💬 New beginnings sprout from the old

Replied to https://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/new-beginnings-sprout-from-the-old/ (daily-ink.davidtruss.com)

It reminds me that we don’t always have to begin anew. We don’t always have to throw everything out and start fresh. We can build from a foundation we already have, and we can use existing resources to help us. Sometimes when we are looking to make changes, to make things better, we forget the accomplishments that got us where we are now.

David, the notion of new ideas growing out of the past ideas rotting away reminds me of the work of Brian Eno and the notion of scenius:

Scenius stands for the intelligence and the intuition of a whole cultural scene. It is the communal form of the concept of the genius.

In an interview on musical interpretations, Eno suggests:

I always think that whenever you listen to a piece of music, what you are actually doing is hearing the latest sentence in a very long story you’ve been listening to—all the pieces of music you’ve ever heard. So what you are listening to are tiny differences, tiny innovations. Something new is added, something you’ve grown used to is omitted, something you thought you were familiar with sounds different.

While in a conversation with Daniel Lanois, he argues that ‘beautiful things grow out of shit’:

If you walk around with the idea that there are some people who are so gifted—they have these wonderful things in their head but and you’re not one of them, you’re just sort of a normal person, you could never do anything like that—then you live a different kind of life. You could have another kind of life where you could say, well, I know that things come from nothing very much, start from unpromising beginnings, and I’m an unpromising beginning, and I could start something.

Austin Kleon sums this up as follows:

Genius is an egosystem, scenius is an ecosystem.

2 responses on “💬 New beginnings sprout from the old”

  1. David Truss says:
    February 12, 2020 at 9:43 pm

    Greetings Aaron,

    Reading this made me think of the use of the sacred sound ‘Om’ in Hindu meditation. ‘Om’ refers to Atman (soul, self within) and Brahman (ultimate reality, entirety of the universe, truth, divine, supreme spirit, cosmic principles, knowledge)… the connection between the ego and the world we live in.

    The ‘cultural scene’ you mention is a connection between self and the experience of the world. I think of ‘Om’ in that way, as finding Oneness with your surroundings… with the ecosystem.

    Perhaps we all have an understanding of this connection at some level and a walk in nature is a way that we can feel the connection more closely? I wonder if the disconnect from this is one of the roots of the anxiety we see in people today?

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  2. Watching documentaries like The Hacienda – The Club that Shook Britain (BBC Documentary), one is left thinking about the ‘halycon’ days of The Hacienda. However, Peter Hook pulls back the sheet to reveal the reality of running a club. Although Hook is happy to engage with the usual talking points, such as Madonna playing there or the rise of House music, he also provides insight into the disaster it was from a business point of view and the impact it had.

    The Haçienda was, as Hook says, in many ways the perfect example of how not to run a club – if you view a nightclub as a money-making business. But if, like the baggy trousered philanthropists Factory, you see it as an altruistic gift to your hometown and a breeding ground for the next generation of youth culture, it was, accidentally, purposefully, shambolically, anarchically, thrillingly, scarily, inspirationally, perfect. Hook appreciated the need to give something back but, he jokes, he didn’t realise that you had to give it all back. But then, as Wilson remarked: “Some people make money, others make history.”

    Source: Review – The Haçienda: How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook by Luke Bainbridge

    This reminded me of something that Brian Eno said in a conversation with Daniel Lanois, that ‘beautiful things grow out of shit’.

    Marginalia

    “Now I don’t know why, but Morrissey had always hated Joy Division. Maybe Rob got it right when after a lively debate as the cameras were turned off he turned to Morrissey and said, ‘The trouble with you, Morrissey, is that you’ve never had the guts to kill yourself like Ian. You’re fucking jealous.’ You should have seen his face as he stormed off. I laughed me bollocks off.”

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