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The Impulse To Connect The Dots - And To Share What You've Connected - Is The Urge That Makes You An Artist

-Amanda Palmer

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The Impulse To Connect

Amanda Palmer

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The Impulse To Connect The Dots - And To Share What You've Connected - Is The Urge That Makes You An Artist

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It Is Terrifying To People When Women Step Up And Start Owning The Story That They Have Not Owned. And I'm Seeing So Much Of This, And It Is A Seismic Shift.

I've Watched So Many Women, From Kathleen Hanna All The Way Up To Taylor Swift, Whether They're Pop Artists Or Rock Stars Or Fine Artists Or Writers, It Is The Subhistory Of Female Artists That If You're Going To Make Art, You're Also Going To Have A Full-time Job Of Defending Your Right To Make Art.

I Get Really Fantastic Results When I Just Get Out Of My Own Way.

I'm Bisexual, But It's Not The Sort Of Thing I Spent A Lot Of Time Thinking About. I've Slept With Girls; I've Slept With Guys, So I Guess That's What They Call It! I'm Not Anti Trying To Use Language To Simplify Our Lives.

I Do What I Want. I Try To Be Nice To Everybody. When I Fail, I Try To Apologize.

Men Find Powerful Women So Threatening, And Finding A Partner Was Starting To Look Laughable, Because I Would Be Really Attracted To Guys And They Would Just Be So Threatened And I Didn't Like Feeling Threatening, I Didn't Want To Feel Threatened, I Didn't Want To Feel Like I Was Towering Over Anybody.

I Nurture My Close Relationships Like Priceless Lamps. That's Part Of Why The Job Itself Is Inherently Difficult And Kind Of A Paradox, Because You're Out There Touring And Traveling And Going A Million Miles A Minute, But The Things That Are Keeping You Steady And Stable Can Be Really Hard To Nurture When You're Going Fast, And Your Relationships, Which Are The Number One Thing That Help Me Through.

There Was A Dance That Everyone Was Doing That Was Heavily Skewed With The Power In One Direction, But The Dance Was Basically Working, And Then The Dance Got Really Disrupted With The First Wave Of Feminism, And Nobody Found Their Footing Yet - Not The Guys, Not The Women.

I've Always Felt Like An Outsider Across The Board, Since Day One. The Challenge Has Been To Simply Not Pay Attention To My Outsider Or Insider Status And Just Do The Work And Play The Shows And Connect With The People. And Not Even Bother To Play This Game Of Keeping Score, Which Is What Destroys You.

Meditation, Especially For People Who Dont Know Very Much About It And Think Its This Very Hippy Dippy Thing, Can Really Be Powerful, Terrifying Even, As It Lifts The Rug Up On Your Subconscious And The Dust Comes Flying Out.

There Are So Many People, So Many Artists, So Many Magazines, So Many Theater Companies, So Many People Trying To Raise Money For So Many Things That It's Easy To Look Around And Just Feel Powerless Or Helpless, Because Even If You Have Some Resources, You Can't Help Everybody.

I Suffer Mornings Most Of All I Feel So Powerless And Small By Ten O'clock I'm Back In Bed Fighting The Jury In My Head

I Feel That Part Of My Life's Artwork Is Creatively Dealing With All This Negativity And Anger And Rage And Hatred Coming From Whatever Corners It's Coming From And Somehow Manifesting All Of That Anger Into Something Positive, Which Is Such A Hard Job.

There's A Huge Cloud Of Shame Around Art And Business Being Seen As Bedfellows.

When You Trust People To Help You, They Often Do.

You Know What’s Really Cool? Wake Up Every Morning, Decide What You Feel Like Doing, And Do It.

In Other Words, Let's Give Our Young Women The Right Weapons To Fight With As They Charge Naked Into Battle, Instead Of Ordering Them To Get Back In The House And Put Some Goddamn Clothes On.

The Minute I Spend Any Energy Defending Myself, Explaining Myself, Or In The Worst Case Scenario, Trying To Please Those Who Are Criticizing Me, I Will, You Know, Just Fall Off A Cliff.

Worst Case Scenario

If Your Writing Is Good, If It Resonates, If It Connects The Dots For Anybody Out There, The Lovers Will Come, The Haters Will Come, Support Will Come — Sometimes In The Form Of Money, Sometimes In The Form Of Something Less Expected — And It Balances.

The Challenge In My Life Really Is Keeping The Balance Between Feeling Creatively Energized And Fulfilled Without Feeling Overwhelmed And Like Im In The Middle Of A Battlefield.

Art Is Food For The Soul, And An Artistic Climate Is A Healthy Climate Because It Breeds Empathy.

I Firmly Believe In Music Being As Free As Possible. Unlocked. Shared And Spread. In Order For Artists To Survive And Create, Their Audiences Need To Step Up And Directly Support Them.

While We're Over Here Blocked Up In Our Departments And Locked Up In Our Own Judgments And Dealing With Our Own Crazy Problems, They're Over There Dealing With Equivalent Problems. One Of The Things That I Am So Frightened By Lately Is That Men Are Having Just As Difficult A Time Striking A Balance As We Are.

I Make The Music That I Want To Make And Make The Show That I Want To Make. If You Like It, You Come. If You Don't Like It, You Don't Have To.

Bands Like Nirvana Had Theatrical Sensibilities, Playing With Image, Challenging Assumptions People Were Making About Them, The Apex Being Kurt Cobain In A Dress To Make A Point.

I Don't Try To Make Anybody Outside Happy.

I Think The Thing You're Seeing Now With The Music Industry Is That The People Who Have Tight-knit Communities Are Now Able To Really Hold Each Other Up Because Of The Internet Tools. And The Really Top-down Pyramid Scheme Of Major Labels And Typical Superstars Isn't Sustainable Anymore Because The System Has Collapsed.

Pyramid Schemes

I Crave Intimacy To The Same Burning Degree That I Detest Commitment.

We Can Only Connect The Dots We Collect, Which Makes Everything You Write About You... Your Connections Are The Thread That You Weave Into The Cloth That Becomes The Story That Only You Can Tell.

I Had A Real Come-to-jesus A Couple Of Years Ago When I Started To See The Direct Line Between Feminism And Everything Else - Feminism And Climate Change, Feminism And Poverty, Feminism And Hunger - And It Was Almost Like I Was Born Again And Started Walking Down The Street And Was Like, "oh, My God, There Are Women Everywhere! They're Just Everywhere You Look. There's Women All Over The Place!"

What I Have Found Is, So Much Of That Is Like A Chinese Finger Trap: The More You Play To The Dark, The More You Will Get Trapped In The Dark, And If You Just Play To The Light And Focus On The People That Don't Misunderstand You And Focus On The Audience That Does Celebrate You And Focus On The People Who Aren't Trying To Tear You Down, All That Other Stuff Eventually Erases Itself Because It Has Nothing To Feed On.

If You Love People Enough, They Will Give You Everything.

I Think I Can Define My Entire Life, Virtuosity And Business Philosophy Down To The Core Fundamental That I Absolutely Hate Being Told What To Do. But Like Any Artist Or Any Human Being Out There, I Desperately Want To Be Loved, And I Spend My Entire Life Trying To Balance Those Two Facts.

I Never Wanted To Grow A Thicker Skin; I Felt A Real Sense Of Pride In My Thin Skin, And In A Weird Way, I Still Do, Because It's My Thin Skin That Allows Me To Empathize With Other People. It's The Thing That Allows Me To Create Vulnerable Art. It's The Thing That Allows Me To Create Other Feelings And Make Songs That Actually Grab People And Touch People. I Feel Like I've Spent My Life Fighting That Thicker Skin Because I Don't Want To Become An Embittered Asshole.

American Culture In Particular Has Instilled In Us The Bizarre Notion That To Ask For Help Amounts To An Admission Of Failure. But Some Of The Most Powerful, Successful, Admired People In The World Seem, To Me, To Have Something In Common: They Ask Constantly, Creatively, Compassionately, And Gracefully. And To Be Sure: When You Ask, There's Always The Possibility Of A No On The Other Side Of The Request. If We Don't Allow For That No, We're Not Actually Asking, We're Either Begging Or Demanding. But It Is The Fear Of The No That Keeps So Many Of Our Mouths Sewn Tightly Shut.

It Feels Like It Is A Daily Work And An Ongoing Task To Undo All Of The F - - G Programming That I Have Had All My Life About Who I Am Supposed To Be And How I'm Supposed To Look And That I'm Supposed To Win. It's A Daily Deconstruction Of All That Bullshit.

I'm A Massive Fan Of David Lynch And 'twin Peaks.'

You Are An Artist When You Make Someone Feel Something Deep And Unexpected.

The Cool Thing Too, As You Get Older, You Get Way Better At Identifying Who's An Ally And Who Isn't. And Who Has Good, Positive, "let's Make All This Sh*t Better And Let's Try To Have Fun And Fix Sh*t" People As Opposed To "let's Sit Around And B*tch And Berate" People.

I Don't Feel At Home In New Orleans. I Don't Feel At Home In Austin Or L.a. And I Just Felt Immediately At Home In Northern Australia.

I Have Never In My Career Embarked On A Journey Towards Controversy. I Have Never Deliberately Set A Flame.

I Get So Many Ideas For Songs, But I'm So Seldom Disciplined Enough To Sit Down And Crank Them Out.

All Of My Music, My Stage Show, My Personality, My Blog, My Twitter Feed, Anything That's Made Me Me, And A Huge Part Of Why People Like And Respect Me, Is That I Just Don't Spend Much Energy On That Other Stuff. It's Not Worth It. It's A Losing Battle Too. You're Just Screwed The Minute You Engage.

I Think The Internet Really Sussed Things Into Perspective. Because Twelve Years Ago, I Could Spend My Days On Writing And Running My Band And Touring And Making Posters And Practicing With My Band And Working On My Vocals, But I Didn't Spend A Large Pie Chart Of My Time Sifting Through Criticism As Well, And Nowadays I Do, And All Female Artists Do, Because To Be Able To Promote Your Work, You Need To Live In Those Spaces.

How Do We Let People Pay For Music?

I Think To Say That Meditation Is Helpful To Artists Is True And It's Great, But It's Also Essentially Helpful To Any Kind Of Process Of, Just, Life.

One Of The Best Things About Kickstarter And Crowdfunding And The Collapse Of The Music Business Is A Lot Of Artists Like Me Have Been Forced To Face Our Own Weird Mess About Ourselves And What We Thought It Meant To Become Musicians.

Crowdfunding As An Idea Itself Isn't New - Bands Have Been Doing It Since The Dawn Of Time.

I Hate Being Ignored.

On Many Days, Harder Than The Act Of Making The Art Itself Is The Act Of Sharing It And Living In A Culture That You Know Is Built To Tear You Down.

There's A Fundamental Disconnection In Society In The Way We Live, This Way We Live That We Take So For Granted, And We've Become Very Separate From One Another And We Don't Really Take Lot Of Time To Realize That. And The Math Is Overwhelming To The Point Of Despair, But The Answers Could Be So Simple.

One Thing About Being A Performer Is You're Not Just Doing An Intellectual Job Behind A Desk; You're Out There Performing And Being Looked At, Being Assessed For Really Superficial Stuff.

It Would Nice To Live In A World Where Art Can Just Be Art!

I Wanted To Feel Like I Could Extend Someone Else's Joy And Not Crush It, And That Is The Giant Paradox Nowadays Of Being A Powerful Woman: You Want To Live In A Space Of Compassion And Helpfulness And Joy And Expression, And The World Is Standing There, Pointing The Finger At You And Telling You That You're Greedy And Domineering And Attention-grabbing, And All You Can Do Is Shrug And Just Say, "hopefully, Someone Out There Understands And Isn't Misinterpreting."

Donald Trump Is Going To Make Punk Rock Great Again.

I Think I've Always Felt As A Band And As A Musician And A Music Business Person, I've Always Felt Like An Outsider, Period.

It’s Not Easy To Ask… Asking Makes You Vulnerable.

If We Can Repair Things Emotionally, A Lot Of Other Things Would Follow.

You Tour And You Work Hard And You Take Care Of Your Fans And Very Real Things Lead To Other Real Things. There's Never Been Some Fantastic Fluke Or Break In My Career, It Has All Been Very Slow And Steady.

I Feel Like I've Gotten To The Point In My Career And In My Life Where I Can Allow Myself To Write Whatever Comes Into My Head And Not Judge It Too Harshly.

I Think It's So Important To Have A Practice, Because The Consciousness Isn't Perfection Or Enlightenment Or Any Of That Bullshit. The Consciousness Is, "oh, I'm Walking Down The Street And I'm Doing Nothing."

When You're Afraid Of Someone's Judgment, You Can't Connect With Them. You're Too Preoccupied With The Task Of Impressing Them.

If You Come Across An American Artist Right Now Who Has No Political Opinions Or Is Afraid Of Talking Politics, Be Very Concerned.

Political Opinions

You Know, There Are So Many Snarky Angry Critics Out There Who Are Just Sort Of Looking To Tear Down Whoever Is Getting Talked About.

We Are Human And Our Nature Is To Air...

I Maintain Couchsurfing And Crowdsurfing Are Basically The Same Thing — You're Falling Into The Audience And You're Trusting Each Other.

I Was Just A Very Dark Kid. My Family Was Complicated.

If You're Going To Make Work And You're Going To Write And You're Going To Put Yourself Out There And Perform, You Will Be Belittled, You Will Be Insulted, You Will Be Called A Standard Collection Of Names, You Will Be Accused, And You Just Have To Stand There And Continue To Work And Find A Way To Not Let Those Things Poison You.

I Think I've Been Addicted To Openness Since Long Before My Rock Career. I Was Terrible As A Teenager. I Used To Go Out Of My Way To Make People Uncomfortable With Personal Details. I Was Always Fascinated By The Idea That We Have These Weird, Random Boundaries Between What We Do And Don't Show.

I Don't Think Of Myself As Particularly Cursed Or Blessed. I Think I Got Dealt A Set Of Cards, And I'm Playing With Them, Sometimes In Heels, Sometimes In Combat Boots.

I Want To Be Happy. I Want To Make People Happy. I Do Not Need To Be Rich To Do That.

The Perfect Tools Aren't Going To Help Us If We Can't Face Each Other And Give And Receive Fearlessly, But More Important, To Ask Without Shame.

When You Cannot Joke About The Darkness Of Life, That’s When The Darkness Takes Over.

I Had Very Literal Parents And I Wanted To Survive With Metaphor And Art, And There Was A Real Sense Of Shame Around It.

I Think One Of The Greatest Gifts You Can Give To Someone Is Just Access To The Possibility Of Freedom That You Don't Have To Be Totally Depressed And Enslaved By Your Own Environment.

When We Really See Each Other, We Want To Help Each Other.

Helping Each Other

If I Were A Guy, It Would Be, You Know, Just A Different Set Of Problems I Have To Carry Along.

I Think People Have Been Obsessed With The Wrong Question, Which Is How Do We Make People Pay For Music? What If We Started Asking, How Do We Let People Pay For Music?

I Feel Like If I Were To Play The Game Completely And Just Get Myself In A Giant Bottle Of Nail Polish And Put Myself On Display, I Would Feel Like I Had Somehow Cosmically Lost. I Feel Like I'm Taking A Bunch Of The Ingredients And Using Some Of Them But Not All Of Them And Shuffling Around And Making People Think I'm Doing My Job.

I Suppose I'm Happy To Sell My Time And Energy, But I'm Not Happy To Sell My Initial Creative Time.

The Impulse To Connect The Dots - And To Share What You've Connected - Is The Urge That Makes You An Artist

Nobody Ever Sees Me. Thank You.

I Kind Of Rely On My Artist Friends To Make My Physical Music Worth Buying By Having Them All Come Together And Create Beautiful Artwork That Everyone Is Gonna Want To Own To Support My Record.

When You Connect With People, They Want To Help You.

I Want To Live In A World Where Miley (or Any Female Musician) Can Twerk Wildly At 20, Wear A Full-cover Floral Hippie Mumu At 37, Show Up At 47 In See-through Latex, And Pose Semi-naked, Like Keith & Co, On The Cover Of Rolling Stone At 57 And Be Applauded For Being So Comfortable With Her Body.

Eat The Pain. Send It Back Into The Void As Love.

The Key Is To Just Focus On The Spots Where The Love Is Real, Because You Can Just Drive Yourself Crazy Focusing On The Negativity, Focusing On The Relationships That Are Irreparable And Just Aren't Going To Work, Trying To Convince The Haters That You Are Indeed Lovable. So Much Of That Is Wasted Energy.

In Both The Art And The Business Worlds, The Difference Between The Amateurs And The Professionals Is Simple: The Professionals Know They're Winging It. The Amateurs Pretend They're Not.

It's Fine For People To Say, "if You Can't Stand The Heat And If You Can't Stand The Criticism, Then Just Don't Use The Internet"; Unfortunately, That Is Not An Option. The Internet Is Where We Make Our Living And Where We Make Our Work, Especially If We're Independents And We Cannot Afford To Not Engage, Because That's Where Our Business Is Driving From. It's Just Not An Option.

I Remember Being A Teenager And Being Really Impressed By "let's Sit Around And B*tch" People, And I Have So Little Time For Those People Nowadays.

Thank God My Best Friend's A Therapist.

Twitter Fascinates Me Because It's Real. It Feels Kind Of Unreal, But It Makes Very Real Things Happen.

I Feel An Extraordinary Amount Of Sympathy For Anybody Working At A Major Label Right Now Because Their Lives Are Over.

Comparing Yourself To The People Like You, Comparing Yourself To The People Who Aren't Like You, Looking At How Many Records You've Sold, Looking At The Venue Size You're Selling Out. None Of That Can Even Remotely Measure How Happy You Are.

I Still Get Laughed At But It Doesn't Bother Me, I'm Just So Glad To Hear Laughter Around Me.

Those Who Can Ask Without Shame Are Viewing Themselves In Collaboration With-rather Than In Competition With-the World.

I Think A Good Role Model Has To Be Sexy. Real, Empowered, Self-possessed Women Are Sexy. When You're Really In Control Of Your Choices, Your Mood, Your Body, And Your Opinions, People Find You Sexy.

The Pattern's Laid Out On The Bed With Dozens Of Colors Of Thread But You've Got The Needle I Guess That's The Point In The End

Our Nature Is To Desperately Want To Believe And To Take What We Believe Is The Quickest Path There Even Against Our Better Judgment.

Sometimes I Have A Terrible Feeling That I Am Dying Not From The Virus, But From Being Untouchable.

There’s No “correct Path” To Becoming A Real Artist. You Might Think You’ll Gain Legitimacy By Going To University, Getting Published, Getting Signed To A Record Label. But It’s All Bullshit, And It’s All In Your Head. You’re An Artist When You Say You Are. And You’re A Good Artist When You Make Somebody Else Experience Or Feel Something Deep Or Unexpected.

Nothing Is Crueller Than Children Who Come From Good Homes.

There's Really No Honor In Proving That You Can Carry The Entire Load On Your Own Shoulders. Andit's Lonely.

If I Simply Do What I've Always Done, It's Never Failed Me.

When You're An Artist, Nobody Ever Tells You Or Hits You With The Magic Wand Of Legitimacy. You Have To Hit Your Own Head With Your Own Handmade Wand. And You Feel Stupid Doing It.

Collecting The Dots. Then Connecting Them. And Then Sharing The Connections With Those Around You. This Is How A Creative Human Works. Collecting, Connecting, Sharing.

The World Needs Actual Excitement And Emotion More Than It Needs Cool People.

There's Nothing More Threatening Than A Powerful Woman, And There's Nothing More Threatening To The Current Order Of Things Than Women Powerfully Owning Their Own Narrative. It's So Threatening To People, To Women As Well, And It's Threatening The Order Of Things.

You're Not Going To Be Perfect, You're Not Going To Stop Berating Yourself, You're Not Going To Stop The Comparisons, You're Not Going To Stop The Judgment, But You Can Become Evermore Mindful Of It, And That Has To Be Good Enough.

How You Sound. How You Look. Are You Fat? Those Are Things That Could Be Really Irritating.

I Think You Can't Have This Discussion And You Can't Have A Discussion About Feminism And The Consciousness Of The World Without Having A Discussion About What Has Happened To Men Lately. They're Holding The Other Side Of The Bag.

I'm Still Trying To Express My Truth, My Place In The World, My Belief.

Asking For Help With Shame Says: You Have The Power Over Me. Asking With Condescension Says: I Have The Power Over You. But Asking For Help With Gratitude Says: We Have The Power To Help Each Other.

Asking For Help

Every Album Is Just A Greatest Hits Of Whatever Songs Are On A Pile When I Go In To Make A Record.

When You Really Look Back And Take The Wider Perspective, It Makes Total Sense That If The Status Quo Is To Remain The Way It Is, Women Will Not Be Lauded And Applauded For Bonding With And Helping Each Other, Because It Would Destroy The World Order If Women Organized; It Would Topple The Whole Thing. And So, It Makes Perfect Sense To Me That The Current Order Of Things Would Encourage The Cat Fights And Encourage The Comparisons And Encourage The Girl-on-girl Hate That You See Just Being Promoted Everywhere.

I Draw The Line At Letting People Into My Songwriting Cave. To Me, That's Where The Alchemy Happens And Where The Mystery Is.

There's Something Advantageous About Being A Woman In Rock Versus, Say, A Woman In Chemistry Or Construction. There's Definitely A Built-in Sexism Across The Board, But I Think You're Afforded A Degree Of Freedom In Rock Because, Historically, The Rules Have Been Flexible.

The Stage Show Is, In Some Sense, Highly Theatrical. It's Definitely Not Just A Band In Jeans Playing Rock And Roll.

The Challenge Is To Just Focus On What's Actually Happening, Focus On The People Who Get It, And Focus On The People Who Are Listening.

I Have A Handful Of Really Close Relationships In My Life And I Depend On Those People Heavily To Carry Me Through And To Help Me Stay Steady.

If You Want The World To Pay For Projects, You Have To Be Able To Display Why You're Worthy.

Take On The Pain And Wear It As A Shirt.

I Think Being A Woman In Any Business That's Dominated By Men, You Have Your Garden Variety Pros And Cons, Where You Learn How To Focus And Harness Your Various Powers And Weaknesses For Better Or For Good.

For Most Of Human History, Musicians, Artists, They've Been Part Of The Community — Connectors And Openers, Not Untouchable Stars.

Life As It Should Be: All Friends, All Art, All Music, All Love, All The Time.

Everyone I Know Shares Toothbrushes. Everyone I Know Sleeps On Each Other's Floor. Everyone I Know Uses What They've Got And Shares What They've Got.

I Am Bigger On The Inside But You Have To Come Inside To See Me

I Think Performance Art Comes From A Simple Place Of Wanting To Express Things Beyond Just Sound.

There's A Part Of Me That Is Really, Really Happy With All Of My Success Lately Because Of What It Can Get Me And What It Can Buy Me In The Fact That My Music Will Hopefully Reach More People. But It Also Makes Me A Little Bit Miserable Because The Minute The Spotlight Is On You, People Start Flinging Sh*t At You For Whatever Reason.

When I Find Myself Having To Share A Meal With Someone Who Simply Wants To Complain About The World, I Almost Feel Myself Wanting To Crawl Out Of My Skin And Just Sort Of Scurry Away. But Being Able To Pick Up On That Stuff And Being Able To Easily Identify The People Walking Towards The Light Instead Of Walking Towards The Darkness, That's A Skill I'm Very, Very Glad To See Growing In Myself.

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