If You Want To Write
Brenda Ueland
Summary
Great read on why everyone should be writing. Self-doubt and other people's judgement often stop us from writing but Brenda argues everyone should write no matter what. Personally can vouch for how great writing can be, even if you never share your work with anyone.
Rating: 4/5
Notes
‘He who knows not his own genius has none’ - William Blake
Be bold, be free, be truthful
Everybody is talented and original and has something important to say
Everybody is original if he speaks from his true self, not the self he thinks he should be
Work with all your intelligence and love
Art is a creative impulse
Writing is an impulse to share with other people a feeling or truth that I myself had
If nothing is ever published and you never make a cent, it will be good that you have worked
Inspiration comes very slowly and quietly
The imagination needs noodling - long, inefficient, happy idling and puttering
The true self, imagination, conscience: it is what is always searching in us and trying to free what we really think from what we think we ought to think
Think and let it out. Act. Always.
People are afraid to be with their own thoughts because at first they are bound to be depressing but that is the beginning and it is where your imagination is leading you
Keep writing new things because you’ll learn so much about yourself and your work by not organizing and perfecting each piece
It is when you are really living in the present that you are living spiritually with imagination
If your scared to write, think about writing the worst story possible because it will never turn out bad
To have things interesting and alive, it must be personal, it must come from I; what I know and feel
If you write something and everyone says it’s bad but if you believe it and it’s true to you, then stand by it
In writing, one must be bold, free and truthful
Singular and particular detail is the foundation of the sublime - Blake
Become microscopically truthful, talk about the details
Improvement makes straight roads but crooked roads without improvement are roads of genius - William Blake
You must write freely and recklessly make new mistakes - in writing or in life- and do not worry but pass on and write more
You can write as badly as you want to but you must write freely and feel when you write
There is nothing in the world that should not be expressed in such a way that an affectionate seven year old boy can see and understand it
When a sentence comes from your true self, it infects; its alive. But when the sentence is not felt from the writer, it’s dead and has no infection
Whatever you write will reveal your personality and whatever you are will show through in your writing
Do not try and think of better words when refining a story but think of the people better
Never, never lie to yourself
Don’t be afraid of writing bad stories because write 3 more and then go back to the first one to see how you improved
Write as often as you can, free, quick and insolent as if you vomited words on paper
Writing is talking, thinking on paper. The more impulsive and immediate, the better
Do not worry about the whole article. Write what is next, the idea that comes in the moment
Try writing utterly unplanned stories and see what comes out
It helps often to have an imaginary listener when you are writing, telling a story
Don’t plan too much, write what comes to you now and it will flow
Enthusiastic adaptation is the first principle of knowledge and it’s last - Blake
Try to discover your true, honest, untheoretical self
When discouraged, just write whatever and work at it
***
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How the World Works
Noam Chomsky
Summary
A combination of books Chomsky wrote in the 80s and 90s about America and it's role in the world. Fascinating read and insight into one of the great thinkers of the 21st century
Rating: 5/5
Notes
The US invaded Greece in 1947 and supported a horrendous war which led to 160k Greek deaths. This was the model for Vietnam and allowed American business to gain and thrive
US policies in the 3rd world consistently opposed democracies if they couldn’t be controlled as real democracies believe government should respond to the needs of their own population rather than those of US investors
US-run contra forces in the 3rd world isn’t ordering killing - it’s brutal sadistic torture (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala)
From the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 till the collapse of the communist governments in eastern europe in the 80s, it was possible to justify every US attack as defense against the Soviets
If you want a global system that’s subordinated to the needs of US investors, you can’t let pieces of it wander off. It’s clearly stated in the documents of record
The US wants ‘stability’ meaning security for the upper classes and large foreign businesses
Solid case for impeaching every American president since World War 2 either outright as war criminals or involved in serious war crimes
El Salvador and Nicaragua were not covered by the US media in the 70s when US-supported brutal torture and murder were taking place
In the early 80s, America’s friends slaughtered 10s of thousands of Guatemalans with countless others tortured and raped
After Vietnam, the major US policy goal has been to maximize repression and suffering of countries demonstrated by their violence - blocked other countries from seeking aid
The US regularly carries out or supports aggression
For most of the 20th century, the US was the dominant economic power and used economic warfare as a weapon ranging from illegal embargoes to enforcement of weak IMF rules with their military becoming pre-eminent
The US tries to avoid negotiations with countries as the US fears it will lose and other countries will be better off
When a state has huge debts, it must divert the population from what’s happening and they do this by inspiring fear of our enemies (Russia in Europe)
The real enemy of the US has always been ‘the poor who seek to plunder the rich’. In America, it’s the opposite and has been for generations
‘The war on drugs’ was a manufactured media blitz by the US leadership to distract the population, increase repression in inner cities and build support for attack on civil liberties
The US government blocks international effort to seek peace (Russia and Ukraine)
Major media are large companies owned and interlinked with even larger conglomerates. The market is the advertisers and the product is audiences
The power in the US lies in the hands of people who determine investment decisions as they determine production, distribution and staff the government. They want a passive, quiescent population
The struggle of freedom is never over and requires active and sustained efforts
One important consequence of globalization is it extends the third world model to industrial nations where the average person has their jobs shipped away while the rich and elite continue to amass massive amounts of wealth
We’ve moved to an international state with the IMF, World Bank, G7 & EU, WEF where the general population doesn’t know what’s happening and it doesn’t know it doesn’t know
If the borrowing the US has done was used for constructive purposes like investment or infrastructure, the US would be better off, but it was used to enrich the rich - for consumption, financial manipulation and speculation which are all harmful
The class warfare of the last few decades has successfully weakened popular organizations leaving people to feel isolated
The US is so deeply in debt to the international financial community because of debt that they have a lock on US policy
Many of the large number of security council resolutions vetoed by the US have to do with Israeli aggression or atrocities
Invaders typically use local collaborators to run things for them by playing upon existing rivalries to get onne group to work for them against another
European wars were wars of extermination. If we were to be honest about history, we would simply describe it as barbarian invasion
There has always been racism but it developed as a leading principle of thought in the context of colonialism.
A standard technique of belief formation goes along with oppression
In the US, you’re not allowed to talk about the class differences, which is the real issue
When the US establishment talks about jobs, it means profits for its corporations
The elite are masters and they follow what Adam Smith said about ‘the vile maxim’ - all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else
People who aren’t owners and investors have nothing much to say in the US
Jefferson warned against banking institutions and corporations and said if they grow, aristocrats would’ve won and the revolution would’ve been lost
The ‘Free market’ is for the poor. We have a dual system - protection for the rich and market discipline for everyone else
There’s been a considerable increase in inequality and has the American society moving towards a third world model, thereby seeing increased crime and signs of social disintegration
A huge area of the media is dedicated to diverting people and making them more stupid and passive
There’s nothing individualistic about corporations who are totalitarian in nature
Free trade agreements result in reduced wages for local employees while predominantly benefiting the rich consumer while also destroying unions
Operation Paper Clip imported large number of known Nazi criminals
The American army’s counter-insurgency literature begins with an analysis of the German experience in Europe written with the co-operation of Naxi officials (instruments of statecraft - book)
US involvement in Chile with the coup in 1973 to reduce social democracy
The threat of a good empire is what the US worried about with reforms on uncontrolled capitalism
The US killed a few million people and destoryed 3 countries during the Vietnam war
A huge amount of business propaganda is to create wants
The answers to solve all these issues is to organize. Being alone you can’t do anything but if you join with other people, you can make changes
Under capitalism, investment is supposed to be as risk free as possible. No competition wants free markets - what they want is power
The government subsidizes corporations’ costs, protects them from market risks and lets them keep the profits
There’s never been much difference between the 2 business parties and the differences are disappearing
The CIA has been involved in drug running for generations (the politics of heroin book)
You need something to frighten people with, to prevent them from paying attention to what’s really happening to them. You have to engender fear and hatred
The first world lives in a highly indoctrinated society
Neoliberalism is nothing more than the imperial formula: free markets for you and plenty of protection for me. The rich would never accept it but they’re happy to impose it on the poor
The UN does mostly what US business wants
‘Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business’ - John Devery
If people dedicate themselves to organizing and activism, we’ll gain access to broader audiences
If you extrapolate to the future, it’s very ugly but the point is it’s not inevitable. It can be changed but we can’t change things till we understand them.
***
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