I’m not bashing having a goal, but I think a lot of us have an ego-driven need for some semblance of success from our writing. This need it derives more from a sense of emptiness within ourselves. To describe it more aptly, we derive a sense of identity from our writing, our expression, our art that is not conducive to the art itself. This sense of social identity is rooted in acceptance and recognition from our peers and distracts us from the true gravitas of our work.
A lot of us crave recognition, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest. In fact, it’s utterly worthless.
Successful writers: feel free to correct me in a heavy-handed way. Feel free to be demeaning, even, if you wish to earn my scorn and rebuke. Prove to me how your life is better because you’re a household name and you can lord it over all the nobodies.
I’ve gone through numerous phases of craving recognition. Invariably, I always return to the purity of writing for writing”s sake, in pursuit of some deep ache and longing in my soul which no amount of recognition or wealth could ever fill.
I write because I love it so much: I love every aspect of it, and it isn’t about being recognized for my effort or abilities.
That pure joy becomes warped when I think about etching a living from writing. I know most people would defend making a living as “reasonable” but I genuinely think that is a mindset which compromises the purity of the artistic mindset.
When you are driven by the desire to “make a living” off your writing, it has the effect of causing you to care too much what others think of your writing.
There’s a sneaky way that you start dreaming about being a “bestseller.” But this desire comes from craving the perceived freedom of being able to express yourself without worrying. You are conflating freedom of expression with having renown.
I don’t believe that success makes you freer. You might be able to make a living, but the greatest freedom comes from being unknown, from not having any external expectations to hold yourself to.
Real freedom is in being yourself, unforgivingly, and loving the writing you create for your own sake, irregardless of what the world says or doesn’t say about it.
Who really gives a holler about being read or recognized in a lifetime? Who cares who wins Pulitzers or other useless awards? Who cares who gets movie deals?
Only intellectually disengaged people contemplate such worthless endpoints as ideals.
If you’re truly engaged, you don’t have time to keep track of such trite nonsensicalities. You’re too engaged with the process.
That isn’t to say you couldn’t achieve said outcomes, only that you’re not aspiring directly for them. Instead, you’re being organic and doing what comes naturally.
Isn’t it enough that you loved something and enjoyed every minute you spent in pursuit of it, even if it never amounted to a cent in your life? Isn’t that true love and passion?
The truest joy I’ve found in writing is in removing the world and myself from the equation. If the world is involved in your decision-making process, your ego naturally becomes associated with your writing, and you begin to ask:
* What’s the point of all this effort?
* What does it all amount to?
* What do I get out of this?
There’s an inherent joy in writing that is its own reward, but it seems to escape our reach the moment we allow the false self to enter into it.
Discipline is great: you cannot find true joy in writing or anything else save with a deep discipline. But discipline is oftentimes touted by people who haven’t found the true joy of writing, because they have a material or ego-driven goal in writing.
As an analogy, consider if you wanted the fame and wealth that came from being a known actor, but absolutely hated acting. Then you would necessarily hone the discipline to get over yourself and be a good actor.
More than likely, you would begin to appreciate the joy of acting at times. But not nearly as much as if you were in pursuit of acting for acting’s sake.
There’s the flip-side: incredible actors and natural talents who love the craft intrinsically but despise the commercial aspect of it. Such actors bleed discipline because it comes from a posture of true love and humility.
The point I hope to illustrate is that it makes more sense to align with the latter perspective of passion than the former ideal of discipline. However, what I have noticed more commonly is that people are aligned with the former mindset of discipline over passion, and this is because they are more intent on the material outcome than the spiritual passion.
There’s a weird contrivance I’ve noticed: people implicitly believe that passion is a well that runs dry, that passionate people don’t tend to be disciplined.
I believe no greater delusion could be invented. Passionate people become the most disciplined, and true discipline derives directly from passion. But passion needs to be coupled to dispassionate intellectual application, otherwise it’s a wildfire that burns everything in site.
I think any material or ego-driven goal in writing vampirically leeches the joy out of it, the way people suck the marrow out of bones. It’s the same for any and all artistic expression. If I wanted to be a successful artist, I wouldn’t call myself an artist. I’d call myself a commercial entrepreneur peddling derivative works instead of an artist devising anything truly original or creative.
Which, mind you, is how the majority of our artistic industries work today. Whether it’s publishing houses or Hollywood, people are risk-averse with their capital, hut it does takes enormous degree of capital for a publishing run, replete with all the advertisements and other elbow-grease needed to lubricate the wheels of the printing-and-selling machine.
In contrast, works that are truly original and fresh must necessarily come from a point of ludicrously nonsensical passion and endearment, from someone willing to buck trends and ideas, from someone who doesn’t care what other people consider success because they recognize the stagnation of the industry and human creativity.
Most people are followers, not pioneers, and pioneers are themselves so avant-garde as to be ahead of their time: they are rarely regarded by their contemporaries, except as crazies, because most people are sellouts.
By the way, this isn’t a lamentation insomuch as a casual observation of something I consider fact. I know plenty of people implicitly recognize this, I’m simply pointing it out obtusely, which I grant, may rub certain people the wrong way.
It isn’t to pomp myself up either; there is no implied “I’m an innovator or pioneer,” rather, I’m highlighting something that I believe is worth being aware about.
And with that, I believe I have done what I set out to do.
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