Conformity Isn’t a Recipe for Excellence: Wisdom from George Carlin & Steve Jobs (NSFW)

in Comedy, Life, Psychology | December 6th, 2011

Dur­ing the 1960s, George Car­lin had some­thing of an epiphany. Con­front­ed by the coun­ter­cul­ture, the young come­di­an real­ized that he was­n’t stay­ing true to him­self — that he was try­ing to be Dan­ny Kaye, a very main­stream star, when he was real­ly an out­law and a rebel at heart. (Watch him on The Tonight Show in 1966). Even­tu­al­ly, Car­lin learned “not to give a shit,” to break with mil­que­toast con­ven­tions that restrained oth­er come­di­ans, and that’s when his com­ic genius bloomed. Note that some of Car­lin’s com­ments here are … not sur­pris­ing­ly … not safe for work.

Steve Jobs, anoth­er child of the coun­ter­cul­ture, did­n’t learn Car­lin’s les­son over time. As Wal­ter Isaac­son makes clear in his new biog­ra­phy, Jobs under­stood from the begin­ning that excel­lence is rarely achieved by walk­ing down the path of con­for­mi­ty. In a 1995 inter­view, Jobs boiled down his basic approach to life. The mas­ter­mind behind the leg­endary Think Dif­fer­ent tele­vi­sion cam­paign (watch the ver­sion nar­rat­ed by Jobs him­self) said:

When you grow up, you tend to get told the world is the way it is, and your life is just to live your life inside the world. Try not to bash into the walls too much. Try to have a nice fam­i­ly, have fun, save a lit­tle mon­ey.

That’s a very lim­it­ed life. Life can be much broad­er once you dis­cov­er one sim­ple fact: Every­thing around you that you call life was made up by peo­ple that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influ­ence it, you can build your own things that oth­er peo­ple can use. Once you learn that, you’ll nev­er be the same again.

You can find more pearls of wis­dom from Jobs over at Brain­Pick­ings, and we’ll leave you below with more cul­tur­al fig­ures med­i­tat­ing on life:

Stephen Fry: What I Wish I Had Known When I Was 18

Paulo Coel­ho: Suc­cess Nev­er Hap­pens With­out Tak­ing Risks

One of the Biggest Risks is Being Too Cau­tious…

Bono Tells Grad­u­ates “Pick a Fight, Get in It” (2004)

Conan O’Brien: Through Dis­ap­point­ment You Can Gain Clar­i­ty

J.K. Rowl­ing Tells Har­vard Grad­u­ates What They Need to Know

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

The Denali Experiment: A Test of Human Limits

in Life | December 2nd, 2011

How does the say­ing go? It’s the jour­ney, not the des­ti­na­tion, that counts?

The short film above, The Denali Exper­i­ment, doc­u­ments the gnarly expe­di­tion of some rock star skiers. Their goal? To sum­mit Denali, the high­est moun­tain peak in North Amer­i­ca, and then ski down its steep slopes. The beau­ti­ful­ly-shot film by Jim­my Chen focus­es almost entire­ly on the jour­ney up the moun­tain, a big 20,320 feet. For the skiers, the high alti­tude moun­taineer­ing was the hard part, the test of human lim­its. Not the trip down. Sit back and enjoy the jour­ney.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Extreme Pho­tog­ra­phy: Shoot­ing Big Climbs at Yosemite

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

A Day in Venezia

in Art, Life | November 29th, 2011

3,000,000 tourists move through Venice each year. The flood starts dur­ing the spring and peaks in sum­mer, then recedes dur­ing the cool­er months, giv­ing the local res­i­dents a lit­tle peace. True, the city, made up of 124 islands, 183 canals and 438 bridges, is radi­ant dur­ing the sum­mer. (Just watch below.) But the “Queen of the Adri­at­ic” takes on a dif­fer­ent beau­ty in the win­ter, some­thing that a tourist, who sim­ply goes by FKY, cap­tures in an art­ful video above. Enjoy, and if you want to know more about the archi­tec­tur­al won­ders of this 1500-year-old city, don’t miss How Venice Works.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Werner Herzog Gets Shot During Interview, Doesn’t Miss a Beat

in Film, Life | November 25th, 2011


Fast for­ward to the 47 sec­ond mark if you want to cut straight to the action.

Wern­er Her­zog moved to the Unit­ed States in the mid 1990s. He tried liv­ing in San Fran­cis­co, but found it “too chic and leisure­ly.” He gave thought to New York, but real­ized it is “only a place to go [to] if you’re into finances.” Look­ing for “a place of cul­tur­al sub­stance,” he end­ed up in Los Ange­les. The city is “raw, uncouth and bizarre,” but it’s a place of sub­stance,” he con­clud­ed.

By 2006, Her­zog dis­cov­ered that L.A. also has a lit­tle dan­ger going for it. Dur­ing an inter­view with BBC crit­ic Mark Ker­mode, the film­mak­er took a shot from an unknown gun­man armed with an air rifle. No mat­ter. Ker­mode and Her­zog quick­ly relo­cat­ed and con­tin­ued the inter­view. The unflap­pable Her­zog shrugged off the shoot­ing, sim­ply say­ing “It was not a sig­nif­i­cant bul­let. I am not afraid.”

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Wern­er Her­zog: Movies Won’t Change the World

Wern­er Her­zog Reads “Go the F**k to Sleep” in NYC (NSFW)

Wern­er Her­zog Los­es a Bet to Errol Mor­ris, and Eats His Shoe (Lit­er­al­ly)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( None ) |

Stephen Fry & Friends Pay Tribute to Christopher Hitchens

in Life | November 23rd, 2011

On Novem­ber 9th, Stephen Fry and friends came togeth­er in Lon­don to cel­e­brate Christo­pher Hitchens’ life, loves and hates — all while Hitch watched from his hos­pi­tal bed. Staged in Lon­don by Intel­li­gence², the event brought togeth­er Richard Dawkins, Christo­pher Buck­ley, Salman Rushdie, Lewis Lapham, Mar­tin Amis, poet James Fen­ton and actor Sean Penn, with some pay­ing trib­ute in per­son, oth­ers via satel­lite.

Orig­i­nal­ly, the sell-out audi­ence of 2,500 expect­ed to see Hitchens and Fry talk­ing togeth­er about pol­i­tics, lit­er­a­ture, and ‘the things that make life worth defend­ing — foes like faith and false con­so­la­tion.’ But at the last moment, Hitchens, already suf­fer­ing from esophageal can­cer, fell ill with pneu­mo­nia and plans changed. Now, instead of being an inter­locu­tor, Fry became mas­ter of cer­e­monies, coor­di­nat­ing what odd­ly felt like a eulo­gy before the fact.

The pro­gram runs 45 min­utes, and you can watch it for free. Also don’t miss a pre­vi­ous Intel­li­gence Squared Debate where Fry and Hitchens take posi­tions on the Catholic church and whether it’s a force for good.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Christo­pher Hitchens: No Deathbed Con­ver­sion for Me, Thanks, But It Was Good of You to Ask

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 7 ) |

Death Masks of Dante, Nietzsche, Joyce, Beethoven and Other Greats

in Life, Literature, Philosophy | November 9th, 2011

Dante.deathmask

Death masks — they have been around since the days of King Tut in Ancient Egypt, and (per­haps) Agamem­non and Cas­san­dra in Ancient Greece. A way to remem­ber the char­ac­ter and expres­sions of the dead, this memo­r­i­al prac­tice con­tin­ued right down through the Mid­dle Ages when wax and plas­ter became the mate­ri­als of choice.

nietzsche death mask

Today, we’re left with facial imprints of impor­tant his­tor­i­cal lead­ers (Cromwell, Napoleon, Peter the Great); cul­tur­al giants (Dante up top, Shake­speare, Voltaire, New­ton, Beethoven, James Joyce, Niet­zsche); and some recent­ly more depart­ed icons (Hitch­cock and Tim­o­thy Leary).

joyce death mask

Prince­ton Uni­ver­si­ty hosts online a fair­ly large col­lec­tion of Life and Death Masks, and the good folks at Bib­liok­lept high­light masks of the intel­li­gent, pow­er­ful and famous on an ongo­ing basis. Unfor­tu­nate­ly these col­lec­tions skew almost entire­ly male — a sign of the times that came before us.

Above, you can see the masks of Niet­zsche, Dante, and Joyce mov­ing from top to bot­tom.

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 8 ) |

Joan Didion Reads From New Memoir, Blue Nights, in Short Film Directed by Griffin Dunne

in Books, Life, Literature | November 2nd, 2011

A mere twen­ty months after Joan Did­ion’s hus­band, John Gre­go­ry Dunne, died of a heart attack, Did­ion’s only child, Quin­tana Roo Dunne, con­tract­ed pneu­mo­nia, lapsed into sep­tic shock and passed away. She was only 39 years old. Did­ion grap­pled with the first death in her 2005 best­seller, The Year of Mag­i­cal Think­ing. Now, with her new mem­oir Blue Nights, she turns to her child’s pass­ing, to a par­en­t’s worst fear real­ized. In this short film shot by her nephew, direc­tor Grif­fin Dunne, Did­ion reads from Blue Nights. The scene opens with mem­o­ries from her daugh­ter’s wed­ding and ends with some big exis­ten­tial ques­tions and the refrain, “When we talk about mor­tal­i­ty we are talk­ing about our chil­dren.”

This “audio­book for the eyes,” as Grif­fin Dunne calls it, runs six plus min­utes. The actu­al Blue Nights audio book is now avail­able on Audi­ble.

A big thanks goes to @opedr for send­ing the Did­ion clip our way…

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 1 ) |

Bertrand Russell Explains How Smoking Paradoxically Saved His Life

in Life, Philosophy | October 28th, 2011

In 1959, Bertrand Rus­sell, then push­ing 90, could still give a good inter­view. We have pre­vi­ous­ly fea­tured vin­tage video of Rus­sell send­ing a mes­sage to peo­ple liv­ing 1,000 years in the future and also con­tem­plat­ing the exis­tence/non-exis­tence of God. Now comes more footage from ’59, and this time he tells us all about how smok­ing a pipe saved his life. It makes for a good anec­dote (get more on his near-death expe­ri­ence here), though not an endorse­ment for tak­ing up the habit.…

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Bertrand Russell’s Ten Com­mand­ments for Liv­ing in a Healthy Democ­ra­cy

Bertrand Rus­sell & Oth­er Big Thinkers in BBC Lec­ture Series (Free)

Down­load Free Cours­es from Famous Philoso­phers: From Bertrand Rus­sell to Michel Fou­cault

Bertrand Rus­sell Lists His 20 Favorite Words in 1958 (and What Are Some of Yours?)

by | Permalink | Make a Comment ( 2 ) |

« Go Back — More in this category... »
Quantcast