Related to Author Ocean Vuong on Being Generous in Your Work:
Metadata
Highlights
- “Well if the Greek root for ‘poet’ is ‘creator,’ then to remember is to create, and, therefore, to remember is to be a poet.” I thought it was so neat. Everyone’s a poet, as long as they remember. (View Highlight)
- I find a home in feeling. I feel at home in feeling. When I collaborate or talk with my friends, the place doesn’t matter. We could be on Mars and it would feel like home, because I feel free. I can be myself. I can be uber-queer, uber-strange, and we can be uber-curious with one another. That’s comforting. Perhaps it’s even harder to protect a home that doesn’t exist in a physical space, because we have to continually tend to this abstract feeling: “How do I create the parameters in which I am safe enough to be free amongst my peers?” (View Highlight)
- When I’m writing, it’s often walking, moving, rolling on carpets, thinking, reading, talking to people. That’s where the work happens to me: in life. The rest is just in text, which is hard enough. Don’t get me wrong: You pull your hair out trying to figure it out, but that part, as long as you’re diligent, will come together. The impulse behind it—why you built your arc, why it’s important, what you put in it—that’s the hard work. (View Highlight)
- My work is always sparked by other people. I never think I can do anything until someone I believe in says, “Try it.” (View Highlight)
- “This is what I do. This is who I am. I record?”
It’s the latter. Then, they also fuse, right? The urgency becomes ritual. That’s how I create, and so the diary becomes an extension of myself and of my interaction with the world. I see something; I write it down. It’s a way to recapture it. It’s this container; this ignition of the memory. If memory is creation, then we open a notebook, and by writing words, all of a sudden, it’s this piazza of the imagination where we’ve put all of our favorite interesting things. We come in, and we get to talk, and elaborate, and check up on everybody. (View Highlight)
- Then there’s this unknown. So much of my art, when it excites me, comes from that. It’s very human, but it does not have a socially recognized architecture. I want to go there, and it feels like leaving the body behind, but of course it’s always there. Everything is done through the body. The better answer is that it leaves a recognizable social identity behind and goes towards questions. When I’m reading something wild, it came from that space. (View Highlight)
- My big project is to ask, “What happens if we took language into our own hands or own mouths?” And asked an idiosyncratic question, instead of, “‘How are you?’ ‘Good, good, good.’ ‘Bye.’” The danger is that we go through our whole life talking, but never finding out who we are to one another. It’s okay at Starbucks. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to know everything about you here, drinking a cappuccino.” That’s enough for now, but what about our friends? Our loved ones? What happens when we do want to build that connection, that submersion, and all we have is, “How are you?” (View Highlight)
- A lot of times, we do feel that’s all we have. Just a little tweak in the language opens up so much, “‘When was the last time you saw somebody that make you happy? Are you joyful today? It’s okay if you’re not.’” (View Highlight)
- I was loitering on the edge for so long, never thinking that I had the courage to do it, and I still feel very hesitant all the time about whether I belong here, whether I should be doing this. I’ve learned that doubt is a source of energy. You don’t have to be always certain. We live in a culture that fetishizes certainty. “What’s your stance? What’s your position?” As a writer, luckily, I don’t have to have a stance. I just have to have questions, and I get to build a landscape where I get to explore them. We’re complicated. We are hurricanes in a way, you know? (View Highlight)
- • The agency for joy is safety—and vice versa. It is not a place, but a feeling. But you can see it, even in the dark. (View Highlight)
Related to Author Ocean Vuong on Being Generous in Your Work:
Metadata
Highlights
- “Well if the Greek root for ‘poet’ is ‘creator,’ then to remember is to create, and, therefore, to remember is to be a poet.” I thought it was so neat. Everyone’s a poet, as long as they remember. (View Highlight)
- I find a home in feeling. I feel at home in feeling. When I collaborate or talk with my friends, the place doesn’t matter. We could be on Mars and it would feel like home, because I feel free. I can be myself. I can be uber-queer, uber-strange, and we can be uber-curious with one another. That’s comforting. Perhaps it’s even harder to protect a home that doesn’t exist in a physical space, because we have to continually tend to this abstract feeling: “How do I create the parameters in which I am safe enough to be free amongst my peers?” (View Highlight)
- When I’m writing, it’s often walking, moving, rolling on carpets, thinking, reading, talking to people. That’s where the work happens to me: in life. The rest is just in text, which is hard enough. Don’t get me wrong: You pull your hair out trying to figure it out, but that part, as long as you’re diligent, will come together. The impulse behind it—why you built your arc, why it’s important, what you put in it—that’s the hard work. (View Highlight)
- My work is always sparked by other people. I never think I can do anything until someone I believe in says, “Try it.” (View Highlight)
- “This is what I do. This is who I am. I record?”
It’s the latter. Then, they also fuse, right? The urgency becomes ritual. That’s how I create, and so the diary becomes an extension of myself and of my interaction with the world. I see something; I write it down. It’s a way to recapture it. It’s this container; this ignition of the memory. If memory is creation, then we open a notebook, and by writing words, all of a sudden, it’s this piazza of the imagination where we’ve put all of our favorite interesting things. We come in, and we get to talk, and elaborate, and check up on everybody. (View Highlight)
- Then there’s this unknown. So much of my art, when it excites me, comes from that. It’s very human, but it does not have a socially recognized architecture. I want to go there, and it feels like leaving the body behind, but of course it’s always there. Everything is done through the body. The better answer is that it leaves a recognizable social identity behind and goes towards questions. When I’m reading something wild, it came from that space. (View Highlight)
- My big project is to ask, “What happens if we took language into our own hands or own mouths?” And asked an idiosyncratic question, instead of, “‘How are you?’ ‘Good, good, good.’ ‘Bye.’” The danger is that we go through our whole life talking, but never finding out who we are to one another. It’s okay at Starbucks. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to know everything about you here, drinking a cappuccino.” That’s enough for now, but what about our friends? Our loved ones? What happens when we do want to build that connection, that submersion, and all we have is, “How are you?” (View Highlight)
- A lot of times, we do feel that’s all we have. Just a little tweak in the language opens up so much, “‘When was the last time you saw somebody that make you happy? Are you joyful today? It’s okay if you’re not.’” (View Highlight)
- I was loitering on the edge for so long, never thinking that I had the courage to do it, and I still feel very hesitant all the time about whether I belong here, whether I should be doing this. I’ve learned that doubt is a source of energy. You don’t have to be always certain. We live in a culture that fetishizes certainty. “What’s your stance? What’s your position?” As a writer, luckily, I don’t have to have a stance. I just have to have questions, and I get to build a landscape where I get to explore them. We’re complicated. We are hurricanes in a way, you know? (View Highlight)
- • The agency for joy is safety—and vice versa. It is not a place, but a feeling. But you can see it, even in the dark. (View Highlight)