bronze_ribbons. "our brains are constantly evolving" (Reply)

Zachary Woolfe, to Philip Glass and Beck: What do you both think about timelessness and your work, and how things in your work feel dated or not dated?

Glass: It all sounds dated. Because I can't write that music again. I can't write "Einstein on the Beach" again. I played from it in a concert the other day, and it's like I never wrote it. My brain's been rewired. I don't think I've ever said this publicly, but I think that the music we write, it accurately reflects the way our brains work, and our brains are constantly evolving. Our brains are very plastic; they continue to grow.

Woolfe: How do you see the work that you did versus the work that you do?

Glass: I don't mean to give you a Zen koan, but the work I did is the work I know, and the work I do is the work I don't know. That's why I can't tell you, I don't know what I'm doing. And it's the not knowing that makes it interesting.

[A couple of nights ago, I revisited some of the fics I wrote back in 2008 and 2005. My head is indeed in a different country now (even literally speaking -- I drafted most of "Unspeakable Beauty" while in Japan), so yeah, it did feel like reading the work of someone I used to know. And right now the not-knowing about what will gel next is far more frustrating than interesting, but at some point skill and desire will click back into gear and getting the words down will once again be more compulsion than vexation. I do have faith in that.]

(I've been feeling crowded by iguanas for quite some time now, so it's just as well that the writing mojo's in hibernation. Whether it's gone dormant so that I'll deal with what needs doing or because what needs doing has been hogging up all the headspace, I don't know and don't much care -- my subconscious isn't always my friend, but it usually comes up with what I need. Off to the easel...)