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The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

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Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#191

Post by pmarreck »

skookumchuck wrote: post #153
karmelapple wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Great fighters have to kind of like getting hit." I'd generalize it to: "Great craftspeople have to kind of like the part of their craft that is unpleasant to 99% of the population." Someone who excels at playing violin, writing computer software, public speaking, etc., generally does not find the "unpleasant" part to be "tiring", "boring", or "work". Instead, it's just part of the overall experience, which is a n…

I'm reminded of fighter pilots: "I can't believe I'm being paid to fly!"

Can't think of something that must be more thrilling than piloting a fighter aircraft.

Sadly I was too tall/big (I did a stint in the USAF, once...) Most fighter aircraft are designed for small to medium size fit men up to a maximum of 6'... I was 6'3" and slightly overweight

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#192

Post by yawaramin »

vinceguidry wrote: post #170
Vicktree wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

liking something is important but you have to ask why they liked it in the first place. The reason for their desire matters. Professional football player might "like" football even though it takes a heavy physical toll (brain damage, joint damage, etc.) but notice the people becoming professional football players are usually from disadvantaged neighborhoods who see the sport as one of the few ladders they can use to…

> The reason Jackie Chan took all of those risks and "liked it" is because of his economic status. I think you have this exactly backward. He took the risks not knowing they would make him an international star. I submit that he only could have done that if he enjoyed not just the fruits, but the process. Several times he describes volunteering for things others wouldn't do. You wouldn't do that if you weren't at lea…

I see I misread your comment earlier. But you say:

> Several times he describes volunteering for things others wouldn't do.

But he also describes several times in the book about worrying what others think of him. He worries about how he will be perceived by his director, how he'll be judged by the public.

> You wouldn't do that if you weren't at least indifferent, if not eager, to confront the danger.

He literally describes in the book how he doesn't want to die.

Probably neither of us has the full measure of Jackie Chan, but I for one find it hard to believe in the picture of the happy-go-lucky daredevil action star.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#193

Post by isoskeles »

NeoBasilisk wrote: post #155
vinceguidry wrote: post #17

The author doesn't want to treat Chan's insistence on his account being an inspirational one and just wants to see it as sad. I'm reminded of a Quora answer by a guy who loved fighting, one phrase he used stuck out at me. "Great fighters have to kind of like getting hit." You can't push your body to its very limits without getting injured. Planning and preparing for it is not sad, it's smart. Chan's account should be…

>If he could do it in the situation he grew up in, anyone can. This is a terrible mindset to have.

It's not as if the converse here is, "If a person doesn't succeed, then they did not deserve it." Is that the reason you have a problem with this mindset? I think of most alternatives as being fatalist / victim mentality, where you think you're an object that the universe does things to.

What mindset do you propose people have when they want to achieve something exceptionally difficult?

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#194

Post by shagie »

_hardwaregeek wrote: post #182
karmelapple wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Great fighters have to kind of like getting hit." I'd generalize it to: "Great craftspeople have to kind of like the part of their craft that is unpleasant to 99% of the population." Someone who excels at playing violin, writing computer software, public speaking, etc., generally does not find the "unpleasant" part to be "tiring", "boring", or "work". Instead, it's just part of the overall experience, which is a n…

Yeah, I'm a little skeptical of CS schools that try to shelter their students from suffering. While schools should obviously not attempt to break students, there should be a reasonable crescendo of difficulty within the program. Because, well, software development can be hard . Students that don't like the hard parts don't like software development. This doesn't mean insanely hard "weed-out" classes, but simply proje…

At some point I was introduced to "Find The Hard Work You're Willing To Do" - http://www.cs.uni.edu/%7Ewallingf/blog/archives/monthly/2018...

I think this is an important bit that a lot of people getting into programming don't realize. Many enjoy the "playing with computers" aspect. Some even enjoy writing new code. But the real test is do you enjoy fixing broken code?

The article ends with:

> Maybe this is what people mean when they tell us to "find our passion", but that phrase seems pretty abstract to me. Maybe instead we should encourage people to find the hard problems they like to work on. Which problems do you want to keep working on, even when they turn out to be harder than you expected? Which kinds of frustration do you enjoy, or at least are willing to endure while you figure things out? Answers to these very practical questions might help you find a place where you can build an interesting and rewarding life.

> I realize that "Find your passion" makes for a more compelling motivational poster than "What hard problems do you enjoy working on?" (and even that's a lot better than "What kind of pain are you willing to endure?"), but it might give some people a more realistic way to approach finding their life's work.

--

Another article that I love is Programming Sucks ( https://www.stilldrinking.org/programming-sucks )

This one starts with:

> Every friend I have with a job that involves picking up something heavier than a laptop more than twice a week eventually finds a way to slip something like this into conversation: “Bro, you don’t work hard. I just worked a 4700-hour week digging a tunnel under Mordor with a screwdriver.”

> They have a point. Mordor sucks, and it’s certainly more physically taxing to dig a tunnel than poke at a keyboard unless you’re an ant. But, for the sake of the argument, can we agree that stress and insanity are bad things? Awesome. Welcome to programming.

--

This "What kinds of frustration do you enjoy" I believe is a stumbling block for many people looking to enter the work force. I've encountered people in the past who love writing code but hate debugging.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#195

Post by Fricken »

When I was kid, before reality, I wanted to be a stuntman. I'd round up my friends to shoot little actions movies with my Grandpa's Sony hi-8. They were structured on flimsy narratives that only served to facilitate fist fights, chase sequences and opportunities for a big fall. To convince my friends to get up at 8:00 on a Saturday to shoot all day around the neighbourhood I always gave away the part of the hero so I was always the bad guy, sometimes several bad guys in different costumes, but I also let me do most the directing. I figured out how to assembly edit all in camera, and then add music and sound effects when transferring to VHS. Anyway, when I discovered Jackie Chan he rocked my world.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#196

Post by orangeeater »

jdietrich wrote: post #63
pbhjpbhj wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't he do a lot of frivolous and light-hearted movies though -- I'm a huge fan. Take a movie like "Who am I", it's like Johnny English meets Drunken Master. "Kung Fu" films to me always have a notion of slapstick, even the beautiful ones like House of Flying Daggers; Chan's background in Opera I imagine helps to fulfill that element of slightly ludicrous spectacle (at least if Chinese opera has any similarity to…

You can be goofy and fun and make high art. Slapstick spectacle can also be profound. There's a certain po-faced affectation that is necessary to be called an artist. Being good isn't good enough; you also need to convincingly ape the norms of a self-appointed cultural elite. The disparity in esteem between pop and rock springs to mind. We have an ingrained sense that if a record appeals to 13-year-old girls, then it…

> There's a certain po-faced affectation that is necessary to be called an artist. Being good isn't good enough; you also need to convincingly ape the norms of a self-appointed cultural elite.

The cultural elite isn't self-appointed. They clawed their way up there the same way as everyone else who has reached some position in some hierarchy. And that includes various hierarchies of artists.

> The disparity in esteem between pop and rock springs to mind. We have an ingrained sense that if a record appeals to 13-year-old girls, then it must on some level be inherently inferior to a record that appeals to middle-aged men, regardless of the actual sophistication of the music in question.

I think the more standard criticism is that some music is made by a committee as a product whereas other music is the result of a group/individual trying to make good music and that, in general, the latter category is better. I don't necessarily accept this argument, but it's different than the one you're proposing.

More generally, I find your attitude perplexing. If you want to think about this subject seriously, then surely there is no objective way to view art. If that's the case, then saying "you can be goofy and make art" is pointless because it's obvious. It's all just people's opinions. "Being goofy" can be art just like anything else.

Where I strongly disagree is where you sneer at "high art" and the "cultural elite". In my opinion, "high art" is art that is appreciated by rich/educated people who have been exposed to different things than less rich/less educated people. "High art" isn't better or worse than "low art". The definition of art is "something from which people derive emotion".

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#197

Post by monk_e_boy »

pmarreck wrote: post #191
skookumchuck wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reminded of fighter pilots: "I can't believe I'm being paid to fly!"

Can't think of something that must be more thrilling than piloting a fighter aircraft. Sadly I was too tall/big (I did a stint in the USAF, once...) Most fighter aircraft are designed for small to medium size fit men up to a maximum of 6'... I was 6'3" and slightly overweight

It does look fun. But there are other sports that push the excitement envelope.

I kitesurf. You can pick up the F1 of kites for around a grand. It's like being tied to an F1 car. Or go surfing, tech and shapes haven't changed for a few decades. So boards are cheap. Paddle out when it's big. That's a lot of water sloshing around. Being trapped out back on a big day is truly terrifying. And the only way in is to surf one of those waves. Makes my bum-hole tingle just thinking about it.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#198

Post by sirmarksalot »

grecy wrote: post #187
Cpoll wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If I can win the lottery, anyone can" indeed. Does that technically fall under survivorship bias? (Which isn't to say that Chan _just_ got lucky, just that it's a combination of luck, skill, upbringing, disposition, opportunity...)

You forgot the three most important things, which are 10,000 times more important than the ones you listed. Hard work, hard work and hard work.

Necessary but not sufficient.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#199

Post by the_duke »

karmelapple wrote: post #67
vinceguidry wrote: post #17

The author doesn't want to treat Chan's insistence on his account being an inspirational one and just wants to see it as sad. I'm reminded of a Quora answer by a guy who loved fighting, one phrase he used stuck out at me. "Great fighters have to kind of like getting hit." You can't push your body to its very limits without getting injured. Planning and preparing for it is not sad, it's smart. Chan's account should be…

> "Great fighters have to kind of like getting hit." I'd generalize it to: "Great craftspeople have to kind of like the part of their craft that is unpleasant to 99% of the population." Someone who excels at playing violin, writing computer software, public speaking, etc., generally does not find the "unpleasant" part to be "tiring", "boring", or "work". Instead, it's just part of the overall experience, which is a n…

One hour is nothing, many professional musicians practice many hours a day, each day.

Re: The Painful Price of Becoming Jackie Chan

#200

Post by sirmarksalot »

legostormtroopr wrote: post #154
jdietrich wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of respect Chan gets in the west is a travesty IMO. His fight choreography is rooted in the traditions Chinese opera while being constantly fresh, playful and imaginative. He shows absolute technical mastery, but there is always a sense of child-like joy underpinning that mastery. The fact that his films are often regarded as frivolous and lightweight says something profound about what is valued in our cultu…

> lack of respect Chan gets in the west What? He's one of the biggest breakout stars from Hong Kong cinema in Western History. Is a household name, and starred in scores of movies during his career, including a 3 picture comedy/action movie series (Rush Hour), then went on to reboot a beloved 80's action story alongside the son of one of Hollywoods biggest names. He also had his own cartoon for a while. How the hell…

I don't think most people truly appreciate how good his direction is, even if they enjoy watching him on screen. This oversight extends to Hollywood producers, who insist that his classic movies require "adaptation" before release in America. If Jackie Chan were truly respected, "Legend of the Drunken Master" would never have happened.
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