In In The Mood for Love, Wong Kar-Wai’s camera wants to see what cannot possibly be seen. His camera wants to articulate what can never be spoken, or what can only be whispered as a secret into a hole in a tree, then, once whispered, covered over with mud. His camera is exploring, not recording, the mood for love. Wong’s camera caresses time. It knows how to wait without any intention aside from seeing. His camera holds time still in ways that are rare in contemporary cinema.
Read moreUnnerving Moments of Rapture
But therein lies the problem. It takes not only courage, but also devotion to live in a way that allows you to even begin to see what you desire. Be curious about your life. Love what you are doing—I mean be truly, deeply passionate about it—enough to protect it, to cherish it, and offer it to your soul. And, trust me, you will need to protect your life, to defend it against those who want you to conform to the life they lived; well, to be honest, the life they actually never did live, but “sacrificed”, because they caved into their fears, and those people (parents, teachers, guidance counselors, boyfriends, girlfriends) who caved into their fears will do all they can to put those same fears inside you.
Don’t let the creeps win.
Passion always begins with fear.
Read moreSquirming forever at the edge of desire
Write, not to have written, but to be writing. Write because, inside the moment you are writing, you are in love with the moment of the act of writing. In fact, if you are a mathematician, approach your problems with the same desire. Love the moment of the complexity of the problem. Make the moment tremble with wanting. If you do this, you can never be disappointed, because you are writing out of a love for writing, not out of a desire to be seen as a writer.
Read moreThe Political Unconscious of Boredom (Part One)
"Look, Dad. This is not a pipe!"
Some people are so fearful of becoming bored that they “create” insurance policies against boredom. One such insurance policy is to have more than one window open on their computer while they are working. Such people do exist! They frighten me, but they are “real” actual people, and they live in America! and they move among us. These people work on a word document, perhaps writing a poem, while having two or three website tabs open and ready, in case they begin to drown in boredom. In case the poem fails to rhyme. In case they become bored with their own imagination.
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