we are all artists.
Out of context: Reply #12
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- sarahfailin2
the century of the self is a great adam curtis documentary about how this hyper-individualistic idea of self-fulfillment is an entirely modern invention, and how governments and corporations have come to manipulate a self-centered drive towards consumeristic impulses.
i like the idea that everyone can be fulfilled and express themselves, but it's also similar to that warhol idea that everyone will have their 15 minutes of fame. we all have our own tumbler/myspace/facebook. we do something sometime that gets the world's attention for 15 minutes or 15 seconds. we're *recognized.*
humans are not like other animals in this impulse to express or actualize ourselves. in fact, we modern humans are not even like earlier humans, who were not driven by self-expression or self-actualization, but by more communal goals. the word 'self' was hardly in their vocabulary.
people don't have to all be exceptional at something. we shouldn't think that we should need to find ourselves so in one way or another or else be worthless. even if you ARE, even if you're famous today, and everyone in the world knows your name, in just 1000 years you'll be dead and entirely forgotten about. the ultimate impact of your actions so mixed and diluted with the impacts of others so as to be entirely inextricable, undefined, and indistinguishable from everything else that's happened.
i'm of the mind that while we draw these little boundaries around 'ourselves' and 'our' actions, that really everything and every action is bound up inextricably with everything else. we're not *doing* so much as we are *happening*
- The idea that we naturally organize into groups the size of nations, if not towns is more idioticcannonball1978
- shit i should watch that, hypernormalization is fantastic.colin_s
- ^ yes!sarahfailin