Wilson Miner - When We Build
Wow.
“Keep the faculty of effort alive in you by a little gratuitous exercise every day. That is, be systematically ascetic or heroic in little unnecessary points, do every day or two something for no other reason than that you would rather not do it, so that when the hour of dire need draws nigh, it may find you not unnerved and untrained to stand the test. So with the man who has daily inured himself to habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things. He will stand like a tower when everything rocks around him, and when his softer fellow-mortals are winnowed like chaff in the blast.”
This whole interview is really good. First time I’ve been able to hear him speak at length. Amazing man, really deep thoughts. Watch all 3 parts on YT.
SW: The main thing is that, is that
hiphop is rhythm and voice, ok,
we are all like… in English, we
would call ourselves persons.
Person comes from latin — “per” means being,
“son” means sound, beings of sound —
so that we are defined by our ability to vibrate
sound, ok
so that…
and we are all, beats and voices —
you know — and hiphop reflects that,
it augments that, so that through hiphop
you can really realize the power
and importance of words.
You know, Tupac for instance once said that
he never had a criminal records until he said that he did on record…
or on a record.
You understand, so that,
I believe, and I’ve learned that
things that we say regardless of how much
meaning we put into them or what have you
have a weight and a power of their own.
They have the ability to manifest through the
energy that we invest in them simply by saying them.
And so wehen Biggie Smalls, Notorious B.I.G.,
names an album “Ready to Die”
he’s not just saying that; he’s projecting that into the universe.
So it comes as no surprise to me after he names his second album “Life After Death”
that he dies before it comes out.
We have slang in america that’s like “word up”,
“word is bond”, that’s —you know— the language of the streets
we say something like I dunno, “word up, word is bond”
and “word is bond” means what you say is gonna happen.
And we’re not te first to figure that out; that comes from religion and our relationship to religion.
That’s why — you know — a priest will tell you to say ten hail mary’s because they know that by saying those things
there is a power, through recitation and what have you.
Well, hiphop asks you to recite the lyrics with it
and you have to be careful of what you’re reciting, because when you do there is a power and it can affect you.
I: so you have to be careful with the messages.
SW:Not just with hip-hop though.
I: yeah i know…
SW: yeah, exactly…
I: … but i mean in genereal, in poetry as well.
SW: yeah, yeah.. in life…in small talk…in conversations… in thoughts…
“Be careful, however, lest this reading of many authors and books of every sort may tend to make you discursive and unsteady. You must linger among a limited number of masterthinkers, and digest their works, if you would derive ideas which shall win firm hold in your mind. Everywhere means nowhere.”
“[I]n nooks all over the earth sit men who are waiting, scarcely knowing in what way they are waiting, much less that they are waiting in vain. Occasionally the call that awakens– that accident which gives the “permission to act — comes too late, when the best youth and strength for action has already been used up by sitting still; and many have found to their horror when they ‘leaped up’ that their limbs had gone to sleep and their spirit had become too heavy. ‘It is too late,’ they said to themselves, having lost their faith in themselves and henceforth forever useless.”
Amy Wong: But the professor can’t walk all the way to the Bronx. How are we going to get there without a hovercar?
Philip J. Fry: Wait. In my time we had a way of moving objects long distances without hovering.
Hermes Conrad: Impossible!
Philip J. Fry: It was called… let me think… It was really famous. Ruth Gordon had one… The wheel.
Turanga Leela: Never heard of it.
Professor Hubert Farnsworth: Show us this “the wheel.”
“Don’t prepare. Begin.”
“Life is too short to be small.”
“That language is an instrument of human reason, and not merely a medium for the expression of thought, is a truth generally admitted.”
“By relieving the brain of all unnecessary work, a good notation sets it free to concentrate on more advanced problems, and in effect increases the mental power of the race.”
