Cat

“shall we ever see the time your reign brings lasting peace to all hills and streams”
― Faubion Bowers, The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology

“É um equilíbrio delicado de atingir – e eu nem sempre acerto. É de perder a cabeça quando um miúdo não faz o que queremos e temos de nos despachar. Já dei por mim em situações em que frases que a minha mãe dizia saem da minha boca. “Não precisas de perguntar porquê. Só precisas de ouvir.” Mas procuro sempre recordar-me de que é razoável eles quererem compreender porquê. Na verdade, devemos-lhes explicações – se não agora, pelo menos mais tarde. Mas também quero que eles aprendam: às vezes é preciso aceitar que alguém tem a autoridade para resolver um problema.”
― Scott Hershovitz, Como Educar Um Filósofo

“shirafuji ya / kaze ni fukaruru / ama no gawa Behold the white wistarias — The Milky Way blown by the wind.”
― Faubion Bowers, The Classic Tradition of Haiku: An Anthology

“WE HAVE BEEN TAUGHT THAT IN ORDER TO CREATE STUFF, WE NEED PERMISSION Even now, as successful as I’ve ever been, I can’t shake that little voice that tells me I am nothing without external permission, that I need to be picked and chosen to do something as audacious as making things that weren’t there before. This impulse to wait for permission is built into our entire culture. In offices and factories and shops, we nearly always have a superior we defer to for permission. As children we needed parental approval. In our schools we had teachers. So it’s not surprising that in our creative life, many of us want someone to tell us that, yes, we are valid, yes, we are allowed. Whether the permission is patronage from the rich, validation from a partner, being offered a contract from a publishing house, or being plucked from obscurity by a casting agent, we consciously or subconsciously believe that if we’re meant to do this, someone with authority will let us know. It also makes sense on a more personal and emotional level that we wait for permission to create because it takes tremendous courage to alchemise parts of our internal world into something external and tangible. Of course we’d feel a little better about making art if someone had told us we were allowed to. It’s hard to pick yourself. It’s vulnerable, scary, we haven’t been taught how. In fact, we have been actively discouraged by the systems we live in. That’s why we have so many artists waiting in the wings, waiting to create but never starting, waiting for life to begin. You need to learn to pick yourself first or else you will always be waiting.”
― Amie McNee, We Need Your Art: Stop F*cking Around and Make Something