Last night I was invited to photograph a seminar that was given to a group of local musicians and artists. The featured speaker is a life / career coach, and has helped many people see huge gains in their lives. One of my good friends hired him for some coaching, and saw his income triple over the next few months. My curiosity was piqued and hopes where high.
During the presentation, the speaker relied a lot on gently nudging up against the mormon sensibilities by “almost swearing”, which would elicit laughs from people. He took a very long time to finally get to one of his main points:As an artist, we have to learn to be honest with ourselves – and in doing so, we can then be honest with others through our art.
This is all fine and well, except for:
By virtue of the ilk of the event organizers, this seminar series has a very mormon flavor to it. By virtue of THAT, there is an undertone of “be sure to tell the truth, as long as it doesn’t contradict with the LDS church’s views”.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to get up there and shout, “You idiot! These people must be free to reject any and every idea they were brought up with. They must be prepared for the truth to completely alter who they are, should they discover it! Anything less than a 100% commitment to that principle will ass fuck every creative endeavor and turn it into mediocre pig slop”.
There is nothing darker and more unintentionally deceptive than a religious person – a dogmatic person – urging other p
