Why the Name
Where does the name Yaysayer come from?
The name of the company is inspired by quotes from two of my heroes.
First, here is John Lennon talking about Ceiling Painting/Yes Painting at a Yoko Ono exhibition in 1966:
“There was a ladder that led to a painting, which was hung on the ceiling. It looked like a black canvas with a chain with a spyglass hanging on the end of it. I climbed the ladder, looked through the spyglass, and in tiny little letters it said, YES. So it was positive. I felt relieved. It’s a great relief when you get up the ladder and you look through the spyglass and it doesn’t say NO or FUCK YOU or something.”
Second, this is from Nietzsche’s The Gay Science:
I first read it in when I was 19.
Perhaps the best thing about the name of the company is that whenever I type it, autocorrect switches it to ‘naysayer’ and I have to go back and over-rule it – which perfectly illustrates everything my professional life is currently about.
Yaysayer is about saying yes to things – mostly to yourself. That means going forward and doing whatever you do. If all the doors closed, do it on the pavement, do it at home, do it where nobody can say you can’t, and don’t go looking for people to grant you permission to do what you do. People are calling this ‘greenlighting yourself’.
It’s not easy or simple. You have to re-think everything. That creativity you have – the power to imagine things anew – has to be directed to the business side, the logistical side… finding ways of making the ‘making things’ happen.
“I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. Ultimately and eventually: I wish to be only a Yaysayer.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
Left: Gustav Adolf, 1882
Right: Edvard Munch, 1906John Lennon:
George Konig 1971