"mistaking it for inspiration" - message from Zeigfreid

[droqen]

Regarding Zeigfreid's
message to me on Jan 6, 2023

[droqen]

Regarding the basho quote, "Don't follow ancient masters; seek what they tried to seek.":

I think of the game designer who makes a Pokemon clone. I know them, they are me, but they are also not me and I only know myself. . . . they assume that this vague cloud of connections [and love of Pokemon] in their brain box is the feeling of wanting to make a Pokemon game.
And that's why they add tall grass.
They are following the masters because I think they don't know what else to do.

. . . if you identify as a game designer and your mind is full of fond memories of this or that, it's maybe only natural to interpret this mental state as an aspiration. What else would an aspiration feel like?

. . . I'll just keep working on the valley . . . What I mean is, I have some original thoughts, and I think I'll keep working them for their own sake and let the vague cloud of my own fond memories just be a natural, gradual part of my aesthetic instead of mistaking it for inspiration, or a guiding principle

[droqen]

I remain a huge fan of The Valley.

[droqen]

[pingback: telling stories to remember life]

Could I say that folding specific sharp memories into my gradual cloud of inspiration is to "keep working on the valley"? This abstract concept is difficult to get a handle on, and a short, sweet idiom is a great way to help with that. It's funny, I'm turning this idea about avoiding mistaking things for guiding principles . . . in a guiding principle. But I don't think Zeigfreid was trying to say that guiding principles and inspiration are bad, not at all. If it's bad to mistake something for a guiding principle, then the purpose of making that mistake less might be to get those mistaken principles out of the way for the real ones.

What makes a good guiding principle? I don't know. But I do think if I encounter something too specific which I don't want to stick out as a cutting edge or a sharp point, something important that I want to soften and allow to recede in my mind into just an ordinary memory, I might say I am "working on the valley". . .

I don't know. It's not perfect yet.