Oh my god. Yeah. That, that felt pretty good. Whoo.
***********
Alright, a question to you out there. Dream job. Go. Now. Shout it out.
No, literally, shout it out. I want to be able to hear you from my hovel in north London. Freak out the tired, zombie-like people around you. Talent and money no issue, top of your voice, dream job, scream it.
If you actually just pelted out your dream job, you may need to spend some time reflecting on from whom you take your commands, and why. Ever heard of Zimbardo's prison experiment? The film The Wave? The concept of free will? Look them up. Seriously.
My dream job? "Writer". Journalist, author of fiction, ruminator of all things intellectual and philosophical, documenter of deeds done. Any one of them would do. I would love to have the raw talent to write well. But, beyond that, I would love to also have the arguably sexier and gut-wrenching discipline that it takes to practice and work at your writing; that constant desire to better that which you have done before.
That's right. If there's a single fantasy that needs to be revealed to be nought more than an insecure old man with a bag full of parlour tricks cowering behind a curtain, it's that of the genius creative talent who doesn't need to work at their craft. (As a related but also completely tangential aside, Dorothy's ruby red slippers - not red in the original The Wizard of Oz text. I know, right?)
Last year, I suggested, "All of us are writers".
I take it back. I was wrong. We are not all writers.
I know people who are writers. They may not have had anything published, but they think like writers, they write like writers. They have the thought processes that mean they see the world through a writer's eyes, they can construct whole worlds through their words, make you feel something. And they work at it. They work at it because they want to be better, because they habitually worry that they're not good enough. They work at it by writing, and rewriting, and dissecting other people's writing to learn from them.
No, we most certainly are not all writers.
But, we do all write.
I am incapable of constructing a compelling story, or a multi-layered piece of genius. I will never be a journalist that changes the world or causes revolutions through my words. My personal / blogging writing voice is completely self-indulgent; it's wordy, unstructured, my meaning is often obscured by hyperbole. I don't have a clear picture of who it is that I'm writing for other than myself. I almost certainly break all the rules of good writing, I'm not particularly talented, and I sure as hell don't have the discipline or drive to truly work at improving any of these things.
But, fuck me, I love to write.
At the end of the day (hello idiom; George Orwell would be turning in his grave) that's what matters, right? And if I enjoy the process of writing, the worst thing I can do is disappear so far up my own ego that I become too scared to do that very thing that I revel in for fear of not being good enough. The same rings true for those that get a kick out of playing an instrument but aren't musicians, or like to draw but aren't artists. As one of my brothers once said after I mentioned I get no pleasure out of playing the piano for other people, "Then play for yourself." He's a wise one, that boy.
So, perhaps rather than l'art de vivre (the art of living), we should be talking about joie de vivre (the joy of living). For, in the dawning hours of this morning, the confession came to me: "I am not a writer". And this, my friends, may not be the art of writing. But it sure as hell is the joy of writing.
That's right. If there's a single fantasy that needs to be revealed to be nought more than an insecure old man with a bag full of parlour tricks cowering behind a curtain, it's that of the genius creative talent who doesn't need to work at their craft. (As a related but also completely tangential aside, Dorothy's ruby red slippers - not red in the original The Wizard of Oz text. I know, right?)
Last year, I suggested, "All of us are writers".
I take it back. I was wrong. We are not all writers.
I know people who are writers. They may not have had anything published, but they think like writers, they write like writers. They have the thought processes that mean they see the world through a writer's eyes, they can construct whole worlds through their words, make you feel something. And they work at it. They work at it because they want to be better, because they habitually worry that they're not good enough. They work at it by writing, and rewriting, and dissecting other people's writing to learn from them.
No, we most certainly are not all writers.
But, we do all write.
I am incapable of constructing a compelling story, or a multi-layered piece of genius. I will never be a journalist that changes the world or causes revolutions through my words. My personal / blogging writing voice is completely self-indulgent; it's wordy, unstructured, my meaning is often obscured by hyperbole. I don't have a clear picture of who it is that I'm writing for other than myself. I almost certainly break all the rules of good writing, I'm not particularly talented, and I sure as hell don't have the discipline or drive to truly work at improving any of these things.
But, fuck me, I love to write.
At the end of the day (hello idiom; George Orwell would be turning in his grave) that's what matters, right? And if I enjoy the process of writing, the worst thing I can do is disappear so far up my own ego that I become too scared to do that very thing that I revel in for fear of not being good enough. The same rings true for those that get a kick out of playing an instrument but aren't musicians, or like to draw but aren't artists. As one of my brothers once said after I mentioned I get no pleasure out of playing the piano for other people, "Then play for yourself." He's a wise one, that boy.
So, perhaps rather than l'art de vivre (the art of living), we should be talking about joie de vivre (the joy of living). For, in the dawning hours of this morning, the confession came to me: "I am not a writer". And this, my friends, may not be the art of writing. But it sure as hell is the joy of writing.
