Capitalism Versus Great Literature
Capitalism Versus Great Literature
An essay by Wolf Larsen
(Here I am mostly concerned with the ECONOMICS of writing, and how it affects our ability to pay our bills, and how ECONOMICS affects our ability to write what we want to write.)
There is an inherent contradiction between the capitalist system and the creation & dissemination of great literature. When the mind conjures up something great, something creative, something that will make wonderful literature the last thing on the mind should be money. But, the first thing on one's mind in a capitalist society is inevitably money-money-money! Will it sell?? How do I get some money to survive, to live better, to pay my bills, etc.
But what if money had nothing to do with it? What if you were assured a regular income regardless of whether your writing was commercial or not? And what if there was a great repository of literature that insured the survival of your literary works for posterity? Wouldn't that be nice?
What if it were possible to free literature from big business? Keep in mind that capitalism is only a passing phase in human development. Homo sapiens has been around for over 200,000 years. Capitalism has been around for a few hundred. Capitalism is not eternal. Capitalism brings endless war and plenty of social rebellion as well. Perhaps capitalism will bring about World War III and human extinction. Or perhaps, workers will get tired of stingy wages and throw capitalism and the ruling class in the garbage can.
Let us suppose that the human race reaches socialism. The work week is reduced to 30 hours, and many necessities like childcare and medical care are free, while other necessities like housing are affordable. In addition, publishing is no longer run on a profit basis.
So under socialism you put in your six hours of work a day, plus you have two days free to write all day. You have more time to write than ever! As the planned economy advances and becomes more productive, people receive better wages and work less hours as time goes on. (Under socialism everybody has the right to a job.) Eventually, the work week is reduced to 20 hours. Even more time to write! (And no, I'm not talking about Stalinism, although even under rotten Stalinism the standard of living improves for workers, and literacy rates go way up!)
So literacy increases under socialism. Plus, leisure time increases. Plus, the general population becomes more affluent. At present, half the world's population lives on less than two dollars a day. As these people become more prosperous under socialism, they will have more money to buy books. Hence, a larger audience for writers! Perhaps under socialism more writers will be able to live from their literature than ever before and quit the day job.
When the writer is no longer chained to commercial fiction writers become freer than ever to experiment and come up with ever new forms of writing! Why not? If you're not driven by profit and the necessity of making money from your writing, then you're free to write whatever you want! That's because you automatically have a paycheck coming in from your day job – were you work 30 hours a week (or less) for 40 hours of pay.
There is no reason to suppose as technology advances that the book as we know it becomes only one way to read a "book". Why not read off the wall? Project the words on a white wall and read that way? Why not turn reading into a 360° experience that surrounds the reader? Why not turn reading into both a visual and auditory experience? Perhaps reading can become mass events, with people reading together in an auditorium while modern dancers dance how the words make them feel, and musicians play as well? I don't see why mass readings can't be combined with mass orgies (involving mutual consent), especially if there are preventive inoculations for all STDs and infinite forms of birth control. In other words literature can become everything and anything! As the human race becomes more free – so will literature become more free!
As communications become more instantaneous, and as leisure time becomes more prevalent, and as people become less concerned with the struggle for survival, they will have more time and energy to concern themselves with culture. Why not millions of people in the world simultaneously writing a book together? And God knows how many forms that "book" could take! (Well God doesn't actually know, because there is no god.)
Of course, some of this has already been done on a less extensive scale – as you know it's called multimedia. But, when composers and modern dancers and general audiences and writers and musicians and filmmakers and the general public from different parts of the world all simultaneously create a literary work together it will truly be awesome!
The greatest literature of humanity is not in its past, but in its future. And you live at the time of the greatest changes in the literary world since the invention of the printing press. The freedom of literature from economic concerns is in its budding phase. And when literature frees itself from the chains of monetary considerations, that's when literature can truly become great and creative!
Something just occurred to me – why don't we writers set up an author's cooperative? With an author's cooperative we wouldn't need publishers at all. Nor would we need Amazon. The author's cooperative site could sell our books in e-book format for three dollars – two dollars for the author and one dollar for the author's cooperative. The one dollar for the author's cooperative would help maintain the website, the staff, etc. Two dollars for the author is okay because that's about all you get in royalties from a publisher for a book. Once the author dies the book could stay available on the site, and stored also in a special place for posterity. But once the author dies the price could be reduced to just one dollar.
Compared to writers in the past you are lucky – you have more options than any writer that has lived before you. With literary posting boards, with the Internet, with self-publishing and Amazon, with author's websites, with the possibility of bypassing even self-publishers and Amazon.com by letting your works be available to the general public via your website with payment by PayPal, the present looks a lot better for most writers than the past. But the future is far brighter, so tremendously bright for creative literary expression, unless the mushroom clouds destroy humanity first.
PLEASE NOTE: while I welcome debate and differences of opinion, please do not post "politics for the sake of politics" type of discussion, as the moderators won't like it. Try to keep comments related to literature. Thank you.
I'm not crazy, it's everybody else that's crazy!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Pope of Eruke
Yeah looking back at all your posts, no offense, but you seem like a lunatic.
You see, what is sanity? Is sanity conformity? If everyone else that is conforming thinks your insane than perhaps it is the person who seems insane that is actually far more sane than anybody else. Does the status quo in literature and other things seem very sane?
Innovative people are often thought insane. Perhaps there is a relationship between mild insanity (or being unconventional) and inventing new things whether it be in science or literature or the arts. At any rate, trying to convince writers to write something imaginative and creative does seem insane. Perhaps it's a waste of time? Ha ha ha!
Somebody talked about going into a bookstore and seeing so many books. My response is: so many books, so little variety. So many published authors, but so few with imagination. Or originality.
I do not want to get into a political discussion for the sake of politics. But in relation to the arts and literature the era immediately following the October revolution brought a great flowering of creativity in Soviet art. Later, Stalin crushed this creativity.
The event of the October Revolution (1917) helped artists to think outside the box if you will, I wish I could explain better. I wish I were smarter. I welcome differences of opinion on this or anything else, but please keep the subject matter related to literature. So far so good, thank you guys for keeping the subject related to literature.
There are so many good writers who have nothing to contribute to literature, because they have nothing original or creative in their heads. It's not enough to master the craft of writing. I would argue that any advanced primate, with the proper training, can write a "good" book. If you're twice as smart as I am (which many of seem to be), but you have nothing new to contribute to literature, then why should I read you? Why should anybody read your literature? What's the point of reading something that resembles hundreds of books I've already read?
I hurt my foot on a very tough noun
Well, even if it's mockery, it's a beautiful mockery, and I don't mind.
And thank goodness somebody wanted to be creative!
I know there's creative stuff on this website, but you have to look for it I guess. Lots of good writers who are not very creative most of the time.
So much thank you's to this illiterate sky, actually that's my voice recognition software getting it wrong again, thank you to this illiterate guy – we more illiterate people like this on this literature website!
Actually, that's supposed to be we need more illiterate people like this on this literature website!
Or how about we more need people illiterate to be on this website of illiterature!
illiterature is to go really the way! Long really the way! All yeeeeaaahh!
The Wolf Larsen Manifesto
Quote:
Originally Posted by
illiterati
teasing, yes--but also tribute.
certainly those two aren't mutually exclusive.
Well, thank you! And thank you to the same crazy people for calling me insane, for that truly proves my sanity in a world filled with insanity, you see you have to be insane to be sane, so if you are sane you are clearly insane, and I wish to be both sane and insane in order to reach the greatest sanity and insanity at the same time!.!?, –) Yes? No?
THE WOLF LARSEN MANIFESTO
1. All great Writers should gather at the entrances of the major publishing houses and urinate on their doorsteps!
2. All great Poets should use the pages of the country’s most prestigious literary magazines as toilet paper!
3. All “poets” that rhyme should be castrated at once!
4. Poetry and prose should be immoral and blasphemous! If your poetry shocks and offends religious extremists, puritanical feminists, politicians, black nationalists, white supremacists, and everybody else than you’re probably doing something right! The paintings of Picasso, the symphonies of Mahler, and the sculptures of Rodin shocked and offended many people too! The last thing the world needs is more boring polite “literature”!
5. If you write prose just like ten thousand other writers than why bother writing? Garbage men contribute far more to society than “writers” and “poets” that write like everybody else! No two authors or poets should read even remotely alike!
6. From this day forward the words Poet, Writer, Sculptor, Playwright, Painter, Composer, and all other Artists should appear in capitals. After all, some guy named god who doesn’t even exist appears in capitals and since Artists are greater than god than words like Poet and Artist should be capitalized.
7. There is no god as written in the bible. Rather, every Human Being that lives on earth is a god because Humans are the most creative animals on the planet. Therefore, Artists are gods!
8. Who cares about the rules of grammar? Take a baseball bat and SMASH the rules of grammar into pieces! Language must obey the wishes of the Writer. The Writer should take language and mold it and reshape it as he sees fit just like a Sculptor.
9. Poets and Writers need to look at the rest of the art world and learn. Poetry and fiction currently appear to be the most backward mediums of the art world. Painting has raced forward like a fast car, jazz music has run forward like a rabbit, even classical music in the last hundred years has left the writing world behind in both innovation and boldness. Writing and poetry are progressing forward at a crawl – just like a snail. All Poets and Writers should think of themselves as wrecking ball operators – we must SMASH the literary world as we know it into bits with a bold and revolutionary writing!
10. The system we live under has nothing to offer but endless wars, prisons, poverty, homophobia, racial and gender discrimination, class oppression, anti-sex puritanism, and human extinction from nuclear war. The literary establishment has nothing to offer us but airport novels, censorship (in the form of political correctness), pretentious “literary” magazines filled with hack “poetry” that sometimes even rhymes, and the never ending boring banal “well-polished” “well-crafted” “literary” fiction whose main purpose seems to be to help insomniacs fall asleep. Bartok’s symphonies don’t help people fall asleep! Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring caused a riot when it was first played! Jackson Pollock’s paintings can hardly be considered sleepy! Poetry and literature must become explosive, chaotic, alive, exciting, dynamic, etc. – just like the times we live in!
11. More than anything else remember there is no one else like you on the entire planet! So why should you write like everybody else? Write like nobody else writes! If you’re not creative than why should future generations bother reading your writing? Every Writer should be his own literary movement! Every Writer should be his own literary revolution!
Some Questions about Literature
Some questions we might ask ourselves:
Is the literary world a good place for great literature? Or is the literary world in its present form an obstacle for the creation and dissemination of great literature?
What is great literature? Is great literature always conventional? Or in contrast is great literature always creative?
Should the literary world uphold tradition at the expense of new creative ways of expressing ourselves with words?
Should literature confine itself to the novel, the play, the poem – in other words – should literature confine itself to forms that already exist? Or should writers try to invent new forms of literature? What if these new forms of literature spontaneously form in the writer's head? What if the confines of the old forms (the novel, the play, the poem, the short story) become obstacles to what the writer is trying to express?
If we create new forms of literature how do we get these new forms of literature to the general public? If the traditional publishing conglomerates and the prestigious literary magazines and the literary world in general are mostly hostile or indifferent to creative literature, then how do we go around these obstacles to reach the general reading public?
Is the general reading public hostile to creative literature? Or is the general reading public merely unfamiliar with creative literature because the publishing conglomerates only publish a small amount of creative literature?
Since the vast majority of writers will never be traditionally published how do these writers reach the general public? Outside of the existing venues to reach the general public, can we invent new venues to reach the general public?
Will creating new forms of literature that never existed before help make the general public more excited about reading? (Particularly those that have become bored with traditional literature.)
If a book is not traditionally published does that mean that the book is bad? If a book is "good" does that mean that it will automatically get traditionally published? And even then, if it gets traditionally published, will it stay in print?
What is "good literature"?
Should writers always use correct grammar? Or should they experiment with incorrect grammar?
Should writing be intellectual? Or should it be instinctual?
Does a great writer have to be intelligent? Perhaps stupid people can be great writers too?
When voice-recognition software becomes A LOT BETTER, what role will illiterate people play in the creation of books? Can illiterate people write great books?
Now that English has become the number one world language, and many are writing in English as a second language, what role does non-standard English play in English literature? Perhaps non-standard English has a great role to play in creative literature? Perhaps non-native speakers should use non-standard English to further creativity. For example, other languages put adjectives in different places, and even use verbs in different ways, could not contemporary literature gain from this? Perhaps native English speakers can become inspired by non-native English speakers to do more creative things with the English language?
Should we attempt to smash the barriers of contemporary English to find ever more ways of expressing ourselves? Would this include making up words? Should we invent new forms of punctuation?
Should we dispose of a perhaps anal obsession with correct grammar in our communications with each other? Should we dispose of correct grammar in both our verbal communications and literary communications? Okay, medical books should have correct grammar, so should mass media like the New York Times or government publications – but why should we talk to each other in correct gramma?r for example, the? In the middle of that word was not on purpose, so? Maybe even mistakes can help one to be more creative. Look at your thumb, that was once a mistake. Your thumb was originally a birth defect of some primate, and that birth defect turned out to be a great advantage!
Of course, people may argue that using non-standard English and incorrect grammatical forms may make it harder for the reader to understand. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But this brings up another question. Why should literary works always be understood in a traditional sense? Is it really necessary to "understand" a literary work any more than it is to "understand" a painting or "understand" a symphony?
Here's My Entry into the Avant-Garde Poetry Contest
Quote:
Originally Posted by
YesNo
Do you consider yourself a writer of "avant=garde" poetry?
The reason I ask is there's a poetry contest here:
http://www.online-literature.com/for...=1#post1263754
I'm trying to get some examples of "narrative" poetry that is also "avant-garde". If you win, you get to run the next contest.
I read the thread.
There was somebody on the thread posting an avant-garde poem which was supposed to be a mockery of avant-garde poetry – and ironically it was the best poem of his I've ever seen! Reminds me of a certain pop-artist whose name escapes me at the moment, anyway this artist made some works mocking high art and those turned out to be his best artworks ever!
Here's my entry:
A Poem with 4 Different Titles
A word-orgasm by Wolf Larsen
First title of poem: My Favorite Intergalactic Dildo – alternative title for this poem: 6,184 Planets Running around the Pinball Machine – second alternative title for this poem: How I Lost My Virginity to a Buzzing Inanimate Object – third alternative title for this poem: Going on a Date with Charles Manson's Clone During World War 3
DING-DONG-CRAAAAASH!!
Ka-DOOPLE!! Circus sireeeens! Eloquent fish-fiiiish-fiiiiish!!
BING-BANG-BONG! Where's my bonging words to invent??
Mustard!
Sky WOW! Neon-vagina-soup!! Where's my zero gravity???
Help! Penis!
Dip! Pong! 0000000ppeeeeee!! Lost my winking!!
Strawberry! Help!
Shakespearean-fast-food-yoga! Yugoslavia! Dok piiiiing! Lucifer winking!
Penis! Anus! Penis! Anus! Penis!
harrrooooo0000! ! !
Tomorrow? Tomorrow!! Tomorrow? Tomorrow!!
SLAM! Boom! CRASH! Boom!
Hairpins! Charles Manson imagination factory!
Boom! BANG! Boom! BANG!
Ha Ha Ha he heee heeeeeee!
Big vagina! Orgasm! Coca-Cola!
Hello! BOOM! Bang! Hello! BOOM! bang!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM
?/*(!), BANG! Marijuana-caffeine-roller-coaster! Magical-Toaster ovens of Scilly-do-bop!!
Where's tomorrow? I'm swallowed by too many verbs-verbs-verbs!!!
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH
Where's my penis?
Penis-my pen is-pe N iS-(pen)is-peNis-pEniS-peNis! (!,/Okay? Okay! CRASH
CRASH!
C R A S H !
Where?
W h e r e ?
Copyright 2014 by Wolf Larsen
There is no formula for avant-garde poetry
Quote:
Originally Posted by
cacian
Ok I see.....LOL how do I begin
so it is a string of words?? F narrative.
Basically, I feel that avant-garde poetry is that you do whatever you want. You don't worry about grammar or tradition or convention. You SMASH any boundaries they get in the way of your individual expression. To me, avant-garde poetry is about INDIVIDUALISM and SELF-EXPRESSION. There is no right way to write avant-garde poetry – except that avant-garde is different than conventional poetry. Avant-garde poetry is like dancing to disco music or house music – there is no correct way to do it – and no two people dance exactly alike. Conventional poetry – on the other hand – is like the waltz or the jitterbug – there are established norms and everybody is pretty much dancing the same or writing in the same style.
There are those who will argue that there is a certain formula to avant-garde poetry. They are entitled to their opinion. But I disagree. I say do whatever you want. Throw boundaries away. Think outside the box.
I feel that the moment you get some kind of formula for avant-garde poetry then you defeat the purpose. Of course, you will find opposing opinions if you Google avant-garde poetry.
Long Live Individualism! Long Live Creativity! Down with the Literary World!
Why should literature be confined to the four squares of the page? Why not write literature on walls? Why not write literature on bathroom walls? Why not write literature on the sky?
Why shouldn't literature dash from one part of the world to the other as it's being spontaneously created by people on every continent all working together to create a poem/novel/play/whatever?
Envision an earthquake as a poem, envision a hurricane as a poem, envision a black hole in outer space as a poem – and then try to create such a poem! Why shouldn't the poem have the emotions of 7 billion people inside of it? Why not? Why shouldn't a play have the dialogue of 7 billion people in it? Why not? Why shouldn't there be 7 million people as characters in a novel? Why not? Why not write a novel/play/movie/poem/painting/sculpture/modern dance/architecture? I have! If I can do it why can't you?
I wish I could be nicer in this essay, but I must speak my mind. Why do you (you meaning most writers) hide behind your conventional stories and your conventional grammar? Is your mind incapable of imagining anything else? Or are you just too lazy to push yourself into doing something different? Or maybe you're content with writing like 10,000 other people. Good for you!
Anyway, why should letters be confined to their present form? (I'm speaking of letters like ABC, not the letters you send by mail.) Look at the letters of some of the pre-Colombian "Indians" in the New World, whose letters were beautiful. And look at Arabic calligraphy, Chinese characters, and graffiti murals to see how beautiful/creative letters & words & phrases can be. What if we could make our computers make letters like that? What if our books were more beautiful – more Baroque – more everything – than the wonderfully beautiful manuscripts illustrated by the medieval monks? You've seen how beautiful those medieval Bibles are. Why couldn't we write orgies with such beautiful engravings of words?
And why shouldn't we write orgies? What's wrong with orgies? We are told that pornography is bad. No it's not! Pornography is wonderful! Why not write wonderful Baroque-Rococo works of pornography? Why not prove that pornography can be artistic? Why not prove that pornography can be the greatest works of literature ever created by mankind?! In fact, I have a book of poetry named Pornography! (It has no pictures.) Look at how popular pornography is! The problem is, there's too much bad pornography! What we need is to create wonderful pornography! Creative pornography! The best works of literature should be positively pornographic!
Moving on: why not think of the entire city as one poem? Why not think of poems as living breathing things? Why shouldn't a novel be a living breathing thing? Why do novels need characters? Why do novels and short stories need plots? I'm serious – what for?? Maybe one novel can have 7 billion characters, and the next novel can have no characters, and in the novel after that all the characters could be animals & insects. Oh, wait a minute, I'm an animal, and so are you! I'm a member of the primate family – and chances are so are you!
That's another part of your problem. You forget that you're an intelligent primate. Cultural influences are good, but when you forget that you're an animal (a primate) then you're missing something. You're missing something that will help you create better literature and better art. Don't ever forget that you're an animal! It will help keep your work from becoming boring, dry, and brittle. Be an intellectual, but be an intellectual animal, so that you get the best of both worlds!
In addition, you're not made in the image of some god. There is no god. So why submit yourself to some invisible god that does not exist? Submit to nothing! Do not submit to any god that does not exist, and do not submit to any publishing corporation that thinks it's god! (Well, if you wrote some airport novel that you don't care about, let them do with it as they will if the price is right. But protect your masterpieces from those editors that will rewrite your book!)
The more strong and powerful and omnipresent you are the greater your literature will be! Dream to be great! We intelligent primates are destined for great things! So why do you arbitrarily impose limits upon yourself? (Although some of those limits are the limitations of your resources, your free time, and the limitations of the historical epic you live in). However, 500 years from now literature may have an infinite variety of forms that we can scarcely even imagine today. And the four squares of a page or a computer may be just one form of a "book" amongst thousands of forms!
Why should literature be confined to traditional grammar? Why not make up your own grammar? If 20th century classical musicians could invent the 12 tone scale why can't you do the same with grammar? Why couldn't you invent something called 12 tone grammar? Why shouldn't each one of your works have a different form of grammar? Why not?
You should have mastered basic grammar back in grammar school. I did, and I went to a mediocre grammar school, and I'm not that smart either. I can write perfect grammar when I want to, and I can **** perfect grammar up the *** when I want to. If I can be versatile – why can't you? Anyway, if you haven't mastered grammar by now you probably never will. So just write whatever you want to write – and don't worry about grammar! And if you've already mastered basic grammar then why not invent new forms of grammar – and constantly change them at will! Yippeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!! Why not?
The only limit to the greatness of literature are the limits imposed on it by the lack of imagination of writers. Be great! Be imaginative! Stretch literature beyond its boundaries! Smash all boundaries!
Some people whine about "obscenity". Perhaps these are the same kinds of people that helped get endless works of literature censored and banned in the recent past. Perhaps Puritanism and the obstruction of our natural sex drives is one of the leading causes of so-called "writers block". You block out everything that others may have an objection to – even your own so-called "morality" is perhaps blocking you from writing the great literature you're destined to write! Don't expect to write great literature if you're all repressed! You don't think there's a connection between being repressed and "writers block"? Just write what comes into your head! To hell with what everybody else thinks! I'll tell you one thing: literature is not served by censorship, whether that censorship is from others or from yourself. Stop practicing self-censorship!
Creative writing therefore is a form of confrontation. When you write what you want to write without self-censorship you are confronting all of the ignorance that's holding literature back. The social values of any time in history are merely the social values of that political/economic structure and its ruling class. (The ruling class themselves rarely live according to these "values" – but they expect everybody else to live according to these "values" – especially writers – because writers can be dangerous to the status quo.) Many of these "values" are merely a form of trying to induce conformity, so that the masses are under control and do not threaten the ruling class and its political/economic structure. There is nothing natural about the "values" of the societies of the sick world of today. To hell with these hypocritical "moral values". You have to fight to write what you want to write! And if you don't have to fight to write would you want to write than maybe you're doing something wrong.
Again, I must say something impolite, my apologies. But why do normal people even bother writing? What do normal people have to contribute to literature? If there's nothing unusual about you, if you don't have anything original to say, then why do you bother? I think the best literature comes from those who are unique – or have some unique experiences – or have something unique to say – or have some new unique literature to give to the reading public.
If you're only writing to prove what a well-adjusted normal person you are – whatever normal is in these crazy times we live in – then who the hell cares about what you have to write unless I'm suffering from insomnia and your book helps to put me asleep!
In addition, perhaps "normal" writing about "normal" people helps to maintain the status quo. Perhaps the ruling class that owns the publishing conglomerates does not want too much stuff published that threatens its interests. Reform is one thing, but revolution is quite another. Books can be powerful! The written word can be dangerous.
Honestly, are the thoughts in your head, are the images in your imagination, anything resembling what we are told is a "normal"? Don't lie! Don't lie to me, and most of all don't lie to yourself! You know damn well the most imaginative stuff in your head is not "normal".
Why shouldn't you write all those imaginative things in your head that others won't approve of? (Well, within reason, keep the racist garbage in your head to yourself.) And why should you worry whether it takes the form of good grammar when you write them down?
If we don't use most of our brains (which we don't) then think how much we are not doing with literature! Literature is tied down in a million ways. It's tied down by our lack of imagination. Literature is tied down by the profit motive to publishing conglomerates that could care less about literature, because they could only care about profits. Literature is tied down by your own personal sexual Puritanism. Did you know that studies show that creative people have more sexual partners? Perhaps there is a relationship between creativity and sex? Or perhaps there is a relationship between not being repressed and being more creative? I feel that people who are so close minded that they find virtually everything to be "obscene" are less likely to write great creative literature. Maybe, they would make good grammar school teachers, or good editors for medical books. Medical books should have correct grammar. Most definitely. Convention has its place.
If your conventional stories are VERY INTERESTING than by all means write it down! But if you don't have any interesting conventional stories to tell, then why not reach into your imagination and create something unique and amazing? Or why not write some interesting conventional literature, and some other literature totally unlike anything ever written? Why be only a one trick pony?
If you're different – or if you do something different – people will say you're crazy. But there's good crazy and there's bad crazy. So go ahead and get good and crazy!
It is the "crazy" people that help the human race advance. (I mean the good "crazy" people.) While the conventional people stand by like a bunch of sheep, it is the "crazy" people that show that there is a better way.
Long live INDIVIDUALISM! Long live creativity!
