Pixar & Lichtenbergianism
/In 2011, Pixar storyboard artist Emma Coats shared ‘22 Rules for Storytelling.’ They are:
Here’s my question: Where did “Emma Coats” — if that is her real human name even — get a time machine to read Lichtenbergianism: procrastination as a creative strategy in 2011, since it wasn’t published until 2017?? More than half the rules are Lichtenbergian Precepts and concepts.
To wit:
2. AUDIENCE
3. ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS
4. STEAL FROM THE BEST
5. SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION
7. KING OF HEARTS FALLACY
8. ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS
9. GESTALT/SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION
10. STEAL FROM THE BEST
11. ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS
12. SHINYPERFECT/ABORTIVE ATTEMPTS
17. ABANDONMENT/TASK AVOIDANCE
18. RITUAL
20. STEAL FROM THE BEST
22. GESTALT
Well done, Ms. Coats and Pixar! (And be honest — you had to scroll back up because you didn’t read them the first time, didn’t you?)
All this goes to show is that, as I said in the introduction to Lichtenbergianism, none of what I’ve written is new or original. MAKING THE THING THAT IS NOT is universal.
Go thou and do likewise.