Letter to a poet

[Plane]

"Always trust yourself and your own feelings, as
opposed to arguments and discussions,.................
.....................If it turns
out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner
life will eventually guide you to other insights. Allow your
judgments a silent, undisturbed development, which, like all
progress, must come from deep within and cannot be forced or
hastened. Everything is gestation and then birthing. To let
each impression and each embryo of a feeling come to
completion, entirely in itself, in the dark, in the unsayable,
the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own understanding,
and with deep humility and patience to wait for the hour when a
new clarity is born: this is what it means to live as an
artist."


-Rainer Maria Rilke



http://www.painterskeys.com/

[domer]

"If it turns
out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner
life will eventually guide you to other insights [which may be equally as wrong]."

[Plane]

"If it turns
out that you are wrong, then the natural growth of your inner
life will eventually guide you to other insights [which may be equally as wrong]."

Hahahahahahahahaha


True !

But the first and the second understanding are products of the artist and the true prouct of the art within the artist , even if wrong both times .

There is a value in this , but there is nothing shamefull in reading the thoughts of others for the sake of learning , if this were a shame what woul a poets job be?

I consider this point of view to be a warning against allowing all of ones thought to become dirivitive of others thinking , even Mark Twain warned aginst reading too much . Someone who wants to write or to paint or to discover new Math needs the balnce struck between a proper grouding in the work done by his elders and the time spent in the development of originality.

[domer]

How does this play for presidents?

[Plane]

How does this play for presidents?

Hmmmmm.....


Is being a President a form of Art?

Or sort of an industrial job in which meeting a previously set standard is better than re-inventing the job?


Taft was really a pretty good President but Teddy Rosevelt was very offnded in him for doing diffrently than Teddy would have done .

Would Gore have continued the Clinton style?

Did Bush 41 succeed in carrying forwards the Reagan program?


I think that I want my president to be capable of origional thought , to have a genuine style that is his own .
But some times it seems as if being President is a team sport with the President more like a team captain than a grand individual.

One of our greatest was Abraham Lincon , who took into his team some of the greatest of his rivals , he managed people very well , but still wrote his own speeches that turned out to be Cogent , inspireing and beautifully put together.


I had not thought about the Presidency in terms of needing originality before, thanks Domer.

[Xavier_Onassis]

Being a president is not an art form. I could care less about the man's style, so long as it works to get the right things done.

Lincoln may have had the hardest job, being as his very election caused the biggest disaster in the nation's history, but he was far from being the greatest president. By 1865, the country was a ruin of what it had been when Lincoln took office. It took twenty years to rebuild even the essential bits of the infrastructure that were destroyed.

If Douglas or Bell or even Breckenridge had been elected, the Civil War might have been avoided.

Reagan had a wonderful style, but the man was dumber than mud and he did pretty much all the wrong things.

Style is an advertising thing, and is pretty much irrelevant to character and ability. Before radio and TV, it would be hard to even determine any president's 'style'.

Clinton had Reagan beat on everything except his extracurricular activities with Monica.

Theodore Roosevelt had a great style for an imperialist. FDR probably was the most successful president. Lincoln's election was the prime cause of the Civil War, but FDR did not cause the Depression.

Jefferson was responsible for the country becoming what it is today, more than anyone else.

[Plane]

Being a president is not an art form. I could care less about the man's style, so long as it works to get the right things done.

Lincoln may have had the hardest job, being as his very election caused the biggest disaster in the nation's history, but he was far from being the greatest president. By 1865, the country was a ruin of what it had been when Lincoln took office. It took twenty years to rebuild even the essential bits of the infrastructure that were destroyed.

If Douglas or Bell or even Breckenridge had been elected, the Civil War might have been avoided.

Reagan had a wonderful style, but the man was dumber than mud and he did pretty much all the wrong things.

Style is an advertising thing, and is pretty much irrelevant to character and ability. Before radio and TV, it would be hard to even determine any president's 'style'.

Clinton had Reagan beat on everything except his extracurricular activities with Monica.

Theodore Roosevelt had a great style for an imperialist. FDR probably was the most successful president. Lincoln's election was the prime cause of the Civil War, but FDR did not cause the Depression.

Jefferson was responsible for the country becoming what it is today, more than anyone else.

Jefferson was not as effective as President as he was in his role as philosopher.
His administration was a mess , his embargo was ineffective .
But befoe he became President he helped chart the direction of the country .