Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
John CageRead
A 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.
Interpretation
Mistakes are irrelevant; once an action occurs, it becomes part of reality.
John Cage's quote suggests that labeling something as a 'mistake' becomes irrelevant in the face of reality. Once an action takes place, it holds its own authenticity and significance, regardless of intent or judgment. This perspective encourages acceptance of events as they are, rather than being burdened by the need for perfection or regret.
In practice
During a team meeting, to promote a culture of openness, one could say, 'Remember, as John Cage remarked, a 'mistake' is beside the point, for once anything happens it authentically is.'
Food, one assumes, provides nourishment; but Americans eat it fully aware that small amounts of poison have been added to improve its appearance and delay its putrefaction.
Which is more musical: a truck passing by a factory or a truck passing by a music school?
There was a German philosopher who is very well known, his name was Immanuel Kant, and he said there are two things that donβt have to mean anything, one is music and the other is laughter. Donβt have to mean anything that is, in order to give us deep pleasure.
I remember loving sound before I ever took a music lesson. And so we make our lives by what we love.
I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones.
People who aren't artists often feel that artists are inspired. But if you work at your art you don't have time to be inspired.
I have existed from the morning of the world and I shall exist until the last star falls from the night. Although I have taken the form of Gaius Caligula, I am all men as I am no man, and therefore I am a god.
We act as if that being of a man or that being of a woman is actually an internal reality or something that is simply true about us, a fact about us, but actually it's a phenomenon that is being produced all the time and reproduced all the time, so to say gender is performative is to say that nobody really is a gender from the start.
When I was writing The Satanic Verses, if you had asked me about the phenomenon that we all now know as radical Islam, I wouldn't have had much to say. As recently as the mid-1980s, it didn't seem to be a big deal.
The bite of conscience is indecent.
Ask yourself constantly, "What is the right thing to do?" Behave toward everyone as if receiving a great guest.
Philosophy begins where religion ends, just as by analogy chemistry begins where alchemy runs out, and astronomy takes the place of astrology.
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