On Getting Over Yourself
"Something tells me, though, that what you need to do for your art and your mental health is cure yourself of romanticism, of the need for being out of your head, of drama and longing and cleverness, cure yourself even of your own attractiveness, cure yourself of your image of yourself as a woman living a creative life, cure yourself of desire, of the need for acceptance, cure yourself of cuteness and the need for cuteness in others.
Cure yourself of rock 'n' roll and thinness and artistic ideas and academic titles, cure yourself of studios and theses and advisors and tuition, cure yourself of matriculation and postgraduate research. Cure yourself of ambition and boredom and self-defensiveness and self-consciousness and be very uncool for a while; be as uncool as you possibly can be. Give up on thrift shops. Grieve for the heroin addict. Wear only Ban-Lon shirts. Stop going to the nightclub you keep going to. Disappear so your friends wonder where you are and when they finally see you, be evasive. Become difficult and stubborn. Concentrate on your art. Concentrate on technique. Sit on the floor and try to breathe normally.
Try doing that for the rest of your life, and see if it doesn't help."
Cary Tennis
salon.com
5/28/02
2 comments:
Oh, he's great! I used to read him all the time ... keep forgetting to check Salon lately, dunno why. Gotta fix that, thx.
Maybe you don't check salon because Joan Walsh is killing it...I mostly read for Patrick Smith and C. Tennis these days, and I missed Tennis when he was out getting those pesky cancer treatments. I've had this quote on my refrigerator for years. Had to go through the archives to find the original so I could cut and paste.
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