After writing this, I looked up some quotes on sentimentality, and found a really great spread of quotes:
"Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment." - Norman Mailer
"Sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism." - Oscar Wilde
"Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way." - W. Somerset Maugham
"Sentimentality is the superstructure erected upon brutality." - Carl Jung
"Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel." - James Baldwin
It's clear that they're each operating with a different frame– most of them I think are talking about a particular kind of contrived, put-on sentimentality. It's interesting how the meaning of such terms drift over time. I think "sentimentality" feels like it points at something different than "being sentimental" points at, but I don't have the brain cells to get into it rn
"Am I sentimental? It depends on the frame of reference. Sentimental compared to who? I know people who are much more sentimental than me, who'd consider me comparatively clinical, even cold."
"I realize that something like this is the case even when I’m looking at other people’s works. If a work moves me to tears, it’s not going to have the same effect on me if I watch it again immediately afterwards. But it typically hits again maybe in a year. There’s some kind of hunger-satiety cycle that I’m not fully cognizant of."
Resonate with these two so much man.
"Interior decorating can absolutely be that profound, too! Really, I don’t think there’s anything that can’t be profound, if somebody really cares about it deeply enough to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort to make it really resonate."
Reminds me of some video in which David Lynch was talking about how creativity can manifest in anything – if a toilet cleaner cares enough to change his brush in some way or discover a new way to clean the toilet or make his day a little different just for the heck of it, he's being creative too. And that example was eye-opening for me. I used to confine myself to the very narrow definition of a guy who puts words in some kind of order to have some kind of effect, but I've realized that there's a whole arsenal of tools that I use unconsciously which are lying in the garage for the most part, when I could use any of them to do what I'm really trying to do, which is to connect with people and express myself. Appreciate this post, had a few gems in it!
thanks for writing - I almost liked the meta section on stagnant drafts (kind of an oxymoronical phrase, that) as much as the rest! why is it that drafts feel so good when theyre consigned to draftdom, and so bad later? there really is a sense of them having been written by someone else, someone misguided, someone whose other actions and little indiscretions led you to whatever place you're in. for me, revisiting drafts, that place is usually "cmon, cmon, there's gotta be SOMETHING in here I can use..."
in my case i have this odd feeling of, i *know* there must be so much good stuff in my drafts, and in fact i feel/believe that there's so much of it that i get overwhelmed. this is foreshadowing for my next post but i feel like i gotta do 'Frame Studies' so I can figure out how to navigate that
Man thank you for this. If nothing else it reminded me that the Creep cover by Avie and his mother is high art. Truly, truly beautiful. And going back to the video on YouTube I saw the comment by aryanbanerjee which was so amazing I might write a whole essay on it.
After writing this, I looked up some quotes on sentimentality, and found a really great spread of quotes:
"Sentimentality is the emotional promiscuity of those who have no sentiment." - Norman Mailer
"Sentimentality is merely the bank holiday of cynicism." - Oscar Wilde
"Sentimentality is only sentiment that rubs you the wrong way." - W. Somerset Maugham
"Sentimentality is the superstructure erected upon brutality." - Carl Jung
"Sentimentality, the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel." - James Baldwin
It's clear that they're each operating with a different frame– most of them I think are talking about a particular kind of contrived, put-on sentimentality. It's interesting how the meaning of such terms drift over time. I think "sentimentality" feels like it points at something different than "being sentimental" points at, but I don't have the brain cells to get into it rn
what a meaning drift!
> There was something about the constraint of the job that made it feel really urgent and important that I keep writing.
You also have a kid now, right? I'm not sure on the timing, but I imagine that a lot of the time you were working or writing now goes to quality time.
true
"Am I sentimental? It depends on the frame of reference. Sentimental compared to who? I know people who are much more sentimental than me, who'd consider me comparatively clinical, even cold."
"I realize that something like this is the case even when I’m looking at other people’s works. If a work moves me to tears, it’s not going to have the same effect on me if I watch it again immediately afterwards. But it typically hits again maybe in a year. There’s some kind of hunger-satiety cycle that I’m not fully cognizant of."
Resonate with these two so much man.
"Interior decorating can absolutely be that profound, too! Really, I don’t think there’s anything that can’t be profound, if somebody really cares about it deeply enough to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort to make it really resonate."
Reminds me of some video in which David Lynch was talking about how creativity can manifest in anything – if a toilet cleaner cares enough to change his brush in some way or discover a new way to clean the toilet or make his day a little different just for the heck of it, he's being creative too. And that example was eye-opening for me. I used to confine myself to the very narrow definition of a guy who puts words in some kind of order to have some kind of effect, but I've realized that there's a whole arsenal of tools that I use unconsciously which are lying in the garage for the most part, when I could use any of them to do what I'm really trying to do, which is to connect with people and express myself. Appreciate this post, had a few gems in it!
thanks for writing - I almost liked the meta section on stagnant drafts (kind of an oxymoronical phrase, that) as much as the rest! why is it that drafts feel so good when theyre consigned to draftdom, and so bad later? there really is a sense of them having been written by someone else, someone misguided, someone whose other actions and little indiscretions led you to whatever place you're in. for me, revisiting drafts, that place is usually "cmon, cmon, there's gotta be SOMETHING in here I can use..."
in my case i have this odd feeling of, i *know* there must be so much good stuff in my drafts, and in fact i feel/believe that there's so much of it that i get overwhelmed. this is foreshadowing for my next post but i feel like i gotta do 'Frame Studies' so I can figure out how to navigate that
Man thank you for this. If nothing else it reminded me that the Creep cover by Avie and his mother is high art. Truly, truly beautiful. And going back to the video on YouTube I saw the comment by aryanbanerjee which was so amazing I might write a whole essay on it.
I love reading your posts so much!