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Re: some thoughts on Ted's queeries about art and self esteemand, oh yeah, looping
Title: Re: some thoughts on Ted's queeries about art and
self est
First, a question: What's a "queery"?
At 7:28 PM -0800 11/18/04, loop.pool wrote:
Hey Ted,
You wrote:
"Mr. Self-Esteem Problem here. Heheh. Actually I got into
looping
(way back when, 30 years ago, with tape delays) BECAUSE of low
self-esteem."
Interesting. I got into "looping" (actually a 4-track
version of Terry Riley's "time lag accumulator") as a format
for group improvisation (mostly duos with Bob Beede, back in 1976-77
at Cabrillo.
Most of the digital looping I've done in more recent years (ca.
1987-99) was in duo and group situations, though of necessity I
started doing some solo gigs DJ-style when some opportunities came up
(Loopstock, Woodstockhausen, Y2K2) and I was without a band.
"In other words, I was a misfit. I
have often wondered over the years
just how much creative/industrious activity in the West was often
just the result of certain individuals drive/hunger to
"compensate" for
a perceived personal "lack" in some other area -- misfits
desperately
trying to "fit in" and find/found/forge a place for
themselves in a
cruelly mocking and ever-threatening world.. "
That's one way to look at it. Another way is to accept one's role
as a "changeling" and forge ahead with the inner assurance
that one is somehow "special." Of course this can be just
another manifestation of what Ted's talking about - an
overcompensation that can lead to egotism and arrogance. If one is
lucky and cultivates wisdom then one might just pass through to a
nicely balanced feeling of self-assurance and even performerly
generosity.
This was nicely put by Donovan in his song "There Was a
Time":
There was a time I thought of mine only
Could it be occurred to me while lonely
I was noble personage
born to beautify the page.
If I used my time to set it down.
There was a time I thought of mine only
Could it be occurred to me while lonely
I was of high lineage
cast up in a dreadful age
born to be the hermit of my time.
On a windy Saturday
St. Alban's market day
Little did I know
the work I was to do
or the love I had to show.
"1. Does being a "misfit"
generate low self-esteem or vice versa."
Often it comes from being smarter than most people but not
realizing it yet.
"2. Does low self-esteem come from
internal sources or external?"
Internal reactions to the external.
I believe that low self esteem results
from poor or neglectful parenting or even abuse (and I consider
abandoment or the teaching of young children not to have extreme
emotions an abuse) during childhood, personally, coupled with
a pervasive cultural perspective.
It can also come from impersonal trauma such as an illness or
accident.
I once asked a very wise elder woman I
know why our culture didn't respect its elders. She said "You
cannot respect someone who does not respect you". She
said that because our cultural is so dysfunctionalthat a whole
generation of young people have grown up (and continue to grow up)
without any sense of what maturity is.
To paraphrase the son of a Blackpool jailbird: "Pick your
children well."
There are a lot of ignorant and useless slackers out there and
it's probably not worth the effort to reach out to most of them, but
there are also a lot of youngsters with promise. My approach is to
find a few good ones and give energy to them. Then they can take care
of their less-motivated peers.
--
______________________________________________________________
Richard Zvonar, PhD
(818) 788-2202
http://www.zvonar.com
http://RZCybernetics.com
