This is so damn powerful. Anyone who has ever played music or sports feels this. The moment you stop to think while playing is when you will make a mistake. It's all feeling, guided by deliberate practice, repetition or consumption.
“The poet only desires exhalation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head who splits.” - C.K. Chesterton
I agree. The intellect is a danger to curiosity as a whole. In order to be truly curious, you have to be willing to accept the unknowable and not try to rationalize it away. Many intelligent people are operating from dogmatic frameworks that don’t allow them to experience the world with new eyes
In a way though, one can be intellectually curious. Certain rationalizations only lead to more questions, you just have to keep seeking the answers and you'll be searching your entire life. I agree with what Bradbury says here in the sense that feeling is necessary in art but I do think that intellectualism in general is not a stagnant thing-most of the intellectuals I know thrive off of different opinions and perspective. They are inherently curious.
Pretty much how I felt in art school. I understand you should be able to talk about your own work, but I'd pretty much make whatever was on my mind, work my way through it until it was presentable as a series and the conversations during exhibiting the work would help me put it in perspective if I couldn't explain it by then. In the later years tho, my teachers forced me to explain projects in the process of making them, or explain ideas before even starting them, because they got tired of me not knowing what the hell I was getting myself into. That's when the well dried up and they kicked me out of that chihuahua.
I have spent my life following my curiosity, and the assistance of my rationality was essential to every discovery I have made. "Accepting the unknowable" is religious dogma.
Oh yeah, baby! I've seen that sad issue numerous times in my lifetime. And those individuals cannot see how the dogma frame destroys their creativity and genuine comprehension.
He was right. i've applied what he said to my own writing, painting, and even dealing with people...and it works. If I try overthinking painting and writing,, my passion just dies. And it does with talking with people as well. When people get too intellectual, too limiting, they just turn into total, dried-out bores. Live and work by your heartbeat. Live and write and paint and sculpt and compose music in his way...because it's alive, it works. He was so very wise. Oh, I miss him!
God fucking damn this hit me to my core. I always, ALWAYS overthibk absolutely everything, especially in regards to characters. I always feel it necessary to justify everything about them, every decision they make, when really the flow of the story or just basic readers' intuition will justify those things. Things happen because the story is those things. It doesn't need to be any deeper than that.
I just retired from 20 years teaching a community college, and I agree with him on the snobbishness of many professors. I've had students say something to the effect, "I'm sorry for bothering you." I always tell them that it is no bother, if it wasn't for you, I'd have to get an honest job. I just retired this past May, 2024, and now I can finally write full time. I've just completed my lasted book: Violence, Lies, and Intimidation: A History of the Democratic Party.
The thing is, you need both. You need intuition to dream, imagine and create new things, and you need intellect build, shape and edit them. As they say, write with the heart, edit with the head.
i think " theory " and intellect are neccesary for mastering anything at all, at least you have a unique and rare gift. But the key is that thinking procces and theory have to be at the service of practice ..at the service of art. not vicebersa. theory work for understanding practice.. not vicebersa
It's true that overthinking can stifle creativity. But a good liberal arts college program can expose young writers to worlds they never dreamed of, new contexts that can show them alternative possibilities for their own being. It's not all about the intellect, either: it's about feelings every bit as much as thinking. And I can't get past the irony that Ray is giving this poor advice because he's overthinking it. 😀
The advice that came from him is a product of experience and not a product of overthinking. When we try to rationalize things in our works of art, we make it more mechanised and objective. Human lives are neither rational nor mechanised.
Dang! Ray Bradbury USED to be one of my favorite writers. I deluded myself that he was a SF writer, but deep down he was obviously just another fantasist. Nowadays there is little else. Irrationality has drowned us all.
@@Seeingitself-ud2it -- That's a classic excuse for never actually mastering any "spirit-devouring fact cages" and resisting all urges to "understand" how the world works. Accept intuition as truth, you'll be much more "creative". And yet, how do you explain the emergence of deeply poetic conceptions like quantum mechanics, without the dogged determination of their creators to find a theory that agreed with the data? "Soulless science" has produced surprises that no amount of raw imagination could ever match.
@@Seeingitself - Thank you. I'm flattered! I'm sure Einstein and de Broglie and Bohr and Heisenberg reached their theories through intuition and meditation, perhaps assisted by psychotropic drugs? They had no need to sit and puzzle over experimental data that disagreed with previous theories, right? That stuff is for stupid "rational" robots! Good luck intuiting your way out of catastrophic global climate change! Poetry and great literature certainly require intuition -- the unsupervised, speculative creativity of the subconscious -- but its creations require inspection and critique by the conscious, rational mind if they are to avoid grave error driven by mere wishful thinking. Because I still love Bradbury's poetic work, I will excuse his attack on rationality.
How did you read Ray Bradbury and somehow not understand where he was coming from? A person doesn't change just because you've discovered something about him. Perhaps one day you'll learn something new (and more to your liking) about RB, will you change your opinion about him _again_ ? So much for your _"rationality"_ . Did RBs writings resonate with you, or not? You don't need to take anything else in consideration...unless you're just a LARPer playing the role of a _'man of rationality'_ .
@@stephencarter7266 - RB was probably my favorite writer of all time when I was 16, and I still love his work; but this talk eroded my respect for his judgement, because I believe SF and Fantasy are different genres and apparently he didn't. This takes nothing away from his creative genius. The greatest poets are often wrong about matters of fact. Do you believe in facts?
National treasure ❤️ I still get a bit of tears in my eyes that he’s no longer with us, but his words on the page live on
This is so damn powerful. Anyone who has ever played music or sports feels this. The moment you stop to think while playing is when you will make a mistake. It's all feeling, guided by deliberate practice, repetition or consumption.
I’ve played sports, performed music, and painted and get what you’re saying…but I wish I could write in the same manner
What. I thought it's when you start thinking that you will make a mistake.
@@pixtlewint5095 we're saying the same thing
@@fiveonenine68 read again what you wrote😂
@@pixtlewint5095 Yeah, the "to" in what I said does a lot of lifting. "Stop to think" and "stop thinking" mean the opposite. English is fun.
“The poet only desires exhalation and expansion, a world to stretch himself in. The poet only asks to get his head into the heavens. It is the logician who seeks to get the heavens into his head. And it is his head who splits.” - C.K. Chesterton
Great quote (although to be pedantic, it's G. K.)
I agree. The intellect is a danger to curiosity as a whole. In order to be truly curious, you have to be willing to accept the unknowable and not try to rationalize it away. Many intelligent people are operating from dogmatic frameworks that don’t allow them to experience the world with new eyes
Second that. I enjoy your videos, you should make a video on that topic.
In a way though, one can be intellectually curious. Certain rationalizations only lead to more questions, you just have to keep seeking the answers and you'll be searching your entire life. I agree with what Bradbury says here in the sense that feeling is necessary in art but I do think that intellectualism in general is not a stagnant thing-most of the intellectuals I know thrive off of different opinions and perspective. They are inherently curious.
Pretty much how I felt in art school. I understand you should be able to talk about your own work, but I'd pretty much make whatever was on my mind, work my way through it until it was presentable as a series and the conversations during exhibiting the work would help me put it in perspective if I couldn't explain it by then.
In the later years tho, my teachers forced me to explain projects in the process of making them, or explain ideas before even starting them, because they got tired of me not knowing what the hell I was getting myself into. That's when the well dried up and they kicked me out of that chihuahua.
I have spent my life following my curiosity, and the assistance of my rationality was essential to every discovery I have made. "Accepting the unknowable" is religious dogma.
Oh yeah, baby! I've seen that sad issue numerous times in my lifetime. And those individuals cannot see how the dogma frame destroys their creativity and genuine comprehension.
He was right. i've applied what he said to my own writing, painting, and even dealing with people...and it works. If I try overthinking painting and writing,, my passion just dies. And it does with talking with people as well. When people get too intellectual, too limiting, they just turn into total, dried-out bores. Live and work by your heartbeat. Live and write and paint and sculpt and compose music in his way...because it's alive, it works. He was so very wise. Oh, I miss him!
I've listened to this so many times and will continue to as I learn how to write better.
God fucking damn this hit me to my core. I always, ALWAYS overthibk absolutely everything, especially in regards to characters. I always feel it necessary to justify everything about them, every decision they make, when really the flow of the story or just basic readers' intuition will justify those things.
Things happen because the story is those things. It doesn't need to be any deeper than that.
Well said.
I just retired from 20 years teaching a community college, and I agree with him on the snobbishness of many professors. I've had students say something to the effect, "I'm sorry for bothering you." I always tell them that it is no bother, if it wasn't for you, I'd have to get an honest job.
I just retired this past May, 2024, and now I can finally write full time. I've just completed my lasted book: Violence, Lies, and Intimidation: A History of the Democratic Party.
This is why every artist that goes to university comes out an activist. The "intellect" clouds the ability to reach beyond what's already known.
DONT THINK - FEEL
Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.
This hits. I'm currently writing a script for a film, and I just overthink it way too much.
The thing is, you need both. You need intuition to dream, imagine and create new things, and you need intellect build, shape and edit them. As they say, write with the heart, edit with the head.
i think " theory " and intellect are neccesary for mastering anything at all, at least you have a unique and rare gift. But the key is that thinking procces and theory have to be at the service of practice ..at the service of art. not vicebersa. theory work for understanding practice.. not vicebersa
Creativity leaps from consciousness; the intellect is like a computer.
It's true that overthinking can stifle creativity. But a good liberal arts college program can expose young writers to worlds they never dreamed of, new contexts that can show them alternative possibilities for their own being. It's not all about the intellect, either: it's about feelings every bit as much as thinking. And I can't get past the irony that Ray is giving this poor advice because he's overthinking it. 😀
The advice that came from him is a product of experience and not a product of overthinking. When we try to rationalize things in our works of art, we make it more mechanised and objective. Human lives are neither rational nor mechanised.
This is only good advice, and it is good advice, for gardener/pantser writers, and not for architect writers.
Dang! Ray Bradbury USED to be one of my favorite writers. I deluded myself that he was a SF writer, but deep down he was obviously just another fantasist. Nowadays there is little else. Irrationality has drowned us all.
@@Seeingitself-ud2it -- That's a classic excuse for never actually mastering any "spirit-devouring fact cages" and resisting all urges to "understand" how the world works. Accept intuition as truth, you'll be much more "creative". And yet, how do you explain the emergence of deeply poetic conceptions like quantum mechanics, without the dogged determination of their creators to find a theory that agreed with the data? "Soulless science" has produced surprises that no amount of raw imagination could ever match.
@@Seeingitself - Thank you. I'm flattered!
I'm sure Einstein and de Broglie and Bohr and Heisenberg reached their theories through intuition and meditation, perhaps assisted by psychotropic drugs? They had no need to sit and puzzle over experimental data that disagreed with previous theories, right? That stuff is for stupid "rational" robots! Good luck intuiting your way out of catastrophic global climate change!
Poetry and great literature certainly require intuition -- the unsupervised, speculative creativity of the subconscious -- but its creations require inspection and critique by the conscious, rational mind if they are to avoid grave error driven by mere wishful thinking. Because I still love Bradbury's poetic work, I will excuse his attack on rationality.
"Anything you dream is fiction, and anything you accomplish is science, the whole history of mankind is nothing but science fiction" RB
How did you read Ray Bradbury and somehow not understand where he was coming from?
A person doesn't change just because you've discovered something about him.
Perhaps one day you'll learn something new (and more to your liking) about RB, will you change your opinion about him _again_ ?
So much for your _"rationality"_ .
Did RBs writings resonate with you, or not? You don't need to take anything else in consideration...unless you're just a LARPer playing the role of a _'man of rationality'_ .
@@stephencarter7266 - RB was probably my favorite writer of all time when I was 16, and I still love his work; but this talk eroded my respect for his judgement, because I believe SF and Fantasy are different genres and apparently he didn't. This takes nothing away from his creative genius. The greatest poets are often wrong about matters of fact. Do you believe in facts?