A Quote by Bei Dao
Writing is the thing that sustains me and keeps me going. It is a form of self-preservation for me.
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Ironically, often the thing that keeps me from experiencing joy is my preoccupation with self. The very selfishness that keeps me from pouring myself out for the joy of others also keeps me from noticing and delighting in the myriad small gifts God offers each day. This is why Walker Percy describes boredom as "the self stuffed with the self."
Summer has come with the loveliness of a mother Heat, not warmth, now pours onto my face, aging me, taking me closer to death.
Let it. I am here to live my story, to love my story. I will not fail to savor any gift out of a desire for self-preservation. Self-preservation is not a great virtue in this story.
I love the whole physical thing in films. It keeps me on my toes, it keeps me awake, it keeps me alive. If I'm going to be shooting a movie from 7pm to 7am six nights a week, I best be as physical as possible because then I'll never get tired. Otherwise you sit down, it sounds really weird, but that's the part that wears you out.
[Constant curiousity leads to happiness:] I wake up curious every day and every day I'm surprised by something. And if I can just recognize that surprise every day and say, 'Oh, that's a new thing, that's a new gift that I got today that I didn't even know about yesterday,' it keeps me going. It keeps me more than going. It keeps me enthusiastic and grateful!
I am a Muslim and . . . my religion makes me be against all forms of racism. It keeps me from judging any man by the color of his skin. It teaches me to judge him by his deeds and his conscious behavior. And it teaches me to be for the rights of all human beings, but especially the Afro-American human being, because my religion is a natural religion, and the first law of nature is self-preservation.
Self-preservation is an important thing to me.
Writing, for me, when I'm writing in the first-person, is like a form of acting. So as I'm writing, the character or self I'm writing about and my whole self - when I began the book - become entwined. It's soon hard to tell them apart. The voice I'm trying to explore directs my own perceptions and thoughts.
We are morphing as we go through things, and then we're presented with the notion of a soul. A soul implies more than just the preservation of energy. Science will tell you that you can explode a person, but their energy still exists - even if they're decimated, the universe will preserve that in the form of heat or whatever it is. So there's a preservation of our molecules or whatever, but is there a preservation of a thing that's called the self if that thing is not actually ever one thing?
Now, all writing - all the arts - are a form of 'Pay attention to me,' but there's also the flip side. Like, I want to give something. Let me entertain you, let me amuse you, let me try to please you with this thing I've made. And then pay attention to me.
For me, my stories are spiritual journeys, and whenever I write, it's a form of worship. It's a form of my worship. Worship is not just Sunday morning as we all know. Worship is everything we do. Writing is most definitely a form of worship for me and, God as I'm writing, He takes me on these journeys.
For me, competition is good; that is what keeps me on my toes and keeps me going. I am always trying to better my own work, do better than my earlier films... do films that are challenging and exciting for me.
Just putting my uniform on keeps me going. Being able to get out there keeps me going. That's the best therapy.
I hope that my work helps people - that's the thing that drives me and keeps me going.
The element of surprise is the most important thing and what keeps me interested in writing. I can feel it if I've written that predictable or boring line, and I will carry that around with me all day.
Writing, for me, was a feat of self-preservation. If I did not do it, I would die. So I did it. Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
My mom keeps me going, man. She deserves such a good life. I just wanna give it to her. My dad, too. My family, my friends, they keep me motivated. Just knowing my personal legend, just knowing what I'm supposed to do, that keeps me going.
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