The Idea

The idea.

Somehow we got it stuck in our minds that that's what it's all about, what a story is, or whatever. Where do you get your ideas, we may ask of an artist. Or say to our writer friends, hey, I have an idea for a book, will you write it? I'll split the profits with you...

We hate bad films, you see, because we see too much of ourselves in them. It's too tender, the reminder that these professionals still have the capability, to one extent or another or for one reason or another, to produce terrible work. Of course, working as a team, you can always blame someone else.

Who is there to blame if you, alone, produce a magnum opus of unparalleled majesty and breathtakingly unique scope and vision... that, everyone else can plainly see, is still actually quite terrible?

Actually there is always someone else who can be blamed, but you're still the one in charge of the final buck. So the answer is, no one.

And yet we still see people totally terribly un-self-aware. Doubly puzzling, seeing how self-absorbed we know they must be.

It is the idea they worship, the idea they chase. Confound craftsmanship, tarnate hard work, damnate mastery of the practice- it is the idea above all that others will see, the idea above all that will cause everyone to worship me.

...

I forget the rest.

Translated from the original Spanish.

(No, not really.)