I fell in love with skateboarding because it was individual; there were no teams, there were no captains, there was nothing to perfect. No style that had to be measured. It was completely opposite of what I saw in so many sports. It was creative. And to this day, that's what I love, that's always kept me back to it because it's endless creation.
Interpretation
Skateboarding represents personal freedom and creativity, devoid of rigid structures.
In this quote, Rodney Mullen expresses his deep affection for skateboarding as a uniquely individualistic activity that allows for endless creativity and self-expression. Unlike traditional sports, which often involve teams, rigid structures, and standards to measure performance, skateboarding emphasizes personal style and innovation. This freedom and lack of constraints are what draw Mullen back to skateboarding continually.
In practice
During an interview about personal passions, one could use this quote to highlight the importance of individuality.
Skateboarding is as much, or more, an art of mode of expression than it is a sport. What skateboarding has given me is precisely that: a form of expression that drew me to it, and, in so doing, I was able to express and be who I wanted to be through it, in a sense.
Everything I record, I just try to sound like me and come up with songs that suit what I do and then just go for it. I never know what the public's going to like, anyway.
You want a poem to unsettle something. There's a deep and interesting kind of troubling that poems do, which is to say, 'This is what you think you're certain of, and I'm going to show you how that's not enough. There's something more that might be even more rewarding if you're willing to let go of what you already know.'
The reasons that drive me to write are many and the most important are the most secret, I think. Perhaps most of all this: to put something out of death's reach.
To allow only the kind of art that the average man understands is the worst small-mindedness and the murder of mind and spirit. It is my conviction that the intellect can be certain that in doing what most disconcerts the crowd, in pursuing the most daring, unconventional advances and explorations, it will in some highly indirect fashion serve man - and in the long run, all men.
Fundamental accuracy of statement is the ONE sole morality of writing.
Miller didn't write Death of a Salesman. He released it. It was there inside him, waiting to be turned loose. That's the measure of its merit.
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