bikes and things

I’m bored. I’m bored of Twitter. I’m bored of negativity. I’m bored of people sniping from the sidelines. I’m bored of people sitting there and commenting without holding up their own work for comment. I’m bored of jeering “It’s shit”.

Whilst I don’t believe everything should be all roses and sweetness and ooh I like your work, I’m growing increasingly tired of those who don’t do. I’ve gone to great lengths to rid negativity in my life to date and avoid it at all costs. I’d rather be constructive in some way or think about achieving something in a pragmatic and honest way. This armchair sniping is bollocks.

Earlier today I was sent this quote from a speech by Theodore Roosevelt at the Sorbonne in Paris, France on April 23, 1910. I think it sums it all up quite nicely.

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.