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I just finished reading Carl Jung’s Memories, Dreams, Reflections.

In the spring of 1957, when he was eighty-one years old, C. G. Jung undertook the telling of his life story. At regular intervals he had conversations with his colleague and friend, Aniela Jaffe, and collaborated with her in the preparation of the text based on these talks. On occasion, he was moved to write entire chapters of the book in his own hand, and he continued to work on the final stages of the manuscript until shortly before his death on June 6, 1961.

A good bit of this book blew my mind, but especially this part:

I feel very strongly that I am under the influence of things or questions which were left incomplete and unanswered by my parents and grandparents and more distant ancestors.

[...]

Our souls as well as our bodies are composed of individual elements which were all already present in the ranks of our ancestors. The “newness” in the individual psyche is an endlessly varied recombination of age-old components.

[...]

I answer for them the questions that their lives once left behind. I care out rough answers as best I can. I have even drawn them on the walls.

[...]

The meaning of my existence is that life has addressed a question to me.

We are a collage—a remix—of our ancestors. We have spiritual DNA, as well as physical, and our lot in life is to answer the questions posed by the people who came before us…

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Mike Judge, creator of Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, Office Space, and Idiocracy, visited the University of Texas tonight for an RTF “Master Class” with John Pierson. I told John I was a huge fan, and he was nice enough to invite me. Of course, I brought my sketchbook.

Note: if you want to cartoon someone, don’t sit front row. Distance = better abstraction.

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Mike lives right here in Austin, Texas, and came off as a really smart, down-to-earth and unpretentious guy. He was even nice enough to make a Sharpie doodle of Butthead in my sketchbook!

Last night there was a party in town to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Office Space (I missed it, but heard it was great.)

You can read some good quotes and watch some of my favorite clips by him over on my tumblelog.

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PBS is running a great six-episode series on the past 100 years of American comedy called MAKE ‘EM LAUGH. I did these two mind maps on the fly during the second two episodes on wiseguys and satire/parody.

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Looking back over the four maps, it strikes me how many times I wrote down the word “truth.” Comedy tells the truth.

You can see my maps of the previous two episodes here.

If you want to link to all four drawings, use this link:

http://www.austinkleon.com/tag/make-em-laugh/

And see all my previous mind maps.

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PBS is running a great six-episode series on the past 100 years of American comedy called MAKE ‘EM LAUGH. I did these two mind maps on the fly during the first two episodes on slapstick and groundbreakers.

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