Budo as "art"

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Hatsumi sensei frequently draws comparison between budo and fine arts. Thus, what follows is a scathing criticism of the Bujinkan as it exists today, masqueraded as a series of questions and answers about the nature of arts in general. Those of you who know, know.

Let's get to it.


Question: Can knowledge solve my artistic problems?

Short answer: Only if you manage to put it to use.

Long answer: Roughly 800 people are killed by toaster ovens in the US each year, but only around nine or ten are killed by shark attacks. That's useful information that one would like to have. However, it doesn't mean that people are more afraid of toasters than they are of sharks, even if they should. Many people would rather die than give up their erroneous beliefs in favor of facts.


Question: Should you do something good?

Short answer: Not necessarily.

Long answer: The pressure many people feel to do good things is powerful as well as a bit touching, because it draws attention away from what the person in question is really interested in, and leads him/her towards the established and generally popular ideals that happens to be the talk of the town at that particular time.
It's better to do something and then consider it to be good (which is what many people do with their children) rather than to try to turn whatever it is you've done into something good (which, sadly, a lot of people also do with their children). Many works of art that have historically been considered important are often reflections of the spirit of their respective ages. If people had tried to make something good instead of something true it wouldn't have become as important, the will to do something good can often be seen as a kind of self-censorship.


Question: If you were to give one single piece of advice to a budding artist, what would it be?

Short answer: Paint the sky first and then the trees so you won't have to fit the the sky in between all the branches.

Long answer: If you want to get somewhere, you should see your work as a logical and practical process. Many people never reach the results they had wished for and instead get stuck in some meaningless physical problem, which is where a lot of silly axioms like "the path is the goal" have originated. They're used by people who've never walked the entire length of the path and actually arrived.


Question: What is art?

Short answer: A question.

Long answer: Just as a physicist is a collection of atoms trying to figure out what an atom is, so art is an invention whose purpose it is to find out just what art actually is.


Question: Don't you run the risk of deteriorating with age?

Short answer: You're kidding, right?

Long answer: No one has ever found out anything after the age of thirty, case in point - Einstein. He figured out everything as a young man and spent the remainder of his life pondering the so-called Grand Unified Theory, which he never managed to finalize. People get more experienced with age and as such are able to further develop their ideas, however the realizations come early or never at all. This is why many important works are made by ageing artists, more refined versions of the slightly clumsily performed discoveries of youth. Both stages are equally important but throughout the times, one of them has usually been considered "cooler" than the other. Avoid pretending to be part of one group when you actually belong to the other.


Question: Isn't it enough to just do whatever you want?

Short answer: Who knows what they want?

Long answer: Many people have way too large a distance between what they really want and that they think they really want. Their ideals make them confused. When the discrepancy between what you're doing and whom you really are becomes too great, indifference slips in through the gap, and even though everything looks good it doesn't really feel like all that any more. Or as Nas once put it, "when you do make the whip you like your chips ain't right, by the time you can afford it the car ain't important".


Question: Does rebelling actually serve a purpose?

Short answer: Yes, it's good for your self-confidence.

Long answer: Rebelling against something means that you know something others don't, that you've seen through all the lies, understood how bad things really are and usually you also know exactly how everything is supposed to be instead. That is a nice feeling to have. However, both the rebel and the conservative are dependent on that which endures. Thus, the danger of rebelling is that you might sacrifice your independence for the simple sake of a slight boost in self-confidence.


Question: Why do so many people have a hard time understanding art?

Short answer: Because there rarely is anything there for you to understand.

Long answer: Many people tend to confuse not understanding something with not liking it, it's usually a case of the latter when the former is spoken. However, ever since modernism begun artists have attempted to create new languages in art, if you step into a room full of people who've created new languages you're bound to be more than a little confused. Having invented a new language doesn't mean that you actually have something to say, however. Not too long ago, the artistic language was common to all people in a given culture. Everyone understood the picture on the church wall, back then the message was more important than creating a new language.
You can't understand someone who hasn't said anything, but you can like him.


Question: Which viewpoint should one espouse in terms of politics?

Short answer: A simple one, preferably also as extreme as possible.

Long answer: Having a simple and not inherently self-contradictory worldview with simple solutions often gives people plenty of power and incentive, since they don't have to waste time and energy on doubt, compromises or they weighing of pro's and con's. It's only when one's 100 percent sure that one is right that one's able to focus all one's energy into one's words and actions, regardless of how stupid they are.


Question: Are experiments important?

Short answer: Yes, but only before setting up shop.

Long answer: A chef, for instance, is able to experiment with different ingredients, but a restaurant that only serves the chef's "experiment of the day" wouldn't be in business for very long, since the purpose of experimenting should be to develop something that might eventually be considered a classic. No one should experiment for the sole purpose of creating an experiment. Experiments are fine but whenever they start turning into conventions, one should be wary. Apart from the fact that they rarely are enjoyable at that point, they've also lost their innovative function.


Question: Is it true that one only becomes known after one's death?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: 99, 99 percent of all the artists in the history of the world are made known during their lifetimes, when they die they're usually forgotten. A few exceptions occurred during the end of the 19th century, and it may very well take tens of thousands of years before that rare historical occurrence repeats itself.


Question: How do I become successful?

Short answer: Make someone happy.

Long answer: Success depends on someone having something to gain from what you're doing, whether it's them having their ideals and beliefs confirmed or being compensated ideologically, economically, aesthetically or otherwise. That is, if you're referring to success in the eyes of others. If you mean successful as pertaining to yourself, all you need is megalomania.


Question: How does one learn?

Short answer: By misunderstanding.

Long answer: You repeat and mimic, after a while you misunderstand something, at which point something of your own is created, which you then go on to repeat and mimic until you misunderstand yourself as well - and ta-da! You've learned something. Knowledge is whatever convention that happens to be the dominant one at that particular point in time, and in order to not get stuck too early one should avoid conventions, such as the convention of avoiding conventions.


Question: Is criticism beneficial?

Short answer: Yes, if pro. No, if con.

Long answer: Criticism in a learning environment is usually beneficial, since it's purpose is to improve the student's results. Criticism in new articles and whatnot varies in quality and usefulness. It may be intended to be helpful but often comes across as polemic and as intended to have the opinion of it's originator seem like the correct one. The purpose of criticism always shines through. The problem with criticism is that it's point of origin always lies in what the critic is already familiar with, and as such, it is always automatically conservative - it's impossible to have a valid opinion on a subject matter with which one's not familiar.


Question: Why do people think that some things look good?

Short answer: Because they're normal.

Long answer: Experiments have been made where ten people have been photographed, after which a digital portrait of an "average" person was created. These eleven pictures were then shown to the test subjects who were told to say which person was the best-looking. Very few people found the eleventh portrait to be the most attractive. People are very likely genetically pre-disposed to like what's normal for breeding reasons.


Question: Is it true that artists were much more skilled and knowledgeable in older days?

Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: People are born as idiots who don't know or understand anything, and they die wise, filled to the brim with knowledge. Is that one of nature's mistakes? No, the problem is that it is much harder to get rid of knowledge than to obtain it. All knowledge stands in the way of progress just as dinosaurs stood in the way of primates. The small, ugly mammals that survived the natural disaster(s) that killed off the strong, fast and smart velociraptors weren't in any way better, it's just that the alternative to extinction is stagnation.
If dear, old and wisened artists never died, we'd have to shoot them. Not because they were wrong - in that case, they would have been harmless - but because they were right.


Question: How does one discuss art in an intelligent manner, at a party, for instance?

Short answer: One agrees.

Long answer: This is close to impossible. What's important is to have the listener come across as intelligent, and if one wants to make a statement, it's important to phrase it in such a way that it seems like it was actually the listener who came up with it. Going on forever about the intricacy of Hokusai's waves is pointless and usually only seems ridiculous, because just as is the case with sports, people tend to stick with a certain team whether or not they're any good. Even better is to remain quiet. No one wants to be told that they have the wrong opinions, especially not the ones with wrong opinions.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Question: How does one become happy and content?

Short answer: Find a cause bigger than yourself.

Long answer: Satisfying one's own ego is a tiresome and neverending work of Sisyfos. Very few artists feel properly appreciated. Religious people often seem happy when their actions serve a larger purpose, such as Mother Theresa, Dalai Lama and others. People who've just saved the lives of a lot of small children also tend to look pretty satisfied. Find a similar function in the performance of your art, and Bob's your uncle when it comes to happiness.


Question: Why does everything seem so empty and devoid of purpose at times?

Short answer: Congratulations.

Long answer: A good place to be at. Once you realize that everything is meaningless you're free to discover what it is you want to do and why. Children these days experience way too little boredom, according to many psychologists, which causes their creativity to decay. When the sun starts burning out it's going to expand and fry everything on Earth to a crisp. Mountains will melt, the seas will evaporate and all life will cease - which is a good thing to keep in mind whenever you're painting a self-portrait or perfecting a sword stroke.


Question: Should one work fast or slow?

Short answer: Neither.

Long answer: The fewer ideals one has to live up to in terms of how work is supposed to be done, the fewer inhibitions. Working slowly (Vermeer, Bokuden) is often seen as higher "class" than working quickly (Picasso, Musashi) but both methods are possible. Once you've disregarded all ideals, your work can take as much time as is needed.


Question: What's the purpose of exhibitions?

Short answer: People who know they're being watched tend to get a grip.

Long answer: Many people avoid throwing gum wrappers on the pavement if they're being watched, alcoholics who go sober are more likely to stay that way if someone's keeping an eye on the even when they're alone. If you know that your work is going to be publically displayed, it's harder to take detours. You get to watch yourself through the eyes of others. Another good thing about exhibitions is that in the workshop you can't really get a good look on your works, they're always obscured by your own intentions, preconceptions and ambitions.


Question: Why do some people do the same thing all the time?

Short answer: Because they're not rats.

Long answer: Experiments have been made with rats, in which they were let into a labyrinth which was outfitted with five slots at the end. A piece of cheese was put in the fourth slot, the rat was released and subsequently found the cheese. The experiment was repeated and after a short while, the rat always ran down to the fourth slot where the cheese was found. At that point, the cheese was moved to the second slot instead. The rat ran straight towards the fourth slot and couldn't find the cheese, ran back and checked the path once more, after which it returned to the fourth slot again - no cheese. After a while, the rat started looking around and finally, it found the cheese in the second slot.

The difference between humans and rats is that humans will run towards the fourth slot throughout their entire lives.


Question: Why does the concept of "quality" exist in the first place?

Short answer: To smoothen out the edges.

Long answer: Without any concept of quality to adher to, art would become much too clumsy, unpredictable and inaccurate in order to be oriented and judged. The concept of quality exists because it's the most convenient. A possible alternative to our ideas of "quality", however, would be "function".


Question: If you see something of poor quality, should you comment on it?

Short answer: Never without having been asked to do so.

Long answer: In the same way as it would be inappropriate to point out the fact that someone has a big nose or wears ugly clothes. It always ends up with a pointless argument. People's artistry are no less personal than their clothes or their noses. If someone however asks you and really wants your input, then go ahead. If you're invited to dinner and the first thing you do is to point out to the host that the plates should have pre-heated, you're not likely to be invited the next time. Hence, the poor habit of commenting on the exhibitions of others is incomprehensible.
Yes, I'm looking at you, old guy from Pennsylvania.


Question: How do I find out what I think is the most important?

Short answer: Write it down.

Long answer: Write down whatever it is you think is important about art and voilá - you've automatically gotten yourself a lost of all the conventions, preconceived notions and ideas that you're stuck with.


Question: Why do I hate certain people and their art?

Short answer: It keeps you healthy.

Long answer: Very cruel experiments have been made with rats in which a red light is turned on, and after a few seconds, the rat receives an electric jolt. After a while, the rat goes crazy as soon as the red light is turned on and promptly dies. If, however, another cage with a different rat is put next to the rat which has received the electric jolts, then as soon as the red light is turned on the first rat attempts to attack the second rat. In essence, he blames his neighbor for his misfortunes and uncomfort and is able to vent his frustrations. This rat, which has an enemy, actually goes on to live longer than the other rat.
People need something to blame for all the bad things that happen to them, the alternative is to like everything and not find any kind of art to be unpleasant, which is much harder.


Question: What's the difference between choosing and creating?

Short answer: Direct opposites.

Long answer. Choosing is a passive action, creating is a more radical one. Choice always comes from prior knowledge, such as which newspaper to read, but the choice in and of itself isn't that important. Certain kinds of bird sometimes display a strange kind of behaviour - when they feel threatened from all directions, i.e. a cat from the left, a dog from the right, and a falling piano from above, they resort to washing themselves, which is a psychological kind of defense. The human version of said behaviour consists of choosing, instead of dealing with that which should be dealt with.


Question: If you ask people for advice, you always get different answers. Whom should I trust?

Short answer: Everyone.

Long answer: Art is filled with lies and loose guesses. It's basically at the same level that medicine was during the Middle Ages - very little facts and a whole lot of opinions and suppositions. Some people thought that walnuts were good against headaches because they resembled brains. Nowadays, most people prefer aspirine or ibuprofen. Listen to everyone but always check out if what they're saying is true, most of it can be discerned using simple experiments.


Question: Sometimes I realize that things I used to like were actually bad, was I wrong?

Short answer: Yes. Congratulations!

Long answer: The more you know, the less you like. Incidental to this is the fact that the more things you don't like, the less interesting the world will seem to you. A person who likes everything is in heaven, a person who hates everything is in hell. It is therefore a good idea to like as many things as possible. But it's also really difficult.

Question: Why do people from other parts of the world have such crappy taste in everything? And why are they such idiots?

Short answer: It's inherited.

Long answer: Tastes, opinions and belief systems are generally not personally acquired but locally inherited. There are loads of muslims in Arabic countries whereas most Hindus are born in India. If people chose such things themselves, you'd probably be looking at a 50 percent ratio in both places.


Question: Is it important for art to generate money?

Short answer: No, but it helps.

Long answer: Art and money should not be mixed in much the same way as money and sex should not be mixed. Money can, however, be useful if one wants to create big and/or expensive kinds of art. Many historical artists have made deliberate distinctions between commercialized stuff intended to make money, and that which they thought of as "their own" stuff. Often, the commercialized stuff turned out to be the best. Maybe the artists weren't as uptight when creating it.


Question: My parents are artists, which is is more important - nature or nurture?

Short answer: Same thing, different name.

Long answer: Is it because of nature or nurture that the neck of a giraffe is so long? Most people would be inclined to say nature, since his parents both had long necks as well. On the other hand - if there weren't any trees taller than, say, one meter, there wouldn't be any giraffes. Hence, nurture and nature cannot exist without one another.


Question: Why do so many people quit?

Short answer: They forgot why they began in the first place.

Long answer: Many people begin their training with great enthusiasm and little knowledge, kind of like a car with a big engine but a very small steering wheel. The more you learn, the more possibilities you have to steer the direction of your artistry, and subsequently the engine decreases in size. In the end, the wheel is huge and the engine has stopped. It's a fact that the more you learn and the more your ideals develop, the larger the gap between whom you are and what you do. Boredom eventually finds it's way into the gap, and the engine stops running.


Question: Is it the one who knows the most who becomes the best?

Short answer: No.

Long answer: Knowledge is only helpful as long as you're able to put it to practical use. Mickey Goldmill wouldn't stand a chance against Rocky Balboa.

 

[Grey Eyed Bandit]

Just got back from this Bujinkan post-training party at a nearby nightclub. As an experiment, I went around asking people a very simple question which I feel all martial artists should regularly ask themselves:

What can you actually _do_?

As in, not what you know, not what you understand, not what you can explain theoretically, but what can you

actually

physically

*DO*?

Not too surprisingly, the answers ran the gamut from "I can grow horns - figuratively speaking - and overwhelm people to the point that they can't do anything about it" from my former ex-bouncer instructor, to "I can move to a position where I'm safe" from the fledgling 5th dan who was a green belt last year.

I got so inspired that I decided to post the rest of my thoughts and musings pertaining to this thread.


Question: Is it important for art to be provocative?

Short answer: If you really want to piss people off, avoid being provocative.

Long answer: Many people claim to be fond of being provocative, which is in and of itself an anachronism - either that, or the provocation has failed. The idea behind provocative art should, reasonably, be to have someone feel irritation or anger. When people say that they like provocation, they really mean that they like it when other people get annoyed. If you really want to provoke someone, all you need to do is to scratch said person's car with a key. Artistic provocations are more difficult, especially if aimed towards an audience that is already fairly well acquainted with art. This is why provocative art is generally only provocative in the eyes of people who aren't really interested in art.


Question: How do you know if you're on the right path?

Short answer: By getting lost.

Long answer: The problem isn't that people get lost, the problem is that people use their pre-existing knowledge as a point of reference. A man once stood underneath a lamppost looking for a key that he'd dropped, and another man walked by and tried to help him find it. After fifteen minutes, the second man asked the first where he'd dropped the key, to which the first man replied, "in the forest."
" Then why are you searching for it underneath this lamppost?"
" Because it's brighter here than in the forest."


Question: Is it important to succeed?

Short answer: Hell yes.

Long answer: Our brain works by means of a system of punishment and rewards. Pain, for instance, means something that our brain thinks is bad for us, but this can also get excessive, as in the case of, for instance, agoraphobia. The brain rewards things like breeding, eating, being well rested and so on and so forth by way of happiness and contentment. Smoking, drinking and eating sugar are ways of manipulating our system of rewards into thinking that they're good for us. But it's better to create a need for one's art to be successful.
Of course, art being successful or not is up to each and every one of us to decide, and two thirds of people who enroll in art school tend to quit. That isn't necessarily because they're less skilled than the third which keeps on going, but is rather due to the fact that they aren't successful from their own point of view. The only way to fool one's brain's system of rewards and punishment is through chemical means.


Question: What will be the next big thing in art?

Short answer: The absence of modernism.

Long answer: Adezindrage. No one understands that word because it's a new word in a language that I just created. Modernism is filled to the brim with new languages, which is the reason why there is such a large distance between art and the audience that was completely non-existent during, for instance, the Middle Ages. Back then everyone understood that you'd burn if you didn't behave properly.
In the beginning of modernism, a lot of new languages were invented (cubism, surrealism etc) because there were so many new things to describe that weren't covered by the old methods. After that, people kept on creating new languages out of habit, even though they had absolutely nothing to say. Only when the urge to create new languages has ceased will there be a possibility to create something entirely new.


Question: How do I know if I've got the right opinions?

Short answer: Everyone has.

Long answer: Most people are happy with their opinions - at least I've never met anyone who's claimed to have the wrong opinions, and if one were to be proved wrong, there's always the possibility to change one's mind. Many people have opinions about all sorts of things and do very little, and most opinions already exist and thus don't need another person to have them as well. Opinions tend to lessen one's curiosity, and are closely related to prejudice. If people realized what opinions are really made of and how much suffering they've caused humanity, perhaps people wouldn't be so quick to cultivate them.


Question: Why do people have so many different opinions about art?

Short answer: They're talking about completely different things.

Long answer: Often when listening to discussions about art, it's like listening to a discussion between a fisherman and a soccer player. The fisherman will say "you can't catch any fish that way!" and the soccer player will say "you can't score any goals that way!"


Question: Why is the original so often better than the follow-up?

Short answer: It's hard to imitate oneself.

Long answer: The first time around, people tend to focus on the idea. The second time, people tend to focus on the previous result. The problem then arises when people repeat all the details of the first time during the second time, and expect that all the qualities inherent in the first will repeat themselves automatically.
This goes to prove that very few things are merely the sum of all of it's parts. It is said that Charlie Chaplin once entered a Charlie Chaplin lookalike contest and ended up at third place.
If one really wants to make a sequel, one should attempt to copy the process instead of the result.


Question: Why is it harder to give positive criticism than negative criticism?

Short answer: Few people want to look stupid.

Long answer: Negative criticism will make you feel smarter than the person targeted for your criticism, because it means that you've understood something that said person hasn't. Positive criticism, on the other hand, is a kind of mental submission. This is why people skilled and knowledgeable in the business dislike everything, and if they like something then the person who created it should either be dead or living in a cottage far away enough that they don't run the risk of encountering said person needing to feel awe or gratitude.


Question: What is the purpose of provocation?

Short answer: Few interesting provocations are actually intended to piss people off.

Long answer: When Jesus threw the money changers out of the temple he probably didn't do it to provoke someone, he probably just wanted them to stop changing money inside the temple. Anyone being provoked was probably a mere biproduct. Like most successful provocations carried out.
If I smash someone over the head with a painting in the shape of two melons and a bottle, the person I hit will probably be provoked and angered, and the painting may be a work of art, but that doesn't mean it should be included in the concept of "provocative art". No matter how poorly drawn it is.


Question: How does one listen to someone who has something to say?

Short answer: Don't think.

Long answer: The biggest problem with hearing what other people say is that people think.
If one were to ask someone "can I borrow a bicycle pump and some red nail polish?" most people wouldn't answer the question straight away. They'd probably start wondering what you intended to use them for.
This is because mankind has developed the ability to trick one another, which is something we want to avoid at the expense of understanding.
A close relative of tricking is called joking, where one might as for a bicycle pump and red nail polish even if one doesn't need them. A big part of the development of the human brain is down to the fact that we can trick each other. When people became smart, they stopped understanding each other.
With art, you can both trick people as well as make jokes without hurting anyone.


Question: Which is better, form or function?

Short answer: Quality has no particular shape or form.

Long answer: Quality has never been a good motive, but a very good motivator. It's quite likely that nothing of high quality has ever been created by someone who intended to create something of high quality. Quality was more likely a biproduct of someone being preoccupied with another problem, such as being mad as all hell over the bombing of Guernica.


Question: Should one listen to good advice?

Short answer: Yes. Bad advice too.

Long answer: Both good and bad advice can be useful if you know what you're looking for. Bad advice can be used to get one's imagination going, good advice may be used to confirm what you already knew. They can both be used as a point of origin.


Question: Should art not reflect the times?

Short answer: Oh boy.

Long answer: I asked some people tonight what the yearly theme of the Bujinkan was. They said that the newest concept was that of not giving your opponent any energy to work with.
It kind of reminded me of how I felt several years ago when my former training partner's three year old daughter spoke of her astonishment at the fact that Sleeping Beauty eventually woke up. Or when kids these days refer to 90's rap as "old school".


Question: What should I practice?

Short answer: Practice what you know.

Long answer: Many tennis instructors tend to burden their students with improving their lousy backhand volleys, at which point the student feels worthless when little or no progress is made, and then they proceed to quit.
Other instructors tend to focus on having their students perfect the strikes that they're actually able to perform well.


Question: Are the crafts dying out?

Short answer: Nothing disappears, it's merely transformed.

Long answer: What's considered to be true craftsmanship today was pure BS yesterday, as well as the other way around. For instance, what would Michaelangelo think of Picasso? What would Mozart think of Quincy Jones?
It's hard to determine whether one's skilled at performing a trade, or just a kind of stupidity.


Question: How does one become content with one's artistry?

Short answer: Use the correct steering implement.

Long answer: A man is sitting in a boat. Sometimes the boat goes where he wants it to go, and he feels happy and content. But sometimes, it goes in the complete opposite direction, which puzzles him and makes him come up with what he thinks is a reasonable explanation as to why the boat went astray, as well as a method of preventing it happening again. What he doesn't know is that he's not holding the rudder, he's holding the remote control to his television. Where the boat actually ends up has got nothing to do with his steering.
People generally try to steer with the self that they identify with. Sometimes this works out, sometimes it doesn't. There is a lot of research being conducted about bacteria that inhabit our bodies which are dependent upon sugar, and apparently they're the ones sending signals to our brains telling us to eat sweet things. We think we want candy, when it's really the bacteria that want candy.
Disregard what you think you feel, and instead find out what it is you should be doing. Then do it.


Question: Why are so few people self-sufficient and independent when everyone knows that it's important?

Short answer: They're not stupid enough.

Long answer: A man is driving along the freeway. On the radio, he hears a warning being aired out about some nutcase driving in the wrong direction straight towards incoming traffic. The man shakes his head and mutters "just one? Please! There are thousands of people driving in the wrong direction on this road!"
In order to be independent, one has to be either stupid, strange, non-attentive or gifted with the ability to completely disregard the current, which is wholly unnatural for group living mammals like us.


Question: What's the difference between opinions and fact?

Short answer: Same thing, different sizes.

Long answer: When a large enough number of people espouse an opinion it is automatically converted to fact. What's very strange is that facts are more easily replaced than opinions, even though they're made from the same substance.
Just try to support a different sports team than the one you usually like the best for one week, or try to enjoy different food than that which you usually prefer for the same duration of time - extremely difficult to do. However, if people read somewhere that beer and chocolate have been proven by scientists to be much more beneficial to one's health than they were previously thought to be, they will generally believe it right away.
Exchange your opinions with facts, it will make you much more flexible since facts can be changed more often.


Question: Why don't people realize how good my stuff is?

Short answer: People see what they want to see.

Long answer: More black Americans believe O.J. Simpson to be innocent than guilty, and more white Americans believe him to be guilty than innocent. The list of instances where objectivity and neutral analysis are noticeably absent stretches on forever, to the extent where one wonders if they're even humanly possible.
If you want people to appreciate your stuff, make sure to include yourself in the same "team" as the people you wish to please. If your next door neighbor is having a noisy party you're likely to feel some degree of irritation, but it's a completely different matter if you happen to be invited.


Question: Is it important to keep up with the times?

Short answer: Too late.

Long answer: Back when I studied psychology in high school, an experiment was shown to us in which people were allowed to walk into a room and stay there for a while, and when they walked out they were told that the next time they entered the room, something would be changed. Everyone walked in expecting a piece of furniture having been moved or something like that. But no one noticed that the walls had been repainted from blue to red.
People are too slow to follow the times, the present serves a kind of blind spot to the human consciousness. We only discover changes where we expect them to take place.


Question: When is a work of art done?

Short answer: When you've seen it twice.

Long answer: Five years ago, the general manager of the Chilean mint was fired when it was discovered that coins had been made where the name of the country was spelled incorrectly. Many people had probably checked the coin thousands of times before it entered circulation. Having misspelled the name of their own country was far too big a mistake for anyone to be able to detect it.
If you work with the same thing every day you tend to only discover small problems, not the big ones. The best thing to do is sometimes to leave the task alone for a while and look at it again after some time.


Question: Why are so many artists these days mediocre?

Short answer: Wait and see.

Long answer: Most people are mediocre, that tends to change so that they can be admired endlessly. It is said that Einstein did poorly at school and that Picasso was extremely skilled at painting even as a young boy - the fact of the matter, however, is that they were both mediocre. The early writings concerning Jesus don't mention anything about walking on water or working wonders with wine, those things were added later. Same thing with modern artists, their level of greatness will most likely be added later.


Question: I feel uninspired, what should I do?

Short answer: Punch it.

Long answer: If you watch the winter olympics, you'll find that the skiers tend to look pretty tired when they've gone somewhere in the vicinity of 30 klicks or so, but they still tend to increase their level of speed and intensity when they're approaching the finish line. They don't stop and wait for inspiration.
Olympic skiing can't possibly be more important than art.


Question: What is quality?

Short answer: What other people like.

Long answer: Plants and animals tend to like things that serve as high quality to them, even though others aren't exactly as thrilled. Mankind's idea of quality isn't altogether personal and much more complicated.
There's a test that's conducted with children in order to determine if they're able to see things from someone else's perspective. Basically, you take a box of candy, remove the candy and put a band-aid inside it instead. Then you ask the child what it's mother would think was in the box if she entered the room. Most children reply "candy", but when they respond with "a band-aid, of course" there's reason for their parents to be worried.
A good question would be how many artists, as well as critics, would be able to pass said test.


Question: Should one think a lot when creating art?

Short answer: If you feel like it.

Long answer: Thinking has, strangely enough, gotten itself a very bad reputation when it comes to art, probably because the subconscious is so important. If someone gets drunk, harasses people and then proceeds to beat his wife it's rarely something he's planned to do, it's more likely that he simply felt like it.
The feeling is more often than not the root of the problem. Despite this fact, feelings enjoy an undeservedly good reputation in the world of art. In every other science, thinking is seen as much more important.


Question: How do I obtain a strong artistry?

Short answer: Deep roots and lots of water.

Long answer: Pine trees that grow slowly become much denser and stronger than trees that grow quickly. On the other hand, when a strong wind blows, the stronger trees go snap whereas the softer trees bend over. If the land is dry, the cones will fall off quickly and you'll have deep roots.
If people were trees then all this would be useful to us, but we're not. People, as opposed to trees, are better served by making up their minds and ignoring useless advice.


Question: How do I become the best artist in the world?

Short answer: Raise your arms and cry out in joy.

Long answer: Winners are noticable by the way they look after the struggle has ended. A loser will hang his head whereas the winner will be waving a flag, sometimes this obscures what actually happened. Many people believe that England and France won WWII and that Japan and Germany lost, mainly because the English and the French were the ones waving the flags when it was all over. But before the war, England and France were huge empires with billions of people living under their dominion, as well as a pair of dominating forces in the global economy. After the war, these two countries were tiny little states in western Europe bereft of most of their former influence, whereas Germany and Japan grew immensely in economical power, alongside the US which always dominates no matter which side it takes. So the question that needs to be asked is this - do you want to win in the eyes of others, or for real?
(Of course, the actual population of said countries during wartime were the ones who truly lost the most.)


Question: Why is there so much unnaturalness in art?

Short answer: Wait and see.

Long answer: That which is natural and that which is unnatural both have great tendencies to switch place. Culture, for instance, is nature 2.0. There is a lot of talk about carbon dioxide and the unnatural balance in the air, which is often thought of as wrong and unhealthy. The truth of the matter is that oxygen floating around in free air is totally unnatural - it is actually a form of pollution that plants have released as a biproduct of their photosynthesis. Still, no one wants to reinstate the "natural condition" of the earth, because people have grown accustomed to, and even become dependant on, oxygen. What we consider to be unnatural is that which was the norm a while ago.


Question: Which is the most common rookie mistake?

Short answer: Confusing guilt with responsibility.

Long answer: If one were discover a weakness in one's artistry, there are three paths to take. The first and most common is guilt (I'm a useless, talentless idiot for doing things like this) which bears the risk of lessened enthusiasm and a lack of energy. Another common way of adressing the issue is denial (those morons don't understand jack isht) which often leads to lesser quality due to a lack of outside input.
The third and most preferable method of handling it is responsibility (I've discovered one of my flaws, this is a perfect opportunity for me to improve myself - YAY!).


Question: Which is the most important trait in a budding artist?

Short answer: Don't get fooled easily.

Long answer: Many people speculate about the nature of Mona Lisa's smile, when in actuality that was simply the manner in which Da Vinci used to paint mouths. The smile also has nothing to do with the painting's level of famousness - that is primarily due to the fact that it was kidnapped by Italian nationalists in the 19th century. The rest is just retconning. Also, beware of people who talk about cold-blooded horses (all horses are warm-blooded), homemade bread (from the bakery) and designer sneakers (all sneakers are drawn by designers).


Question: Which ability is the most important?

Short answer: Function.

Long answer: If one were to divide a class of aspiring meteorologists into two sections, where one half gets to determine which weather they like the most, how much rain is necessary for the sake of farming and whatnot, then that half will likely become very skilled at that particular endeavor. They'll be overjoyed when the right weather conditions occur, and very irritated when the opposite happens.
The other half gets to study which type of clouds that are going to produce which kinds of rain, how to measure temperatures and gather all kinds of information regarding changes in climate. They're the ones who are going to be able to predict the weather most accurately by putting their skill and knowledge to use.
The first group may be right sometimes, but since it's totally random their skills are essentially useless, even though both groups may have studied equally hard. It's better to observe how things work, than to have opinions as to how they should work.


Question: Is it good to be skilled?

Short answer: Yes, but boring.

Long answer: A pizza baker likely remembers the first pizza he ever made, how focused he was when making it and how imperfect it ended up. But when he's working on his 10000th pizza, he's probably thinking of something completely different than making pizza.
If you're good at something, most of your brain isn't bothered with it because it isn't necessary. Often, skillfully created things wind up being boring because the presence of the artist is missing.


Question: Is it important to be radical?

Short answer: Yes, but what does that mean?

Long answer: As most people know, the earth is spinning with an incredible velocity through space, but we don't notice this on a daily basis because everyone is along for the ride. If one person suddenly decided to stop completely, other people would be seeing said person being hurled rotating into space at a speed of thousands of kilometers per hour.
Even the most conservative person imaginable can be seen as a radical, if being radical is the prevailing norm and everyone else is just spinning along.


Question: How is it that so much contemporary art looks the same all around the world, when at the same time the lady next door is doing all these weird things?

Short answer: Globalization.

Long answer: There is a concept called biological convergence, which essentially means that animals that are completely unrelated to one another - such as the Eurasian wolf and the Tasmanian devil - tend to evolve in the same direction because of the similarities in their living environments.
If one wants to be different, it's better to change one's way of living than trying to change the way one performs art. The cultures of today aren't glued together locally but rather ideologically. This is why outlaw bikers tend to look similar all across the world, whereas their neighboring old ladies look completely different to one another and have completely different attituted towarts leather clothing and jewelry.
I like to keep this in mind when contrasting martial arts hailing from countries with ongoing terrorist insurgence, as opposed to those which have been at peace for the last 70 years.


Question: Is it important to follow your feelings?

Short answer: Depends on what you feel like doing.

Long answer: It's easier to do something one feels like doing, like kissing someone you like as opposed to kissing a raw piece of liver. This doesn't mean that everything one feels like doing should be done.
Most of the bad things done in this world were carried out by people who felt like doing them. The rationalizations given afterwards as to why one felt like doing something stupid are often intellectual by nature, but by that time it's too late to think.


Question: Should you care about what people think?

Short answer: Depends on what people think.

Long answer: Many people think that democracy is a good way of governing a society, but they tend to forget that Hitler was democratically elected. People often have awful opinions about things, but they're all we have in order to discover what we're doing. Some people say that they only train or put on makeup for their own sake, but it would be hard to imagine that the last man on earth would bother with either. People do things for the sake of others whether they realize it or not, which is a sign of someone lacking self-insight. The question, then, is whether one wants people to become delighted, terrified or merely indifferent, with which many people succeed admirably.


Question: Shouldn't one focus on art which is natural to perform?

Short answer: Rotten apples?

Long answer: Immense work is required to keep nature and naturalness at bay - it's collectively known as "culture". If one allows dogs to breed on their own without human interference, they'll regain the look and behaviour of wolves within a few generations. On early mornings, it's not uncommon to see elderly men unaffected by societal restraints collecting cans, which is quite close to man's original, natural behaviour.
The word "natural" is often used in a positive manner, but the natural state of an apple is water, carbon and a few metals, which is the state it will return to after rotting. "Naturalness" has been gifted with an undeservedly good reputation.


Question: Why do people create such awful works of "art"?

Short answer: They do what they like.

Long answer: A man who likes porridge has prepared a large, steaming hot bowl of porridge for himself. So far, so good. Then he realizes he also likes curry powder, so he adds it to the bowl. Then he remembers how much he likes anchovies and strawberry ice cream, as well as chanterelle mushrooms.
And then some people wonder why there's so much awfulness stemming from others simply doing and adding stuff they like.