Don't Lie to Yourself

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

The other day my friend Patrick wrote me - “How would you paraphrase “ To thine own self be true”?”

Over the past 20 years of our friendship, Patrick and I continuously return to Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

This practice reveals to me how curiosity plays such an important role in one’s life.

In our exchange, Patrick wrote:

“If Polonius means “Don’t do anything that goes against your nature” it’s foolish because detecting our nature and unraveling it from all familial and cultural influences is virtually impossible. We cannot see ourselves. 

If he means “Be true to the principles of who you are” that’s another labyrinth leading to another Minotaur.

But if he means “Don’t lie to yourself” - “To thine own self tell the truth” it is the heart of wisdom.”

Patrick’s insights reminded me of the Richard Feynman quote - “The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”

Essentially, we have lying minds.

And then, of course, Patrick’s last words in the text:

“To thine own self be true. Be impeccable with your internal word. Be precise with your internal speech. To yourself tell the truth.”

Where are you lying to yourself? How can you approach that place with curiosity today? 

A CREATIVE TOOL

I’ve been teaching and writing a lot about the role of AI in creativity at HUG, and there is one idea I keep thinking about.

A century ago, the invention of the camera was the primary disruption that drove debate and discourse. Similar to the contemporary conversations on generative AI, many artists initially saw photography as a threat to their livelihood as it could accurately capture reality in a way that painting could not.

However, the onset of early photography’s capacity for realism invited other artists to explore new ways of depicting their new realities. Photography was first introduced to the world in the 1840s, with 1870 being the birth of the Impressionist art movement, which sought to capture the fleeting effects of light, color, and texture in ways that film photography of the era was unable to replicate.

In the way photography has become a notable medium of its own with art at large growing more diverse, I keep thinking how one can only speculate how AI’s influence will continuously alter our perception and experience of what is and isn’t art.

A PIECE OF ART

“Berryman” by W.S. Merwin

I will tell you what he told me
in the years just after the war
as we then called
the second world war

don’t lose your arrogance yet he said
you can do that when you’re older
lose it too soon and you may
merely replace it with vanity

just one time he suggested
changing the usual order
of the same words in a line of verse
why point out a thing twice

he suggested I pray to the Muse
get down on my knees and pray
right there in the corner and he
said he meant it literally

it was in the days before the beard
and the drink but he was deep
in tides of his own through which he sailed
chin sideways and head tilted like a tacking sloop

he was far older than the dates allowed for
much older than I was he was in his thirties
he snapped down his nose with an accent
I think he had affected in England

as for publishing he advised me
to paper my wall with rejection slips
his lips and the bones of his long fingers trembled
with the vehemence of his views about poetry

he said the great presence
that permitted everything and transmuted it
in poetry was passion
passion was genius and he praised movement and invention

I had hardly begun to read
I asked how can you ever be sure
that what you write is really
any good at all and he said you can’t

you can’t you can never be sure
you die without knowing
whether anything you wrote was any good
if you have to be sure don’t write

Grateful,

Michael