When Gaga says "free her, free yourself..."

[giskardsb 12,565]

This response to a post on LM from Gaga is getting the usual kind of discussion in another thread:

 

I wanted to break out another discussion on this because I think it brings up a point that is getting completely ignored in her response.  

 

Gaga is more versed in eastern philosophies and meditation than people here, and her response here reflects that.  

 

By freeing her to be herself and do the work she wants to do, you free yourself.  It's the age old problem of the internal "editor", that conscious inner voice that we tend to identify (wrongly) as our complete selves, that you need to free yourselves from.  Everybody has an inner conception based on their own desires and their own inner voice that says what they expect Gaga to be, and when she doesn't match that they are disappointed.  In the same way, that same inner voice is holding themselves back because that internal critic, that internal "editor" is constantly chattering away telling you what to do, or what not to do, or what is "sensible", or what is "right",

 

The process of meditation is the process of learning to quiet that "chattering monkey" and just be with the universe for a bit, to be a whole person rather than just 90% paying attention to those thoughts in your head.

 

Many Artists, for sure Gaga among them, strive to shut up the chattering critic.  Shut down the internal editor, the conscious mind telling you what to do.  Because by ignoring it, then you free yourself to make art that is not bound to expectations ( yours or others), or pre-existing ideas, a sense of good or bad, or right and wrong.  This is why the surrealists explored autonomic drawing, painting, and writing, or painted their dreams, because they didn't want to be fettered to standards that came from their conscious mind and all it's myriad influences, whether society, or critics, or ones own expectations.

 

So yes, Gaga is saying free her from criticism, and you free yourself as well.   Critics are very good at telling people what they should be doing, how to make art that conforms to certain standards, how to meet commercial expectations, how to create art or fashion or music that will be more widely accepted.

 

What a critic cannot tell you is how to make a new kind of art, how to move past your internal boundaries, how to push art in new directions, how to do something completely different.  Because critics don't know these things.  They may know art history, they may know art movements, they know what society and themselves consider to be great art, they can tell other people how they think their art compares to their own internal measurements.  But they can't tell you how to create your own art that is outside their sphere of knowledge.  Nobody can tell you that.  Your conscious mind won't even tell you that.  You have to learn to experience art created in spite of what your conscious editor tells you to do, in order to make change in the art space, and push yourself.

 

Picasso could have drawn realistic portraits. He decided to explore twisting up space, in spite of what was accepted.  Jackson Pollock was an accomplished realist painter, but chose to explore texture and color in new ways.   Mark Rothko chose to see what would happen with giant fields of color.   Andy Warhol chose to make pop culture into high art.  Similar parallels could be drawn in all the artistic fields, including music.

 

So, by training yourself to allow Gaga to be the artist she wants to be, you train yourself to eventually be the artist that you want to be.  Preferably one that is not driven by the conventions and expectations of critics and the commercial public, but one that allows their entire artistic space to be open for exploration, even when that chattering monkey in your head tells you "nobody will like it" or "it won't sell" or "it's not practical" or "its ugly" or "what are people going to think about me after seeing this?"

 

Free Gaga, Free Yourself.

[Didymus 32,703]

"eastern philosophies and meditation"

 

You're smarter than her. I read that in your post. It's amazing. It's just sad that she still has to sell and play the whole commercial pop music game. It's so hard for her to combine the process you describe and the game she was so ready to play a few years ago.

 

I just wish she would stop making the connection between her and her fans. "We are the same." I don't understand that and how that is supposed to stimulate an individual, free experience of art and life. I mean, we all know the first thing Gaga fans reply to a post like that is: "OMG GAGA I LOVE YOU YOU WILL ALWAYS BE MY LOVE" I mean, her fans aren't smart enough, sorry, I just said it

[discotommy 0]

Beautiful thread. Well said. :cry:

[MonsterMum 2,532]

That's a good observation you made. I feel the same bout this critic stuff.

It's like people always comparing her to what has been, what she should go to remain "successful" basically being stuck in the same pattern and not able to break out of the path media/critics/fans have set.

As soon as she crosses a line people try to pull her back to what they know and find comfortable and want her to see as. 

 

She wants to be free, she wants us to be free, it's not so easy but I can see the essense of what she's trying to say.

[TMP 87]

This sir, is so true in so many ways and I really want to thank you for stating this!
 

This thursday I was in our rehearsal room with our drummer and he started playing the guitar and I just started singing along some lyrics I wrote thze day before.
I actually play the synthies in the band.
BUT somehow I managed to turn down that chattering monkey and was unafraid of letting go.
So the result was more than satisfying and now I know that I can sing.

[garnite 6]

wow, i hate everything about that post she made. everything. just awful... not feeling this at all.

[Firestarter 0]

so that's where this whole Born This Way thing got us to

[Redstreak 6,651]

wow, i hate everything about that post she made. everything. just awful... not feeling this at all.

Why is that?

[giskardsb 12,565]

 

You're smarter than her. I read that in your post. It's amazing. It's just sad that she still has to sell and play the whole commercial pop music game. It's so hard for her to combine the process you describe and the game she was so ready to play a few years ago.

 

 

I don't think I'm smarter than her, Gaga is a yoga aficionado, a lot of those concepts would have been introduced to her through that. Plus from Marina I'm sure.  The concepts aren't strictly "eastern" either, although eastern philosophy uses it as a  base whereas western systems tend to actively promote the idea that the "intellect" is the all important facet of humans.

 

I think she played the game she did in order to get to the point where she could stop playing the game.  If that makes any sense.  And I think that was her plan all along.

[Stefani328 321]

Interesting

[Molly Aphrodite 241]

I'm glad we have a member here who can put so eloquently all the ideas you put in your post.

I definitely agree and thank you so much for this :yes:

[CookieHWilson 409]

This response to a post on LM from Gaga is getting the usual kind of discussion in another thread:

 

I wanted to break out another discussion on this because I think it brings up a point that is getting completely ignored in her response.  

 

Gaga is more versed in eastern philosophies and meditation than people here, and her response here reflects that.  

 

By freeing her to be herself and do the work she wants to do, you free yourself.  It's the age old problem of the internal "editor", that conscious inner voice that we tend to identify (wrongly) as our complete selves, that you need to free yourselves from.  Everybody has an inner conception based on their own desires and their own inner voice that says what they expect Gaga to be, and when she doesn't match that they are disappointed.  In the same way, that same inner voice is holding themselves back because that internal critic, that internal "editor" is constantly chattering away telling you what to do, or what not to do, or what is "sensible", or what is "right",

 

The process of meditation is the process of learning to quiet that "chattering monkey" and just be with the universe for a bit, to be a whole person rather than just 90% paying attention to those thoughts in your head.

 

Many Artists, for sure Gaga among them, strive to shut up the chattering critic.  Shut down the internal editor, the conscious mind telling you what to do.  Because by ignoring it, then you free yourself to make art that is not bound to expectations ( yours or others), or pre-existing ideas, a sense of good or bad, or right and wrong.  This is why the surrealists explored autonomic drawing, painting, and writing, or painted their dreams, because they didn't want to be fettered to standards that came from their conscious mind and all it's myriad influences, whether society, or critics, or ones own expectations.

 

So yes, Gaga is saying free her from criticism, and you free yourself as well.   Critics are very good at telling people what they should be doing, how to make art that conforms to certain standards, how to meet commercial expectations, how to create art or fashion or music that will be more widely accepted.

 

What a critic cannot tell you is how to make a new kind of art, how to move past your internal boundaries, how to push art in new directions, how to do something completely different.  Because critics don't know these things.  They may know art history, they may know art movements, they know what society and themselves consider to be great art, they can tell other people how they think their art compares to their own internal measurements.  But they can't tell you how to create your own art that is outside their sphere of knowledge.  Nobody can tell you that.  Your conscious mind won't even tell you that.  You have to learn to experience art created in spite of what your conscious editor tells you to do, in order to make change in the art space, and push yourself.

 

Picasso could have drawn realistic portraits. He decided to explore twisting up space, in spite of what was accepted.  Jackson Pollock was an accomplished realist painter, but chose to explore texture and color in new ways.   Mark Rothko chose to see what would happen with giant fields of color.   Andy Warhol chose to make pop culture into high art.  Similar parallels could be drawn in all the artistic fields, including music.

 

So, by training yourself to allow Gaga to be the artist she wants to be, you train yourself to eventually be the artist that you want to be.  Preferably one that is not driven by the conventions and expectations of critics and the commercial public, but one that allows their entire artistic space to be open for exploration, even when that chattering monkey in your head tells you "nobody will like it" or "it won't sell" or "it's not practical" or "its ugly" or "what are people going to think about me after seeing this?"

 

Free Gaga, Free Yourself.

[garnite 6]

Why is that?

extremely strong pseudo-saviour cult leader-esque undertones in pretty much every sentence. she even called him a disciple, and at the crux of it she's saying "help yourself by helping me". it's vindictive. of course you can do all kinds of tap dancing to salvage deep meaning from the new age mumbo jumbo, but it's really all self-serving. "inprison me u inprison urself". not only did she use the wrong prefix, it sounds like a threat. a self-serving one! it is no coincidence that this is coming from her most critically maligned album era. "please don't ever criticise me again because it means all kinds of negative things about you". actually no, gaga, it doesn't.

[Redstreak 6,651]

extremely strong pseudo-saviour cult leader-esque undertones in pretty much every sentence. she even called him a disciple, 

I've been having this feeling a lot from her these past couple of days.

[MonsterMum 2,532]

 

I think she played the game she did in order to get to the point where she could stop playing the game.  If that makes any sense.  And I think that was her plan all along.

 

Yes possibly, when you look at her older interviews she mentions a lot of stuff about art and her vision but it seems that nobody really paid attention to it back then. It was more like "yeah ok, and when is your next single coming out?"