When a documentary filmmaker, working in the style that I do, suggests that there has been a shooting ratio of 40 hours to every one hour of finished film, that doesn't mean that the other 39 are bad.
Ken BurnsRead
I think we too often make choices based on the safety of cynicism, and what we're lead to is a life not fully lived. Cynicism is fear, and it's worse than fear - it's an active disengagement.
Interpretation
Cynicism can prevent us from fully experiencing life and can lead to disengagement.
In this quote, Ken Burns expresses the idea that choosing cynicism as a defense mechanism limits our engagement with life. He emphasizes that cynicism is not just a form of fear; rather, it actively pulls us away from meaningful experiences and connections, ultimately leading to a life that lacks depth and authenticity.
In practice
During a motivational speech on embracing life, one might refer to this quote to inspire others to overcome their cynicism.
When a documentary filmmaker, working in the style that I do, suggests that there has been a shooting ratio of 40 hours to every one hour of finished film, that doesn't mean that the other 39 are bad.
I record all of my music with authentic instruments in a studio before we start editing, doing many, many versions. The music shapes the film as we edit so it has an organic relationship to the content.
Good history is a question of survival. Without any past, we will deprive ourselves of the defining impression of our being.
It is the great arrogance of the present to forget the intelligence of the past
In most films music is brought in at the end, after the picture is more or less locked, to amplify the emotions the filmmaker wants you to feel.
Jazz is a very accurate, curiously accurate accompaniment to 20th century America.
I think the big danger of madness is not madness itself, but the habit of madness. What I discovered during the time I spent in the asylum is that I could choose madness and spend my whole life without working, doing nothing, pretending to be mad. It was a very strong temptation.
No durable things are built on violent passion. Nature grows her plants in silence and in darkness, and only when they have become strong do they put their heads above the ground.
Whenever you are able, have a "look" inside yourself to see whether you are unconsciously creating conflict between the inner and the outer, between your external circumstances at that moment - where you are, who you are with, or what you are doing - and your thoughts and feelings. Can you feel how painful it is to internally stand in opposition to what is? When you recognize this, you also realize that you are now free to give up this futile conflict, this inner state of war.
Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.
Information work is thinking work.
I do not preach doubtingly, for I do not live doubtingly.
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