{"id":41035,"date":"2023-05-08T06:30:25","date_gmt":"2023-05-07T18:30:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=41035"},"modified":"2023-05-07T19:13:53","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T07:13:53","slug":"a-quote-from-jack-kerouac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2023\/05\/08\/a-quote-from-jack-kerouac\/","title":{"rendered":"A Quote from Jack Kerouac"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cGreat things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.\u201d<\/span><\/h3>\n

~ Jack Kerouac<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

To be honest, I\u2019m of two minds regarding this quote.<\/p>\n

My first reaction was \u201cYes, of course!\u201d, because if we\u2019re afraid to step outside the norm and try the new, or give too much weight to the opinions of others over our own, then we\u2019ll probably never achieve anything beyond that norm.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, I do find it can help, especially when contemplating Big Life Decisions and Leaps of Faith to seek\u2014and even heed!\u2014the wisdom of others who may have experience of major life changes or taken such leaps themselves.<\/p>\n

While this probably doesn\u2019t equate to trends and fads, or even popular opinion, my point is that we should always keep an open mind to experiences and viewpoints beyond our own.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One helpful visitor, leaning on the back of my chair as I typed this post, opined that maybe Kerouac just meant creative accomplishment. We then discussed whether\u2014even if that were so\u2014the same principle wouldn\u2019t also apply to any major life endeavour, and decided that it would.<\/p>\n

Yet even when it comes to creative accomplishment alone, I can\u2019t help reflecting on Shakespeare\u2019s plays and how the Elizabethans (allegedly) didn\u2019t value originality in the same way we do now. So at the time Shakespeare was penning his Romeo and Juliet<\/em>, we\u2019ve reason to believe other playwrights were putting on very similar\u2014if not the same\u2014production. They may even have called their plays \u201cRomeo and Juliet\u201d, too.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Shakespeare, in that case, was very much in tune with the trend and popular opinion\u2014but what he made of it, with his Romeo and Juliet<\/em>, was unquestionably great and has endured the test of time.<\/p>\n

So like Tolkien\u2019s elves, I am saying \u201cboth yes and no\u201d to Jack Kerouac\u2019s quote\u2014and having had my buck each way, can now knuckle down to the writing week. \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cGreat things are not accomplished by those who yield to trends and fads and popular opinion.\u201d ~ Jack Kerouac To be honest, I\u2019m of two minds regarding this quote. My first reaction was \u201cYes, of course!\u201d, because if we\u2019re afraid to step outside the norm and try the new, or give too much weight to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,10,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-funstuff","category-general","category-other-writers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41035"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41042,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41035\/revisions\/41042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}