QUOTE: Nothing Is Original

This is an interesting take on creating something new that I both agree and disagree with.

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic.

Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery – celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: “It’s not where you take things from – it’s where you take them to.

— Jim Jarmusch

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.”
– Albert Einstein

Why Are Clams So Happy?

So my friend Rick mentioned last night that he was as “happy as a clam” in a conversation and that got me thinking. Why exactly are clams so happy? After a quick Google search I found phrases.org.uk which gave me this reasoning:

Why would clams be happy? It has been suggested that open clams give the appearance of smiling. The derivation is more likely to come from the fuller version of the phrase, now rarely heard – ‘as happy as a clam at high water’. Hide tide is when clams are free from the attentions of predators; surely the happiest of times in the bivalve mollusc world. The phrase originated in the north-eastern states of the USA in the early 19th century. The earliest citation that I can find is from a frontier memoir The Harpe’s Head – A Legend of Kentucky, 1833.

So there you have it. Clams are happy because they “LOOK” happy at a certain angle. I’m not convinced of this though. When it really boils down to it (mmm boiled clam….) hundreds of thousands of clams are massacred on a yearly basis for our culinary delight. They are a species whose very existence has come down to being grown and exterminated by humanity for two purposes- food and money. The money end of things of course being forced out of the water so that those wonderful pearls that are found within them can be harvested and turned into jewelry. Oh the proud mollusk is a great creature and one of them was even found to be the oldest living creature on the planet (until I assume it was sauteed before the pearl it had within was raped from it.) One of these days this noble species will rise up from our starving need for all things tasty and overthrow the shackles that we have placed upon them! Until then I will of course gladly munch on their succulent meat on any occasion I am out for seafood. (I wonder if Attack Of The Killer Clams has been made into a movie yet? …and if not why not?)

[picture via: a random flickr search.]

Just as a heads up, I’m not currently in or out of love so this isn’t directed at anyone or anything. I just stumbled across it while trying to decide on what to post about (yes I know I’ve been lazy.) I find it to be really quite amazing that one of my favorite authors can so completely share ONE of my views on Love. (Anyone who knows me knows all too well this isn’t my only view on love *laughs*)

Have you ever been in love?
Horrible, isn’t it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens your heart and it means someone can get inside you and mess you up.
You build up all these defenses. You build up this whole armor, for years, so nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life. You give them a piece of you. They don’t ask for it. They do something dumb one day like kiss you, or smile at you, and then your life isn’t your own anymore. Love takes hostages. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so a simple phrase like ‘Maybe we should just be friends’ or ‘How very perceptive’ turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart.
It hurts.
Not just in the imagination.
Not just in the mind.
It’s a soul-hurt, a body-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain.
Nothing should be able to do that. Especially not love. I hate love.

-Neil Gaiman

“There’s no excuse to be bored. Sad, yes. Angry, yes. Depressed, yes. Crazy, yes. But there’s no excuse for boredom, ever.”
- Viggo Mortensen

“I’m afraid of nothing except being bored”
- Greta Garbo

“When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored.”
- Eric Hoffer

“Probably the difference between man and the monkeys is that the monkeys are merely bored, while man has boredom plus imagination.”
- Lin Yutang

“Let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasonable, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance.”

- Franklin D. Roosevelt / first inaugrual address, 4 March 1933.

“I will not fear. Fear is the mindkiller, Fear is the little death, That brings total Oblivion I will permit my fear to pass, Over me and through me, And where it has gone, I will turn the inner eye,Nothing will be there, Only I will remain.”

- Frank Herbert / Dune Series

“Okay.You’re gonna tell me your sorry assed story over and over again. When you understand that what you’re telling is just a story. It isn’t happening anymore. When you realize the story you’re telling is just words, when you can just crumble it up and throw your past in the trashcan, then we’ll figure out who you’re going to be.” – Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters, 1999

“Deep in some blissful dream
Where the goddess finally sleeps
In the lap of her lover
Subdued in all her rage
And Im aglow with the taste of the demons driven out
And happily replaced with the presence of real love
The only one who saves”
-Live / Dance With You

To me this song represents sharing your life with someone, the dance, and these lines in particular of a woman who hasn’t had it easy. Who is angry with life. Depressed. Who has enough love and trust of the one she’s with to be able to finally relax in his embrace and be able to fall asleep in his arms with a smile on her face. I know she’s better now. I’m happy that she is. Theres days that I still miss her.

“You cant always get what you want.. But if you try sometimes well you might find.. You get what you need” – Rolling Stones / You Can’t Always Get What You Want

“Sometimes the last thing you want comes in first.. Sometimes the first thing you want never comes” – Aqualung / Strange And Beautiful

“If you only face forward, there is something you will miss seeing. It is a virtue to devote oneself to something, firmly believing in one’s own ideals. But that does not mean it’s all right to belittle the ideals or feelings of others. If you lead such a busy life, and you don’t realize how your parents feel, it’s only self-satisfaction. It’s all right to stop every now and again if you want a moment’s rest, if you want to feel what other people feel.” – Trigun / Little Arcadia