Shorty before his death last year, comedian George Carlin gave what was to become his last wide-ranging interview—with Jay Dixit, senior editor of Psychology Today.
Carlin discusses many things in this interview; from detailing his method for coming up with material to his use of technology and this on the advantages of being an older comedian:
A 20-year-old has a limited amount of data they’ve experienced, either seeing or listening to the world. At 70 it’s a much richer storage area; the matrix inside is more textured, and has more contours to it. So, observations made by a 20-year-old are compared against a data set that is incomplete. Observations made by a 60-year-old are compared against a much richer data set. And the observations have more resonance, they’re richer.
[…] Now at this age, I have a network of knowledge and data and observations and feelings and values and evaluations in me that do things automatically. And then when I sit down to consciously write, that’s when I bring the craftsmanship. That’s when I pull everything together and say, how can I best express that? And then as you write, you find more, ’cause the mind is looking for further connections. And these things just flow into your head and you write them. And the writing is the really wonderful part. A lot of this is discovery. A lot of things are lying around waiting to be discovered and that’s our job; to just notice them and bring them to life.
Thanks, Andy