Media, music, meaning.

This Is What I do. This Is My Life.

Every day for almost 50 years Charles Schluz sat down at his desk and drew cartoons. He would begin with a blank sheet of paper and then “start doodling on it.” He said, “If I’m lucky and think of something right away, I turn, reach down, and pick out a prepared set of squares.” Once he had the strip “roughed out in pencil” he would start to use ink, add color, then words.

Over the 5 decades that he made the comic strips he never had an assistant. He did everything himself. He was obsessed. He told BBC in 1977, “I never use an idea someone else suggested, and I draw every strip. I letter every word because this is what I do. This is my life.” His obsession led to Peanuts becoming one of the most successful and influential comics of all time.

Two Bottles Of Red Wine And Four Packs Of Cigarettes

Timothée Chalamet had 5 years to prepare for the role of Bob Dylan. Initially he worked with coaches to learn how Dylan talked, how he walked, and how he sang. He immersed himself in Dylan’s extensive catalog of early studio recordings and bootleg tapes. He watched movies like Walk The Line and 2022’s Elvis, studying how the actors approached their roles. But years into this he realized that he should take a different approach.

​He said, “At some point, the vocal coach I was working with, or the dialect or movement—I thought, wait, I’ve got to do none of this because this is not my style. Bob did not have a vocal coach. He had two bottles of red wine and four packets of cigarettes, so there’s no way to impersonate that.”

He began to understand that he didn’t need to “demystify the enigma.” And that actually “playing an enigma or someone who’s enigmatic is almost easier in a sense because there aren’t the hard lines to follow.” Once he started to see himself in Dylan’s story it clicked:

“I was never deified, but I could equally relate, like when Denis Villeneuve knocks on the door about Dune or I got the opportunity to play Willy Wonka or something, that was Bob wanting to be in a rock and roll band, you know? When that door wasn’t open, then I had to go make folk music. Then I had to go really hard.”

The awareness of his own experience and how it related to the character was his way in. Not the vocal lessons.

Anyways, Bob seems excited about it. ​

What Is Already Ours Is Riches Enough​

It’s not easy to sit down every day for 50 years and create a timeless universe of characters and stories. It’s not easy to play the role of an enigmatic 20th century icon. These are difficult because they require something that can’t be seen. They require an inner strength. Developing this type of strength is what the psychologist Carl Jung calls individuation. Jungian psychologist Robert Johnson says that:

“A great sense of security develops from this process. Once one begins to understand that it isn’t necessary to struggle to be like someone else, for by being one’s own self one stands on the surest ground. We realize that to know ourselves completely and to develop all the strengths that are built into us is a lifetime task. We don’t need to make an imitation of someone else’s life. There is no further need for pretensions, for what is already ours is riches enough, and far more than we ever expected.”

What do you do? What is your life?

Talk to you next week,

Dawson