a portrait of the artist as a young man

Dave Eggers on being a critic

There is a point in one’s life when one cares about selling out and not selling out. One worries whether or not wearing a certain shirt means that they are behind the curve or ahead of it, or that having certain music in one’s collection means that they are impressive, or unimpressive.

Thankfully, for some, this all passes. I am here to tell you that I have, a few years ago, found my way out of that thicket of comparison and relentless suspicion and judgment. And it is a nice feeling. Because, in the end, no one will ever give a shit who has kept shit ‘real’ except the two or three people, sitting in their apartments, bitter and self-devouring, who take it upon themselves to wonder about such things. The keeping real of shit matters to some people, but it does not matter to me. It’s fashion, and I don’t like fashion, because fashion does not matter.

What matters is that you do good work. What matters is that you produce things that are true and will stand. What matters is that the Flaming Lips’s new album is ravishing and I’ve listened to it a thousand times already, sometimes for days on end, and it enriches me and makes me want to save people. What matters is that it will stand forever, long after any narrow-hearted curmudgeons have forgotten their appearance on goddamn 90210. What matters is not the perception, nor the fashion, not who’s up and who’s down, but what someone has done and if they meant it. What matters is that you want to see and make and do, on as grand a scale as you want, regardless of what the tiny voices of tiny people say.

Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a fuckload of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

[Dave Eggers, sent to me by Wes after a discussion on the role of the critic and the reviewer]

From the "Post-Modernism" Group on Facebook

This group is to bring together our generation and use this new Post-Modern philosophy to abolish our Hegemonic Metanarratives and create a world that embodies the creative human spirit and not the destructive. This is for our betterment, as one humanity. You can comment on any experiences or new discoveries you’ve had dealing with post-modernism or we can discuss what is next for mankind and how to make a sustainable peace with each other. If you have read any of the books I mentioned we can discuss that as well.

These ideas are new to me too and difficult to understand and work with but it is in our best interest to discuss what we feel and how we react with the world. I am aware of a few works to help us understand Post-Modern thought and Philosophy:

The Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas

The Stranger by Albert Camus

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

The Secret by Rhonda Byrne

The Moses Code by James F. Twyman

[here]

I’m speechless.

From "Variations at Home and Abroad," Kenneth Koch

Even if I live in Indonesia as a native in a hut, someone coming through
there
Will certainly gasp and say Why you’re an American!
My optimism, my openness, my lack of a sense of history,
My distinctive facial muscles ready to look angry or sad or sympathetic
In a moment and not quite know where to go from there;
My assuming that anything is possible, my deep sense of superiority
And inferiority at the same time; my lack of culture,
Except for the bookish kind; my way of acting with the dog, come here
Spotty! God damn!
All these and hundreds more declare me to be what I am.
It’s burdensome but also inevitable. I think so.
Expatriates have had some success with the plastic surgery
Of absence and departure. But it is never absolute. And then they must bear
the new identity as well.