The work is the work. The work is not me.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the distinction between one's work and one's identity.
Frank Ocean's quote highlights an important perspective: that the effort and output a person creates, whether in art or any other field, should not define their self-worth or identity. It suggests that while work is significant, it is separate from who we are as individuals, encouraging a healthier relationship with our creations and achievements.
In practice
In a motivational speech about the importance of work-life balance.
Whenever I think about movies, I always look at that art process as having the best of a lot of worlds. Because if you watch a great film, you have a musical element to it, not just on the scoring, but in the way that the shots are edited - that has music and rhythm and time.
It's about the stories. If I write 14 stories that I love, then the next step is to get the environment of music around it to best envelop the story, and all kinds of sonic goodness - sonic goodies.
I think we all change each other's paths. I don't know which law idea that is in physics, but I don't think any of us can live without affecting one another.
Work hard in silence, let success be your noise.
We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor - got her master's with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.
Some people focus more on sonics. Some people focus more on story. I focus on both sonics and story, but music sometimes, just music itself, can turn into more of a maths problem. I guess everything in life is a math problem, but it can be more about an empirical route to getting the symmetry that you want, and this vibe, sonically.
Giap was a master of logistics, but his reputation rests on more than that. His victories were achieved by a patient strategy that he and Ho Chi Minh were convinced would succeed - an unwavering resolve to suffer immense casualties and the near total destruction of their country to defeat any adversary, no matter how powerful.
In the end the great truth will have been learned that the quest is greater than what is sought, the effort finer that the prize (or rather, that the effort is the prize), the victory cheap and hollow were it not for the rigor of the game.
A man finds he has been wrong at every stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing conclusion that he is at last entirely right.
I've reached a point in life where it's no longer necessary to try to impress. If they like me the way I am, that's good. If they don't, that's too bad.
Every man hath the right to doubt his task, and to forsake it from time to time; but what he must not do is forget it. Whoever doubteth not himself is unworthy -for in his unquestioning belief in his ability, he commiteth the sin of pride. Blessed are they who go through moments of indecision.
If you count the sunny and the cloudy days of the whole year, you will find that the sunshine predominates.
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