to vent, but for me, it’s made a big difference on how I view things and how I feel in general. Would encourage you to consider it.
…Every one of us is a part of that jewel. A facet of that jewel. And in the perspective of infinity, our differences are infinitesimal. We are intimately related. May we never even pretend that we are not.”
Reward your “enemies” when they agree with you, exhibit good behavior, or come around on an issue. Otherwise they have no incentive to ever meet you halfway.
Accept it when people apologize. People should be allowed to work through ideas and opinions online. And that can result in some messy outcomes. Be forgiving.
Sometimes people have differing opinions because they considered something you didn’t.
Take a second.
There’s always more to the story. You probably don’t know the full context of whatever you’re reading or watching.
Create the kind of communities and ideas you want people to talk about.
You don’t always have the moral high ground. You are not always right.
Block and mute quickly. Worry about the bubbles that creates later.
On any site where you can ask questions and crowdsource answers (this extends to social media), people will respond regardless of whether or not they have anything to offer. Even if they are wrong. It seems people just want to converse.
Don’t ask questions on the Internet. Look for answers, or people you trust that can point you in the right direction.
Just finished Ethan Hawke’s epistolary novel written as a letter from a knight going into battle, to their children, imparting knowledge and what they assume will be their last words.
The book is brief and contains simple, effective language and great advice, mostly collected from various sources (credited at the end).
A few rules that stood out to me:
Humility
Never announce that you are a knight, simply behave as one.
Friendship
The quality of your life will, to a large extent, be decided by with whom you elect to spend your time.
Forgiveness
Those who cannot easily forgive will not collect many friends. Look for the best in others.
Discipline
Excellence lives in attention to detail. Give your all, all the time. Don’t save anything for the walk home.
Friends of mine own a pair of remarkable BBQ restaurants.
The food is great. They are great. Their principles and values are worth a read. Many (all?) can be adapted not only to any business, but life in general:
Be the best restaurant we can be, not just the best BBQ restaurant.
Produce the highest quality food at all levels and exceed standards.
Provide the most knowledgeable and remarkable customer service that exceeds all expectations.
Every item on the menu must be exceptional. A bigger menu isn’t a better menu.
Have a kitchen/restaurant that is so clean and safe that you’d be proud to show a customer at any time.
Be solution focused, not problem focused.
Honesty, integrity, and respect in all interactions with customers and colleagues.
Have the best communication in the industry.
Assume the best in others and be empathetic. Especially with customers.
Always ask, “how could this be better?” Challenge all sacred cows. Push to be the absolute best.
Empower Others – don’t be a bottleneck. Be systems and process focused.
Operate from a place of positivity, not negativity.
Operate with logic, facts and numbers. Not from emotion.
Be respectful of everyone’s time.
Bootstrap it: do more with less and work with the tools you have.
From the recently deceased Silicon visionary/occasional Grateful Dead lyricist’s mouth: “I don’t expect the perfect attainment of these principles. However, I post them as a standard for my conduct as an adult. Should any of my friends or colleagues catch me violating one of them, bust me.” Wholeheartedly echo this sentiment.
1. Be patient. No matter what.
2. Don’t badmouth: Assign responsibility, never blame. Say nothing behind another’s back you’d be unwilling to say, in exactly the same tone and language, to his face.
3. Never assume the motives of others are, to them, less noble than yours are to you.
4. Expand your sense of the possible.
5. Don’t trouble yourself with matters you truly cannot change.
6. Expect no more of anyone than you yourself can deliver.
7. Tolerate ambiguity.
8. Laugh at yourself frequently.
9. Concern yourself with what is right rather than who is right.
10. Never forget that, no matter how certain, you might be wrong.
11. Give up blood sports.
12. Remember that your life belongs to others as well. Do not endanger it frivolously. And never endanger the life of another.
13. Never lie to anyone for any reason. (Lies of omission are sometimes exempt.)
14. Learn the needs of those around you and respect them.
15. Avoid the pursuit of happiness. Seek to define your mission and pursue that.
16. Reduce your use of the first personal pronoun.
17. Praise at least as often as you disparage.
18. Never let your errors pass without admission.
19. Become less suspicious of joy.
20. Understand humility.
21. Forgive.
22. Foster dignity.
23. Live memorably.
24. Love yourself.
25. Endure.
