I hate, hate, hate that I subscribe to Esquire magazine’s digital edition and yet content from their forthcoming issues come available, for free, online before I can read them on my iPad. What am I paying for? Am I not paying for the privilege to access this information at least first or is it the mere convenience of being able to carry it with me once it does come available?
Either way, a column that will eventually appear on my iPad sometime in the next week or so from the September issue of Esquire has been made available featuring the words of Woody Allen, titled “Woody Allen: What I’ve Learned” in which the 77-year-old writer/director of the recently released Blue Jasmine offers up a few life lessons he’s learned.
They are, as you would expect, logical and also, in many instances, involve the scarier things in life, which he has made a career out of exploiting.
Here are a few snippets:
Without fear, you’d never survive.
If you’re born with a gift, to behave like it’s an achievement is not right.
Back when I started, when I opened Take the Money and Run, the guys at United Artists accumulated the nation’s criticisms into a pile this big and I read them all. Texas, Oklahoma, California, New England… That’s when I realized that it’s ridiculous. I mean, the guy in Tulsa thinks the picture’s a masterpiece, and the guy in Vermont thinks it’s the dumbest thing he’s ever seen. Each guy writes intelligently. The whole thing was so pointless. So I abandoned ever, ever reading any criticisms again. Thanks to my mother, I haven’t wasted any time dwelling on whether I’m brilliant or a fool. It’s completely unprofitable to think about it.
It’s just an accident that we happen to be on earth, enjoying our silly little moments, distracting ourselves as often as possible so we don’t have to really face up to the fact that, you know, we’re just temporary people with a very short time in a universe that will eventually be completely gone. And everything that you value, whether it’s Shakespeare, Beethoven, da Vinci, or whatever, will be gone. The earth will be gone. The sun will be gone. There’ll be nothing. The best you can do to get through life is distraction. Love works as a distraction. And work works as a distraction. You can distract yourself a billion different ways. But the key is to distract yourself.
A guy will say, “Well, I make my luck.” And the same guy walks down the street and a piano that’s been hoisted drops on his head. The truth of the matter is your life is very much out of your control.
Click here to read the full column, this was just a handful.
Photo by Mark Mann for Esquire magazine
