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Disclaimer : This video does not belong to me and I make no profit from it. It belongs to Goalcast and Mr. Benedict Cumberbatch. I just posted it because I found it really really Inspiring! Benedict Cumberbatch: Make Your Own World He sings the praises of checking out from the world once in a while, and to step back from our fixations on overthinking to just do. Do: Sol LeWitt’s Electrifying Letter of Advice on Self-Doubt, Overcoming Creative Block, and Being an Artist. How does one keep a solid center of principled conviction while at the same time expanding outward into widening circles of growth-impulses, always reaching for the unknown without letting competence fester into complacency or perfectionism become an anchor of stagnation? The answer to that, and to other elemental perplexities of the creative life, is what the artist Sol LeWitt (September 9, 1928–April 8, 2007) offers in a spectacular 1965 letter to the trailblazing sculptor Eva Hesse, whom he had befriended five years earlier. Hesse, a disciple of Josef Albers and a pioneer of the postminimalist art movement of the 1960s, began suffering from creative block and self-doubt shortly after moving from New York to Germany with her husband. She reached out to her friend for counsel and consolation. The masterpiece of a response LeWitt wrote on April 14, 1965 was later included in Letters of Note: Correspondence Deserving of a Wider Audience. This impassioned five-page missive, remains the closest thing to a personal creative credo LeWitt ever committed to words. Transcript: “Learn to say ‘Fuck you’ to the world every once in a while. You have every right to. You must practice being stupid, dumb, unthinking, empty. Then you will be able to DO! Don’t worry about cool. Make your own un-cool. Make your own. Make your own world. If you fear, make it work for you. Draw and paint your fear and anxiety and stop worrying about big deep things such as to decide on a purpose and way of life, a consistent approach to even some impossible end or even an unimagined end. Then you will be able to do. You are not responsible for the world. You’re only responsible for your work, so just do it. Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, numbling, rambling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse shitting, hair splitting, nit picking, piss tricking, nose sticking, ass gouging, eyeball poking, finger pointing, alleyway sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil eyeing, back scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO!
