LEWIS CARROLL’S THREE TIPS FOR OVERCOMING CREATIVE BLOCK:
“When you have made a thorough and reasonably long effort, to understand a thing, and still feel puzzled by it, stop, you will only hurt yourself by going on. Put it aside till the next morning; and if then you can’t make it out, and have no one to explain it to you, put it aside entirely, and go back to that part of the subject which you do understand. When I was reading Mathematics for University honors, I would sometimes, after working a week or two at some new book, and mastering ten or twenty pages, get into a hopeless muddle, and find it just as bad the next morning. My rule was to begin the book again. And perhaps in another fortnight I had come to the old difficulty with impetus enough to get over it. Or perhaps not. I have several books that I have begun over and over again.
My second hint shall be — Never leave an unsolved difficulty behind. I mean, don’t go any further in that book till the difficulty is conquered. In this point, Mathematics differs entirely from most other subjects. Suppose you are reading an Italian book, and come to a hopelessly obscure sentence — don’t waste too much time on it, skip it, and go on; you will do very well without it. But if you skip a mathematical difficulty, it is sure to crop up again: you will find some other proof depending on it, and you will only get deeper and deeper into the mud.
My third hint is, only go on working so long as the brain is quite clear. The moment you feel the ideas getting confused leave off and rest, or your penalty will be that you will never learn Mathematics at all!
Lewis Carroll, Author (Alice In Wonderland, Through The Looking Glass)
via :
(via cartoonbrew)
(via attoliasthief)
An interesting and tragic circumstance, my dear friend. The truth about the Reverend Charles Dodgson, commonly known as Lewis Carroll, is that nobody really knows the truth about him. Claims on his personal life and habits are largely speculative or based on ill founded sources; little is known about him outside of his works, and his relationship with the Liddells is one that is hard to decipher through the veil of time.
The only disgrace to classical literature in this case is the dismissal of beautiful and culturally essential material through ignorance. I advise that you direct your teacher to read more upon the subject, I particularly recommend ‘Alice in Sunderland’ by Brain Talbot; a fine graphic novel that presents the facts and context of history around the author’s life without being too greatly biased.
I might add that it may be the fault of representatives such as myself that have led to an increasingly skeptical view on such an eminent figure of literature, and for that I can only apologize to Mr Dodgson.
Although, if your tutor does not take to any of this reasoning, I’m sure I would be glad to make arrangements with you on the method of her ‘departing’.
Not reblogging to reblog my own stuff, but this sort of thing actually makes my blood boil.
TL:DR - I fucking hate censorship.
Nobody who does this deserves to call themselves a teacher.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
’Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!’
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought—
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
’And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.
’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.