WEBVTT 00:00:00.201 --> 00:00:01.893 The theme of my talk today is, 00:00:01.893 --> 00:00:05.101 "Be an artist, right now." 00:00:05.101 --> 00:00:08.158 Most people, when this subject is brought up, 00:00:08.158 --> 00:00:10.784 get tense and resist it: 00:00:10.784 --> 00:00:13.778 "Art doesn't feed me, and right now I'm busy. 00:00:13.778 --> 00:00:16.154 I have to go to school, get a job, 00:00:16.154 --> 00:00:18.441 send my kids to lessons ... " 00:00:18.441 --> 00:00:23.976 You think, "I'm too busy. I don't have time for art." 00:00:23.976 --> 00:00:27.437 There are hundreds of reasons why we can't be artists right now. 00:00:27.437 --> 00:00:28.992 Don't they just pop into your head? NOTE Paragraph 00:00:28.992 --> 00:00:30.815 There are so many reasons why we can't be, 00:00:30.815 --> 00:00:33.375 indeed, we're not sure why we should be. 00:00:33.375 --> 00:00:35.068 We don't know why we should be artists, 00:00:35.068 --> 00:00:38.971 but we have many reasons why we can't be. 00:00:38.971 --> 00:00:43.346 Why do people instantly resist the idea of associating themselves with art? 00:00:43.346 --> 00:00:47.214 Perhaps you think art is for the greatly gifted 00:00:47.214 --> 00:00:52.266 or for the thoroughly and professionally trained. 00:00:52.266 --> 00:00:56.609 And some of you may think you've strayed too far from art. 00:00:56.609 --> 00:01:01.227 Well you might have, but I don't think so. 00:01:01.227 --> 00:01:03.696 This is the theme of my talk today. 00:01:03.696 --> 00:01:05.498 We are all born artists. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:05.498 --> 00:01:08.542 If you have kids, you know what I mean. 00:01:08.542 --> 00:01:13.427 Almost everything kids do is art. 00:01:13.427 --> 00:01:16.005 They draw with crayons on the wall. 00:01:16.005 --> 00:01:19.157 They dance to Son Dam Bi's dance on TV, 00:01:19.157 --> 00:01:23.015 but you can't even call it Son Dam Bi's dance -- it becomes the kids' own dance. 00:01:23.015 --> 00:01:28.301 So they dance a strange dance and inflict their singing on everyone. 00:01:28.301 --> 00:01:32.275 Perhaps their art is something only their parents can bear, 00:01:32.275 --> 00:01:37.472 and because they practice such art all day long, 00:01:37.472 --> 00:01:40.751 people honestly get a little tired around kids. NOTE Paragraph 00:01:40.751 --> 00:01:43.906 Kids will sometimes perform monodramas -- 00:01:43.906 --> 00:01:47.452 playing house is indeed a monodrama or a play. 00:01:47.452 --> 00:01:50.131 And some kids, when they get a bit older, 00:01:50.131 --> 00:01:52.151 start to lie. 00:01:52.151 --> 00:01:57.242 Usually parents remember the very first time their kid lies. 00:01:57.242 --> 00:01:58.587 They're shocked. 00:01:58.587 --> 00:02:02.155 "Now you're showing your true colors," Mom says. She thinks, "Why does he take after his dad?" 00:02:02.155 --> 00:02:05.361 She questions him, "What kind of a person are you going to be?" NOTE Paragraph 00:02:05.361 --> 00:02:06.932 But you shouldn't worry. 00:02:06.932 --> 00:02:13.152 The moment kids start to lie is the moment storytelling begins. 00:02:13.152 --> 00:02:15.340 They are talking about things they didn't see. 00:02:15.340 --> 00:02:17.131 It's amazing. It's a wonderful moment. 00:02:17.131 --> 00:02:19.198 Parents should celebrate. 00:02:19.198 --> 00:02:23.355 "Hurray! My boy finally started to lie!" 00:02:23.355 --> 00:02:25.584 All right! It calls for celebration. 00:02:25.584 --> 00:02:28.973 For example, a kid says, "Mom, guess what? I met an alien on my way home." 00:02:28.973 --> 00:02:33.424 Then a typical mom responds, "Stop that nonsense." 00:02:33.424 --> 00:02:37.040 Now, an ideal parent is someone who responds like this: 00:02:37.040 --> 00:02:40.112 "Really? An alien, huh? What did it look like? Did it say anything? 00:02:40.112 --> 00:02:41.816 Where did you meet it?" "Um, in front of the supermarket." NOTE Paragraph 00:02:41.816 --> 00:02:44.138 When you have a conversation like this, 00:02:44.138 --> 00:02:50.513 the kid has to come up with the next thing to say to be responsible for what he started. 00:02:50.513 --> 00:02:52.677 Soon, a story develops. 00:02:52.677 --> 00:02:57.154 Of course this is an infantile story, 00:02:57.154 --> 00:03:00.970 but thinking up one sentence after the next 00:03:00.970 --> 00:03:05.038 is the same thing a professional writer like me does. 00:03:05.038 --> 00:03:07.417 In essence, they are not different. 00:03:07.417 --> 00:03:10.103 Roland Barthes once said of Flaubert's novels, 00:03:10.103 --> 00:03:12.709 "Flaubert did not write a novel. 00:03:12.709 --> 00:03:15.714 He merely connected one sentence after another. 00:03:15.714 --> 00:03:20.441 The eros between sentences, that is the essence of Flaubert's novel." 00:03:20.441 --> 00:03:23.224 That's right -- a novel, basically, is writing one sentence, 00:03:23.224 --> 00:03:26.683 then, without violating the scope of the first one, 00:03:26.683 --> 00:03:28.388 writing the next sentence. 00:03:28.388 --> 00:03:29.897 And you continue to make connections. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:29.897 --> 00:03:31.963 Take a look at this sentence: 00:03:31.963 --> 00:03:34.430 "One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in his bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug." 00:03:34.430 --> 00:03:36.876 Yes, it's the first sentence of Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis." 00:03:36.876 --> 00:03:40.044 Writing such an unjustifiable sentence 00:03:40.044 --> 00:03:42.492 and continuing in order to justify it, 00:03:42.492 --> 00:03:46.921 Kafka's work became the masterpiece of contemporary literature. 00:03:46.921 --> 00:03:49.670 Kafka did not show his work to his father. 00:03:49.670 --> 00:03:51.994 He was not on good terms with his father. 00:03:51.994 --> 00:03:55.790 On his own, he wrote these sentences. 00:03:55.790 --> 00:03:59.053 Had he shown his father, "My boy has finally lost it," he would've thought. NOTE Paragraph 00:03:59.053 --> 00:04:00.965 And that's right. Art is about going a little nuts 00:04:00.965 --> 00:04:03.212 and justifying the next sentence, 00:04:03.212 --> 00:04:06.473 which is not much different from what a kid does. 00:04:06.473 --> 00:04:08.004 A kid who has just started to lie 00:04:08.004 --> 00:04:11.130 is taking the first step as a storyteller. 00:04:11.130 --> 00:04:13.691 Kids do art. 00:04:13.691 --> 00:04:15.116 They don't get tired and they have fun doing it. 00:04:15.116 --> 00:04:16.877 I was in Jeju Island a few days ago. 00:04:16.877 --> 00:04:21.989 When kids are on the beach, most of them love playing in the water. 00:04:21.989 --> 00:04:24.896 But some of them spend a lot of time in the sand, 00:04:24.896 --> 00:04:27.140 making mountains and seas -- well, not seas, 00:04:27.140 --> 00:04:31.087 but different things -- people and dogs, etc. 00:04:31.087 --> 00:04:32.500 But parents tell them, 00:04:32.500 --> 00:04:34.263 "It will all be washed away by the waves." 00:04:34.263 --> 00:04:36.085 In other words, it's useless. 00:04:36.085 --> 00:04:37.229 There's no need. 00:04:37.229 --> 00:04:39.095 But kids don't mind. 00:04:39.095 --> 00:04:40.266 They have fun in the moment 00:04:40.266 --> 00:04:42.432 and they keep playing in the sand. 00:04:42.432 --> 00:04:44.698 Kids don't do it because someone told them to. 00:04:44.698 --> 00:04:46.294 They aren't told by their boss 00:04:46.294 --> 00:04:49.219 or anyone, they just do it. NOTE Paragraph 00:04:49.219 --> 00:04:54.615 When you were little, I bet you spent time enjoying the pleasure of primitive art. 00:04:54.615 --> 00:04:58.977 When I ask my students to write about their happiest moment, 00:04:58.977 --> 00:05:04.901 many write about an early artistic experience they had as a kid. 00:05:04.901 --> 00:05:07.656 Learning to play piano for the first time and playing four hands with a friend, 00:05:07.656 --> 00:05:12.672 or performing a ridiculous skit with friends looking like idiots -- things like that. 00:05:12.672 --> 00:05:16.023 Or the moment you developed the first film you shot with an old camera. 00:05:16.023 --> 00:05:18.346 They talk about these kinds of experiences. 00:05:18.346 --> 00:05:20.611 You must have had such a moment. 00:05:20.611 --> 00:05:22.544 In that moment, art makes you happy 00:05:22.544 --> 00:05:24.221 because it's not work. 00:05:24.221 --> 00:05:26.754 Work doesn't make you happy, does it? Mostly it's tough. NOTE Paragraph 00:05:26.754 --> 00:05:29.855 The French writer Michel Tournier has a famous saying. 00:05:29.855 --> 00:05:31.545 It's a bit mischievous, actually. 00:05:31.545 --> 00:05:36.517 "Work is against human nature. The proof is that it makes us tired." 00:05:36.517 --> 00:05:38.002 Right? Why would work tire us if it's in our nature? 00:05:38.002 --> 00:05:39.663 Playing doesn't tire us. 00:05:39.663 --> 00:05:41.098 We can play all night long. 00:05:41.098 --> 00:05:43.531 If we work overnight, we should be paid for overtime. 00:05:43.531 --> 00:05:46.815 Why? Because it's tiring and we feel fatigue. 00:05:46.815 --> 00:05:51.497 But kids, usually they do art for fun. It's playing. 00:05:51.497 --> 00:05:54.231 They don't draw to sell the work to a client 00:05:54.231 --> 00:05:57.256 or play the piano to earn money for the family. 00:05:57.256 --> 00:06:00.032 Of course, there were kids who had to. 00:06:00.032 --> 00:06:01.334 You know this gentleman, right? 00:06:01.334 --> 00:06:05.420 He had to tour around Europe to support his family -- 00:06:05.420 --> 00:06:07.310 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart -- 00:06:07.310 --> 00:06:10.273 but that was centuries ago, so we can make him an exception. 00:06:10.273 --> 00:06:14.138 Unfortunately, at some point our art -- such a joyful pastime -- ends. 00:06:14.138 --> 00:06:17.528 Kids have to go to lessons, to school, do homework 00:06:17.528 --> 00:06:21.046 and of course they take piano or ballet lessons, 00:06:21.046 --> 00:06:22.815 but they aren't fun anymore. 00:06:22.815 --> 00:06:26.147 You're told to do it and there's competition. How can it be fun? 00:06:26.147 --> 00:06:31.739 If you're in elementary school and you still draw on the wall, 00:06:31.739 --> 00:06:35.654 you'll surely get in trouble with your mom. 00:06:35.654 --> 00:06:39.521 Besides, 00:06:39.521 --> 00:06:42.101 if you continue to act like an artist as you get older, 00:06:42.101 --> 00:06:45.769 you'll increasingly feel pressure -- 00:06:45.769 --> 00:06:51.824 people will question your actions and ask you to act properly. NOTE Paragraph 00:06:51.824 --> 00:06:58.011 Here's my story: I was an eighth grader and I entered a drawing contest at school in Gyeongbokgung. 00:06:58.011 --> 00:07:00.918 I was trying my best, and my teacher came around 00:07:00.918 --> 00:07:04.506 and asked me, "What are you doing?" 00:07:04.506 --> 00:07:06.320 "I'm drawing diligently," I said. 00:07:06.320 --> 00:07:08.223 "Why are you using only black?" 00:07:08.223 --> 00:07:10.603 Indeed, I was eagerly coloring the sketchbook in black. 00:07:10.603 --> 00:07:13.672 And I explained, 00:07:13.672 --> 00:07:16.919 "It's a dark night and a crow is perching on a branch." 00:07:16.919 --> 00:07:17.917 Then my teacher said, 00:07:17.917 --> 00:07:23.239 "Really? Well, Young-ha, you may not be good at drawing but you have a talent for storytelling." 00:07:23.239 --> 00:07:25.974 Or so I wished. 00:07:25.974 --> 00:07:28.742 "Now you'll get it, you rascal!" was the response. (Laughter) 00:07:28.742 --> 00:07:30.346 "You'll get it!" he said. 00:07:30.346 --> 00:07:33.028 You were supposed to draw the palace, the Gyeonghoeru, etc., 00:07:33.028 --> 00:07:35.463 but I was coloring everything in black, 00:07:35.463 --> 00:07:37.147 so he dragged me out of the group. 00:07:37.147 --> 00:07:39.167 There were a lot of girls there as well, 00:07:39.167 --> 00:07:40.718 so I was utterly mortified. NOTE Paragraph 00:07:40.718 --> 00:07:45.170 None of my explanations or excuses were heard, 00:07:45.170 --> 00:07:48.383 and I really got it big time. 00:07:48.383 --> 00:07:52.901 If he was an ideal teacher, he would have responded like I said before, 00:07:52.901 --> 00:07:55.214 "Young-ha may not have a talent for drawing, 00:07:55.214 --> 00:07:58.589 but he has a gift for making up stories," and he would have encouraged me. 00:07:58.589 --> 00:08:02.041 But such a teacher is seldom found. 00:08:02.041 --> 00:08:05.004 Later, I grew up and went to Europe's galleries -- 00:08:05.004 --> 00:08:06.905 I was a university student -- and I thought this was really unfair. 00:08:06.905 --> 00:08:12.303 Look what I found. (Laughter) NOTE Paragraph 00:08:12.303 --> 00:08:16.628 Works like this were hung in Basel while I was punished 00:08:16.628 --> 00:08:22.021 and stood in front of the palace with my drawing in my mouth. 00:08:22.021 --> 00:08:25.027 Look at this. Doesn't it look just like wallpaper? 00:08:25.027 --> 00:08:26.943 Contemporary art, I later discovered, isn't explained by a lame story like mine. 00:08:26.943 --> 00:08:30.888 No crows are brought up. 00:08:30.888 --> 00:08:34.221 Most of the works have no title, Untitled. 00:08:34.221 --> 00:08:37.322 Anyways, contemporary art in the 20th century 00:08:37.322 --> 00:08:42.691 is about doing something weird and filling the void with explanation and interpretation -- 00:08:42.691 --> 00:08:44.170 essentially the same as I did. 00:08:44.170 --> 00:08:46.918 Of course, my work was very amateur, 00:08:46.918 --> 00:08:50.207 but let's turn to more famous examples. NOTE Paragraph 00:08:50.207 --> 00:08:52.808 This is Picasso's. 00:08:52.808 --> 00:08:58.609 He stuck handlebars into a bike seat and called it "Bull's Head." Sounds convincing, right? 00:08:58.609 --> 00:09:03.253 Next, a urinal was placed on its side and called "Fountain". 00:09:03.253 --> 00:09:04.847 That was Duchamp. 00:09:04.847 --> 00:09:09.297 So filling the gap between explanation and a weird act with stories -- 00:09:09.297 --> 00:09:13.424 that's indeed what contemporary art is all about. 00:09:13.424 --> 00:09:14.812 Picasso even made the statement, 00:09:14.812 --> 00:09:18.989 "I draw not what I see but what I think." 00:09:18.989 --> 00:09:21.506 Yes, it means I didn't have to draw Gyeonghoeru. 00:09:21.506 --> 00:09:25.577 I wish I knew what Picasso said back then. I could have argued better with my teacher. 00:09:25.577 --> 00:09:29.379 Unfortunately, the little artists within us 00:09:29.379 --> 00:09:34.866 are choked to death before we get to fight against the oppressors of art. 00:09:34.866 --> 00:09:36.471 They get locked in. 00:09:36.471 --> 00:09:37.554 That's our tragedy. NOTE Paragraph 00:09:37.554 --> 00:09:42.814 So what happens when little artists get locked in, banished or even killed? 00:09:42.814 --> 00:09:44.197 Our artistic desire doesn't go away. 00:09:44.197 --> 00:09:47.294 We want to express, to reveal ourselves, 00:09:47.294 --> 00:09:52.532 but with the artist dead, the artistic desire reveals itself in dark form. 00:09:52.532 --> 00:09:55.499 In karaoke bars, there are always people who sing 00:09:55.499 --> 00:09:58.041 "She's Gone" or "Hotel California," 00:09:58.041 --> 00:10:00.361 miming the guitar riffs. 00:10:00.361 --> 00:10:02.603 Usually they sound awful. Awful indeed. 00:10:02.603 --> 00:10:05.082 Some people turn into rockers like this. 00:10:05.082 --> 00:10:07.155 Or some people dance in clubs. 00:10:07.155 --> 00:10:10.557 People who would have enjoyed telling stories 00:10:10.557 --> 00:10:13.567 end up trolling on the Internet all night long. 00:10:13.567 --> 00:10:16.962 That's how a writing talent reveals itself on the dark side. NOTE Paragraph 00:10:16.962 --> 00:10:20.915 Sometimes we see dads get more excited than their kids 00:10:20.915 --> 00:10:23.900 playing with Legos or putting together plastic robots. 00:10:23.900 --> 00:10:25.633 They go, "Don't touch it. Daddy will do it for you." 00:10:25.633 --> 00:10:27.268 The kid has already lost interest and is doing something else, 00:10:27.268 --> 00:10:31.277 but the dad alone builds castles. 00:10:31.277 --> 00:10:35.755 This shows the artistic impulses inside us are suppressed, not gone. 00:10:35.755 --> 00:10:39.547 But they can often reveal themselves negatively, in the form of jealousy. 00:10:39.547 --> 00:10:44.841 You know the song "I would love to be on TV"? Why would we love it? 00:10:44.841 --> 00:10:48.669 TV is full of people who do what we wished to do, 00:10:48.669 --> 00:10:50.609 but never got to. 00:10:50.609 --> 00:10:56.738 They dance, they act -- and the more they do, they are praised. 00:10:56.738 --> 00:10:59.888 So we start to envy them. 00:10:59.888 --> 00:11:03.982 We become dictators with a remote and start to criticize the people on TV. 00:11:03.982 --> 00:11:09.835 "He just can't act." "You call that singing? She can't hit the notes." 00:11:09.835 --> 00:11:12.125 We easily say these sorts of things. 00:11:12.125 --> 00:11:15.068 We get jealous, not because we're evil, 00:11:15.068 --> 00:11:19.605 but because we have little artists pent up inside us. 00:11:19.605 --> 00:11:23.191 That's what I think. NOTE Paragraph 00:11:23.191 --> 00:11:25.029 What should we do then? 00:11:25.029 --> 00:11:25.806 Yes, that's right. 00:11:25.806 --> 00:11:29.000 Right now, we need to start our own art. 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:30.009 Right this minute, we can turn off TV, 00:11:30.009 --> 00:11:32.458 log off the Internet, 00:11:32.458 --> 00:11:35.158 get up and start to do something. 00:11:35.158 --> 00:11:36.893 Where I teach students in drama school, 00:11:36.893 --> 00:11:39.627 there's a course called Dramatics. 00:11:39.627 --> 00:11:43.817 In this course, all students must put on a play. 00:11:43.817 --> 00:11:47.929 However, acting majors are not supposed to act. 00:11:47.929 --> 00:11:49.949 They can write the play, for example, 00:11:49.949 --> 00:11:52.673 and the writers may work on stage art. 00:11:52.673 --> 00:11:54.969 Likewise, stage art majors may become actors, and in this way you put on a show. 00:11:54.984 --> 00:11:58.732 Students at first wonder whether they can actually do it, 00:11:58.732 --> 00:12:03.295 but later they have so much fun. I rarely see anyone who is miserable doing a play. 00:12:03.295 --> 00:12:07.457 In school, the military or even in a mental institution, once you make people do it, they enjoy it. 00:12:07.457 --> 00:12:12.353 I saw this happen in the army -- many people had fun doing plays. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:12.353 --> 00:12:15.285 I have another experience: 00:12:15.285 --> 00:12:18.919 In my writing class, I give students a special assignment. 00:12:18.919 --> 00:12:24.819 I have students like you in the class -- many who don't major in writing. 00:12:24.819 --> 00:12:29.396 Some major in art or music and think they can't write. 00:12:29.396 --> 00:12:33.123 So I give them blank sheets of paper and a theme. 00:12:33.123 --> 00:12:34.737 It can be a simple theme: 00:12:34.737 --> 00:12:37.251 Write about the most unfortunate experience in your childhood. 00:12:37.251 --> 00:12:41.164 There's one condition: You must write like crazy. Like crazy! 00:12:41.164 --> 00:12:43.897 I walk around and encourage them, 00:12:43.897 --> 00:12:47.641 "Come on, come on!" They have to write like crazy for an hour or two. 00:12:47.641 --> 00:12:50.849 They only get to think for the first five minutes. NOTE Paragraph 00:12:50.849 --> 00:12:54.071 The reason I make them write like crazy is because 00:12:54.071 --> 00:12:56.829 when you write slowly and lots of thoughts cross your mind, 00:12:56.829 --> 00:12:59.276 the artistic devil creeps in. 00:12:59.276 --> 00:13:03.308 This devil will tell you hundreds of reasons 00:13:03.308 --> 00:13:06.238 why you can't write: 00:13:06.238 --> 00:13:09.073 "People will laugh at you. This is not good writing! 00:13:09.073 --> 00:13:10.623 What kind of sentence is this? Look at your handwriting!" 00:13:10.623 --> 00:13:12.200 It will say a lot of things. 00:13:12.200 --> 00:13:14.704 You have to run fast so the devil can't catch up. 00:13:14.704 --> 00:13:18.776 The really good writing I've seen in my class 00:13:18.776 --> 00:13:21.449 was not from the assignments with a long deadline, 00:13:21.449 --> 00:13:24.933 but from the 40- to 60-minute crazy writing students did 00:13:24.933 --> 00:13:28.335 in front of me with a pencil. 00:13:28.335 --> 00:13:30.174 The students go into a kind of trance. 00:13:30.174 --> 00:13:34.636 After 30 or 40 minutes, they write without knowing what they're writing. 00:13:34.636 --> 00:13:37.601 And in this moment, the nagging devil disappears. NOTE Paragraph 00:13:37.601 --> 00:13:39.310 So I can say this: 00:13:39.310 --> 00:13:43.325 It's not the hundreds of reasons why one can't be an artist, 00:13:43.325 --> 00:13:47.575 but rather, the one reason one must be that makes us artists. 00:13:47.575 --> 00:13:49.284 Why we cannot be something is not important. 00:13:49.284 --> 00:13:52.434 Most artists became artists because of the one reason. 00:13:52.434 --> 00:13:56.104 When we put the devil in our heart to sleep and start our own art, 00:13:56.104 --> 00:13:58.438 enemies appear on the outside. 00:13:58.438 --> 00:14:01.294 Mostly, they have the faces of our parents. (Laughter) 00:14:01.294 --> 00:14:04.395 Sometimes they look like our spouses, 00:14:04.395 --> 00:14:06.163 but they are not your parents or spouses. 00:14:06.163 --> 00:14:09.057 They are devils. Devils. 00:14:09.057 --> 00:14:11.001 They came to Earth briefly transformed 00:14:11.001 --> 00:14:14.947 to stop you from being artistic, from becoming artists. 00:14:14.947 --> 00:14:16.869 And they have a magic question. 00:14:16.869 --> 00:14:23.027 When we say, "I think I'll try acting. There's a drama school in the community center," or 00:14:23.027 --> 00:14:27.504 "I'd like to learn Italian songs," they ask, "Oh, yeah? A play? What for?" 00:14:27.504 --> 00:14:31.166 The magic question is, "What for?" 00:14:31.166 --> 00:14:34.878 But art is not for anything. 00:14:34.878 --> 00:14:37.132 Art is the ultimate goal. 00:14:37.132 --> 00:14:41.272 It saves our souls and makes us live happily. 00:14:41.272 --> 00:14:46.778 It helps us express ourselves and be happy without the help of alcohol or drugs. 00:14:46.778 --> 00:14:51.103 So in response to such a pragmatic question, 00:14:51.118 --> 00:14:53.537 we need to be bold. 00:14:53.537 --> 00:14:57.981 "Well, just for the fun of it. Sorry for having fun without you," 00:14:57.981 --> 00:15:02.006 is what you should say. "I'll just go ahead and do it anyway." 00:15:02.006 --> 00:15:07.106 The ideal future I imagine is where we all have multiple identities, 00:15:07.106 --> 00:15:10.887 at least one of which is an artist. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:10.887 --> 00:15:14.056 Once I was in New York and got in a cab. I took the backseat, 00:15:14.056 --> 00:15:18.213 and in front of me I saw something related to a play. 00:15:18.213 --> 00:15:19.350 So I asked the driver, "What is this?" 00:15:19.350 --> 00:15:23.395 He said it was his profile. "Then what are you?" I asked. "An actor," he said. 00:15:23.395 --> 00:15:26.818 He was a cabby and an actor. I asked, "What roles do you usually play?" 00:15:26.818 --> 00:15:28.844 He proudly said he played King Lear. 00:15:28.844 --> 00:15:30.289 King Lear. 00:15:30.289 --> 00:15:31.915 "Who is it that can tell me who I am?" -- a great line from King Lear. 00:15:31.915 --> 00:15:35.306 That's the world I dream of. 00:15:35.306 --> 00:15:39.241 Someone is a golfer by day and writer by night. 00:15:39.241 --> 00:15:41.760 Or a cabby and an actor, a banker and a painter, 00:15:41.760 --> 00:15:47.336 secretly or publicly performing their own arts. NOTE Paragraph 00:15:47.336 --> 00:15:52.207 In 1990, Martha Graham, the legend of modern dance, came to Korea. 00:15:52.207 --> 00:15:57.963 The great artist, then in her 90s, arrived at Gimpo Airport 00:15:57.979 --> 00:16:01.044 and a reporter asked her a typical question: 00:16:01.044 --> 00:16:03.651 "What do you have to do to become a great dancer? 00:16:03.651 --> 00:16:06.231 Any advice for aspiring Korean dancers?" 00:16:06.231 --> 00:16:11.226 Now, she was the master. This photo was taken in 1948 and she was already a celebrated artist. 00:16:11.226 --> 00:16:13.417 In 1990, she was asked this question. 00:16:13.417 --> 00:16:16.101 And here's what she answered: 00:16:16.101 --> 00:16:20.018 "Just do it." 00:16:20.018 --> 00:16:21.536 Wow. I was touched. 00:16:21.536 --> 00:16:25.628 Only those three words and she left the airport. That's it. 00:16:25.628 --> 00:16:28.859 So what should we do now? 00:16:28.859 --> 00:16:32.585 Let's be artists, right now. Right away. How? 00:16:32.585 --> 00:16:33.577 Just do it! NOTE Paragraph 00:16:33.577 --> 00:16:35.191 Thank you. NOTE Paragraph 00:16:35.191 --> 00:16:36.995 (Applause)