🎓 on not aiming for the stars
Being ok with ordinary with David Foster Wallace, Kathleen Stock, and Nick Cave (mistakenly), also Sparks and Ari Aster
3 June 23 | Vol 2 Issue 20
For reasons that will remain unclear, here’s Nick Cave singing Into Your arms
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Into My Arms
I was about to owe Nick Cave an apology. Which would have been a little awkward, what with him being a friend of the family and all. Fortunately, searching for his letter to quote from, I discovered I had misread the intention and the audience. Unfortunately, this realisation has also somewhat sabotaged my train of thought for this week’s post.
I had jumped to the conclusion his entirely well reasoned answer to a fan's question, was in fact an open letter to his offspring, telling them to absorb culture, in order to produce great art. To be a genius. When in actuality he was, in rather florid language, making a similar point to the one I was going to counter with.
Here's a snippet, deliberately posted out of context, emulating the same manner I had originally read it in...
Read. Read as much as possible. Read the big stuff, the challenging stuff, the confronting stuff, and read the fun stuff too. Visit galleries and look at paintings, watch movies, listen to music, go to concerts – be a little vampire running around the place sucking up all the art and ideas you can. Fill yourself with the beautiful stuff of the world. Have fun. Get amazed. Get astonished. Get awed on a regular basis, so that getting awed is habitual and becomes a state of being. Fully understand your enormous value in the scheme of things because the planet needs people like you, smart young creatives full of awe, who can minister to the world with positive, mischievous energy, young people who seek spiritual enrichment and who see hatred and disconnection as the corrosive forces they are. These are manifest indicators of a human being with immense potential.
I'm not going to derail my own post by putting it in context — you can do that yourself by reading the original in full — instead I'm going to blithely carry on, pretending the evidence fits my opinion about cheering the next generation on to solve the world's problems.
My nephew doesn't want to be a lawyer. More specifically, he doesn't want to continue studying law for five years solely to get a job. Which means he has to decide on another subject. Another vocation.Â
At the end of these five years there will be a graduation ceremony, and at the graduation ceremony there will be a speech. And the speech will pretty much run along these lines — you are our brightest and youngest, you are our best hope, use the education this institution has given you to find a cure for cancer, to solve global warming, to discover a new whatever, to bring justice to... yada yada yada.
As if the whole point of education is to be the very best at something in particular. Is to succeed. Which, to be honest, doesn't sound very educated. It sounds trained. Which is an entirely different thing.
Elliot has already decided he doesn't want to scale a career ladder. He wants to live. To earn a modest living from a job that’s left behind each evening, sitting on his desk, until he returns next morning, providing the funds for him to indulge in the things he enjoys. Although I might challenge the notion that seeing Beau is Afraid twice in the same week is something that can be enjoyed. We all have our idiosyncrasies. Â
When Anne attended school, the headmaster was a Methodist who refused to put any money into the sports department, instead using it to fund the arts. His rationale was quite brilliant — in sport there can only ever be one winner.Â
David Foster Wallace gave what's considered to be the greatest graduation speech with This is Water. Given his later suicide it could be read as a warning, as well as advice.
Worship power, you will end up feeling weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to numb you to your own fear. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart, you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. But the insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they’re evil or sinful, it’s that they’re unconscious. They are default settings.
He very astutely collates a university degree with a life of working, that one is being trained to compete within the workforce. As if this is going to bring us happiness.Â
The ex Sussex University Professor of Philosophy Kathleen Stock gave an even more radical speech entitled To the Class of 2022: Maybe Don't Reach for the Stars. www.thefp.com/p/to-the-class-of-2022-maybe-dont-reach. Part of it is behind a paywall, so although I must have read it at some point, consider the following my own half-remembered interpretation: that there is only ever one winner. So what if you are in the rest of the class of '22? The also-rans?
Since most likely you aren't going to be this generation's wunderkind, coming on like a reality show instant success, consider being happy and bringing happiness to those around you as a worthwhile goal. What the world needs in greater quantities than genius songwriters or savant scientists are people who actually give a shit. Ordinary folk who care about everyday things. The little stuff. Being nice to people behind cash registers, having time to listen to people in the queue next to you. Accepting that life will have queues as well as fast lanes. So, do your job. Earn your living. Try, certainly. But that isn't where happiness lies. What brings happiness? Being happy. A tautology for sure. And who is happy? People who are loved. How do you get to be loved? By first expressing love.
Isn't the point of education to discover yourself? Not be trained and tasked to be one particular specialist thing. A discovered self is a self that can be relied on, creating a bedrock to love from. If ruthless ambition makes you happy, sure, go for it. Chances are I suspect that for most of us, it wont. Aim for contentment, aim for personal space in place of career progression, aim for room to love, and in return be loved. Don't aim for the stars, aim to have time to lie under them, with the people you care for, possibly some wine, certainly a picnic. Don't be Beau. Don't live for the expectations others give you.
Beau Is Afraid — Ari Aster
A quick side note to say in my humble opinion Beau may not bring you happiness either. It brought me a very numb bottom, and at one point, a nap.
Meanwhile, here's something that may bring you happiness.
Sparks - The Girl Is Crying In Her Latte
Listen to the first ten seconds. Stop it. Start it again. Those distorted synth tones with a hint of glitchcore. Contemporary sounding? If education is the ability to indulge and learn from your curiosity then fucking hats off to Ron Mael. Who, assuming my maths is good, is 78. Seventy fucking eight. While you don't have to be the best, don't be complacent, listen, explore. Be more like Ron. Also, Cate Blanchett's suit.
This week featured, in order of appearance
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Cave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Foster_Wallace
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathleen_Stock
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ari_Aster
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sparks_(band)
🎓
This week's heroes are Nick Cave and Ron Mael, drawn by our artist in residence, Fatima Fletcher. Show your appreciation by following fatima.fletcher on Instagram. Her work is for sale at fatimafletcher.com, where she’s available for commissions. Her wonderful orchid place mats are for sale at fatima-fletcher.square.site/s/shop.
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Just love, love, love this one. A beautiful message.
Wonderful