8.16.2012

"1983. Bob Dylan is 42 years old, and his time in the cultural spotlight is long since past. He records a song called "Blind Willie McTell," named after the blues singer, and the song is a voyage through the past, through a much darker time, but a simpler one, a time when musicians like Willie McTell had few illusions about what they did. "I jump 'em from other writers but I arrange 'em my own way."

I think this is mostly what we do. Our creativity comes from without, not from within. We are not self-made. We are dependent on one another, and admitting this to ourselves isn't an embrace of mediocrity and derivativeness. It's a liberation from our misconceptions, and it's an incentive to not expect so much from ourselves and to simply begin."

--- Kirby Ferguson: Embrace the remix
TED TALK, June 2012