be goddamn yourself
There was a period in his career when Seth Rogen would feel terrible after watching a great movie. A writer, actor, and director himself, he’d burn with envy, measuring his writing, acting, and directing against the writing, acting, and directing of whatever brilliant thing he’d just watched. Then he’d go back to his own work and start twisting and
... See moreDifferent does not mean worse
Media mogul. Suppose you were really wealthy, or otherwise you maybe inherited your dream sort of media studio or production house. What would it be? A film studio? Record label? Magazine? If you were guaranteed of succeeding, what kind of media mogul would you be? Followup: what sort of movies, or books, or artists, etc would you be looking to make, showcase? (I have a lot of followup questions about what the whole operation would look and feel like.)
Bank Heist. What role would you play in a “bank heist”? Feel free to modify the heist so that it’s not a bank, maybe you’re retrieving a stolen diamond from an evil dictator and returning it to a museum or something. Safecracker? Getaway driver? Hacker? Mastermind? Brute? Conman? Fixer? Inside man? Wild card?
Theme park. You’ve been given a plot of land in a surprisingly accessible location and all the resources you need to build “some kind of theme park”. What would it be like? It doesn’t have to have rides, it can be literally any kind of festival or event you dream up.
Golden ticket. What would be the most incredible thing that could happen to your project/business/operation? Why? How could we make that more likely? What are some intermediate steps we could define?”
This is the ultimate trapdoor in the hall of fame; to become a prisoner of one's own persona. The desire for recognition in an increasingly atomized world lures us to be who strangers wish us to be. And with personal development so arduous and lonely, there is ease and comfort in crowdsourcing your identity. But amid such temptations, it's worth... See more
Gurwinder • The Perils of Audience Capture
Not everyone comes out guns blazing
Friendship is born at the moment when one person says to another: ‘What? You too? I thought I was the only one.’”—C. S. Lewis
The only way to connect with people on a deep level is to exposure yourself vulnerable.
A friend of mine is a big Instagram influencer in Mexico (nearly a million followers and deals with lots of brands). As far as I can tell, he is a happy man. He freely admits that he is selling a fake persona, and has achieved peace with it. I asked him if he could do something interesting with his account (from activism to conceptual art). His... See more
Captain Pleasure, Andrés Gómez Emilssonx.comNothing worse than becoming famous / successful with something you don’t believe in