Socrates

"Our youth now love luxury.  They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers."

— Socrates

Greek Philosopher

469 BC - 399 BC

I first discovered this quote on a large poster in 1968 when I was a college student.  At the time my generation was being criticized for being hippies and many said we would never amount to anything.  I learned a valuable lesson that day — every new generation is criticized by their elders and told they would never amount to anything.  And while some may die young, most grow-up and become the elders of the next generation.

The other lesson to take from this quote is to be careful about listening to critics — they often get it wrong.  Don't let the critics dominate your life and your art.  Avoid them where possible and ignore what they say if you can't.  Artists and writers have been destroyed by the critics in their lives.  Some never pick up a pen or paint brush again.  Listen to your inner voice, not the voices of your external critics.

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Eleanor Roosevelt

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art."

— Eleanor Roosevelt

American Speaker, Author, Political Activist

1884 - 1962

In one sense, we all are artists.  We create the lives we lead.  While we may not have any control over what happens to us, we do have control how we respond to what happens to us.  And how we respond creates the person we become.  When you reach the end of the road one day and you look back at your life, what is the legacy you have left behind.  What kind of person have you become?  Will you be a grouchy, grumpy old drunk or a kind, caring matriarch?  Will you dance with laughter or worry and fret over the fact that your husband never puts down the toilet seat?  We all make choices in life and those choices create the lives we lead.  

Our lives are a work of art.  What color are your memories?  How many wrinkles line your dreams?  Do your hopes have arthritis?  What are you doing today that will create your legacy tomorrow?  What decisions are you making today that will form the core of your character tomorrow?  Life is about growth and change.  What lessons are you learning that will change your life?  Your life is a canvas.  Pick up your paint brush and start painting.  Live the life today that you will be proud of when you are 103.

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Henning Mankell

"To grow up is to wonder about things; to be grown up is to slowly forget the things you wondered about as a child."

Henning Mankell

Swedish Novelist

1948 - 

I watch the three-year-old child that my wife and I are raising and I am amazed at the creative powers of her mind to imagine worlds that I cannot see.  To invent stories and stories within stories.  What happens to us as we grow up and take on the cloaks of the adult world?  Where does our inventiveness go?  What worlds of the imagination have we forgotten?

What do you do to keep your mind young?  Do you play with children?  Do you enter their worlds?  Or does the path you walk become narrower with each passing day?  Do you still think as a child or have you given up childish things?  Are you young at heart?  Or are the arteries of your imagination clogged?

I recently finished Mankell's excellent novel, The Man From Beijing.  Here is a video of Henning Mankell discussing the novel at Strand Bookstore.

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Ralph Steadman

"What I used to do with a passion, foolishly and vainly imagining I would change the world for the better, I no longer tolerate in myself or anyone else.  But draw, always draw — and WRITE."

— Ralph Steadman

British Artist, Writer

1936 -

Have you ever dreamed of changing the world — making it a better place?  Unfortunately, most people have very little influence on the world at large.  And with the one person that we do have influence over — ourselves — we usually lack the discipline for long-term change.  Have you ever tried to change a spouse or a significant other?  It rarely works.  I have often heard of wrecked marriages resulting from one person trying to change the other.

The Sheriff
1995

Revolution is often said to be the passion of youth.  And if one does not die in the revolution, one grows wiser with age.  If you study history, you will realize that even when the evil empire is overthrown, it is usually replaced by another empire that eventually becomes evil itself.  And the cycle continues.  The young want power and the old are unwilling to relinquish it.

And what you might add does all this have to do with art and writing?  Every generation or two there are revolutions in artistic taste and style.  The younger generation of artists challenges the older generation.  Today abstract expressionism is giving way to a resurgence of realism.  And tomorrow?  I won't even begin to predict.

I think Ralph Steadman has hit the nail on the head.  Stop worrying about changing the world, your spouse or even yourself.  Just create:  draw, paint and write. 

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