other_life

bioconfused
When a man has purposed to make a given thing, and has brought it to perfection, his work will be pronounced perfect, not only by himself, but by everyone who rightly knows, or thinks that he knows, the intention and aim of its author. For instance, suppose anyone sees a work (which I assume to be not yet completed), and knows that the aim of the author of that work is to build a house, he will call the work imperfect; he will, on the other hand, call it perfect, as soon as he sees that it is carried through to the end, which its author had purposed for it. But if a man sees a work, the like whereof he has never seen before, and if he knows not the intention of the artificer, he plainly cannot know, whether that work be perfect or imperfect. Such seems to be the primary meaning of these terms.

But, after men began to form general ideas, to think out types of houses, buildings, towers, &c., and to prefer certain types to others, it came about, that each man called perfect that which he saw agree with the general idea he had formed of the thing in question, and called imperfect that which he saw agree less with his own preconceived type, even though it had evidently been completed in accordance with the idea of its artificer. This seems to be the only reason for calling natural phenomena, which, indeed, are not made with human hands, perfect or imperfect: for men are wont to form general ideas of things natural, no less than of things artificial, and such ideas they hold as types, believing that Nature (who they think does nothing without an object) has them in view, and has set them as types before herself. Therefore, when they behold something in Nature, which does not wholly conform to the preconceived type which they have formed of the thing in question, they say that Nature has fallen short or has blundered, and has left her work incomplete. Thus we see that men are wont to style natural phenomena perfect or imperfect rather from their own prejudices, than from true knowledge of what they pronounce upon.

^ That's right
 

sus

Moderator
Maybe it's cope but I think that ideally if you're trying to be an artist or writer or actor or whatever, you don't end up famous or even critically/commercially successful until you're like 50 or 60. You get most of a normal life to develop and be appropriately humble, and keep you from complacency, keep you innovating and adapting and trying new things rather than getting captured by your success into endless iterating the same work. Your kids get to grow up with a non-famous parent and they don't feel dwarfed by your shadow, but then when they become adults, you get to be successful and recognized and they're proud of you and inspired by you. Plus you get a nice cash injection as you enter retirement so you don't have to reverse-mortgage your house.

Some people in this situation do develop chips on their shoulder, so that when they finally go viral at 60 they think they've been fully vindicated, and they start spouting whatever garbage pops into their mind because they have no filter. These people have failed to work on themselves, they've failed to seize the opportunity that decades of anonymity provided them.

I am trying to be the most important writer in the English language of all time but I will be very angry if I'm widely recognized before my hair turns gray.
 
Top