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This is why your life is a Mess - Don't Conform | Charlie Kaufman
Transcript:
People are starving. They may not know it because they're being fed mass-produced garbage. The packaging is colourful and it's loud but it's being produced in the same factories that make pop-tarts and iPads by people sitting around thinking what can we do what can we do to get people to buy more of these. And they're very good at their jobs but that's what it is you're getting because that's what they're making they're selling you something and the world is built on this now, politics and government are built on this, corporations are built on this, interpersonal relationships are built on this and we're starving all of us and we're killing each other and we're hitting each other and we're calling each other liars and evil because it's all become marketing and we want to win because we're lonely and empty and scared and we're led to believe winning will change all that but there is no winning. What can be done? Say who you are. Really say it in your life and in your work. Tell someone out there who is lost someone not yet born, someone who won't be born for five hundred years. Your writing will be a record of your time it can't help but be but more importantly if you're honest about who you are you'll help that person be less lonely in their world because that person will recognise him or herself in you and that will give them hope and it's done so for me and I have to keep rediscovering it, it's profound importance in my life give that to the world rather than selling something to the world don't allow yourself to be tricked into thinking that the way things are is the way the world must work and that in the end selling is what everyone must do try not to the world needs you it doesn't need you at a party having read a book about how to appear smart at parties these books exist and they're tempting but resist falling into that trap, the world needs you at the party starting real conversations saying I don't know, being kind.-
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Do I have an original thought in my head? My bald head. Maybe if I were happier, my hair wouldn't be falling out.Life is short. I need to make the most of it. Today is the first day of the rest of my life. I'm a walking cliché.I really need to go to the doctor and have my leg checked. There's something wrong. A bump. The dentist called again. I'm way overdue. If I stop putting things off, I would be happier. All I do is sit on my fat ass. If my ass wasn't fat I would be happier. I wouldn't have to wear these shirts with the tails out all the time. Like that's fooling anyone. Fat ass.I should start jogging again. Five miles a day. Really do it this time. Maybe rock climbing. I need to turn my life around. What do I need to do? I need to fall in love. I need to have a girlfriend. I need to read more, improve myself. What if I learned Russian or something? Or took up an instrument? I could speak Chinese. I'd be the screenwriter who speaks Chinese and plays the oboe. That would be cool.I should get my hair cut short. Stop trying to fool myself and everyone else into thinking I have a full head of hair. How pathetic is that?Just be real. Confident. Isn't that what women are attracted to? Men don't have to be attractive. But that's not true. Especially these days. Almost as much pressure on men as there is on women these days.Why should I be made to feel I have to apologize for my existence? Maybe it's my brain chemistry. Maybe that's what's wrong with me. Bad chemistry. All my problems and anxiety can be reduced to a chemical imbalance or some kind of misfiring synapses. I need to get help for that.But I'll still be ugly though.Nothing's gonna change that
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There really is only one ending to any story. Human life ends in death. Until then, it keeps going and gets complicated and there's loss. Everything involves loss; every relationship ends in one way or another
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CLEMENTINE: This is it, Joel. It's going to be gone soon.JOEL: I know.CLEMENTINE: What do we do?JOEL: Enjoy it
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I'm not a concept. Too many guys think I'm a concept or I complete them or I'm going to 'make them alive'…but I'm just a fucked up girl who's looking for my own peace of mind. Don't assign me yours
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Storytelling is inherently dangerous. Consider a traumatic event in your life. Think about how you experienced it. Now think about how you told it to someone a year later. Now think about how you told it for the hundredth time. It's not the same thing. Most people think perspective is a good thing: you can figure out characters' arcs, you can apply a moral, you can tell it with understanding and context. But this perspective is a misrepresentation: it's a reconstruction with meaning, and as such bears little resemblance to the event