Editor of
Features Editor at Death & Taxes Magazine, contributor to The Week, Interview, and Vice Magazine.
-
Advice on heroes.
I got a letter from a friend this week that said many things, but one sentence stood out clear – to paraphrase; “don’t follow someone else’s path.” It made me think and I suppose you being on that side of the screen and me being on this side… anyway. Words. This is what came out of it after a couple of hours in the laundromat of my head. And here goes:
- There is no danger in having a hero.
- We all look up to things we want to be.
- Ok.
- Think of an idea for a new umbrella for no less than 15 seconds.
- Go on. Think about it.
- It’s stupid, right?
- Ok – save that idea for a few minutes.
- There is no danger in following a dream – as long as that dream is true, honest, and doable.
- By doable, I mean you could win an Oscar. You could. That’s a thing you could have if you wanted it. If you are a paraplegic, however, you will not win a gold medal in the Olympic in pole-vaulting.
- That’s just the way it is.
- Sorry.
- But you should follow that dream. You should. Not to be a lyric from a Prince song but “this life? You’re on your own.” You get one shot at this.
- There’s a reward for those that choose to do so. To take that shot at doing that thing, anyway. That’s admirable.
- It’s OK to have a hero.
- It’s beneficial to aspire.
- However, there’s a danger of becoming what your hero was.
- Your hero is not you.
- Your hero has never been you.
- To translate what your hero did to your own life is to translate, say, a twin size bed sheet to a queen size mattress; or, say, any given episode of “Degrassi” and transfer it to your own wellbeing. It might work – given an amount of stretching or luck it will work. On its own – you are forcing it.
- Their Wikipedia entries are written from the perspective of “finishing.” You are seeing the completed result; you are ultimately only seeing the battles won and lost to get to a desired place. To make those same decisions based on your own life will not match up.
- You grew up entirely yourself. Blaming your parents should ultimately stop by age 25. Maybe some shit went down early on for you – many have been there – but you are beyond that now, and you have the controls.
- If you do not have the controls, take some time out to find them. They will be there. Give yourself a dollar and a smile and you’ll find it eventually. They’re there to find.
- If you transcribe enough conversation you’ll realize that people start and stop sentences - you know - kind of like this - but there’s, wait - you know? - well, that’s how people talk when they’re not Winston Churchill or a Samuel L. Jackson voiceover.
- You are not Winston Churchill or Samuel L. Jackson.
- Those are scripts.
- You are not following a script.
- It’s OK to look at another script and want to follow it because you know where it ends.
- It’s not OK to follow someone else’s script and expect to end up in the same place as them.
- People can teach you many things. A good teacher is a blessing, a true blessing. But you can learn from everyone regardless of the way that they teach you.
- It’s sort of like skateboarding.
- You can learn from watching others, but you’ll never quite know how to do it until you squat down and materialize something new and ridiculous with your legs until it works.
- (that’s basically what a “new” idea is – trying out something ridiculous, anyway)
- (when you get down to it)
- (not to ruin it for you)
- I guess, when it comes down to it, you’ll never know unless you try.
- And you’ll never try unless you know.
- (not to sound like a fucking John Lennon lyric)
- (I mean, half of that guy’s songs were basically inverted metaphors)
- (Remember that lyric of his “is the door ajar, or is the jar a door”?)
- (that wasn’t a lyric, I was kinda testing you)
- But you’ll have these heroes, and they’re great. And you’ll learn a lot from them. But you’ll never be in the same rooms as they were when they had those meetings. You just won’t.
- Those meetings, or ideas, or breaks of creative supernovas…
- … they came from them. Those ideas came from their heads. Not any special divine meaning.
- (By the way, don’t read ‘divinity’ into your own life or you’ll end up hosed.)
- It’s fine to read those scripts to find out the story but ultimately you’ll have your own story to tell. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve looked up someone I’ve admired and gotten angry(!) about not being at their level at my time. Comparing ages and what not.
- Not to pull an Aaliyah, but age ain’t nothing but a number.
- Become you in time.
- That will help you out more than comparing yourself to your heroes.
- OK - that idea you thought for an umbrella that was stupid six minutes ago?
- That’s still your idea. You can perfect upon it.
- Don’t throw it away.
- Give it some time, some tweaking, some care, and you might just think think of the next best selling umbrella design.
- That’s sort of how it works.
- Your heroes all sat there doing the same thing until they thought of their own things; their own “designs for shitty umbrellas”, their own TV shows, books, movies, political strategies, lessons to teach…
- … they all sat there doing that thing you just did with the umbrella.
- They just kept working at it.
- And working at it.
- Until it was theirs.
-
sadnessandphobias likes this
-
meeshellzswell reblogged this from nedhepburn and added:
Forever reblog. Randomly thought about...interesting to read his words about heroes
-
wgm likes this
-
redcloud likes this
-
freakingggginger likes this
-
shakespeareandshoes likes this
-
angelsandadjectives likes this
-
redlipstainsz likes this
-
derekwrites reblogged this from nedhepburn
-
somuchfunithurts likes this
-
karikoeppel likes this
-
morganstein likes this
-
midnightvalkyrie likes this
-
pavorst likes this
-
writingsandthingss likes this
-
lavieesteternelle reblogged this from nedhepburn
-
alexlochen likes this
-
tynosurf reblogged this from nedhepburn
-
thepoliticalnotebook likes this
-
adoenamedjane likes this
-
mutations likes this
-
carambotti reblogged this from nedhepburn and added:
A riff on being yourself. And how ideas work.
-
umustcreate likes this
-
ottiwellwood reblogged this from nedhepburn
-
ottiwellwood likes this
-
caitie-dont likes this
-
ordinarywonder likes this
-
This was featured in #Prose
-
nancysun likes this
-
sassypictureblog likes this
-
alyssalerner likes this
-
clairefoley likes this
-
conceptalbum likes this
-
iamsolucid likes this
-
the-stig likes this
-
becaaa likes this
-
dontspilltherum reblogged this from nedhepburn
-
design58 reblogged this from nedhepburn
-
ca-thar-si-s likes this
-
chellchellchell likes this
-
surgicalstrike likes this
-
untoldpretties reblogged this from ithinkimanalrightguy and added:
This is genius.
-
dontthinkdontthink likes this
-
ramblingsofashortasiangirl reblogged this from nedhepburn
-
bestworstdays likes this
-
not-hating-brooklyn likes this
-
lonesome-diamond likes this
-
andwerelive reblogged this from nedhepburn
-
paulymiller likes this
-
micheleelizabeth12 likes this
- Show more notes
loading…
