In Things That Matter, We Do Have Control
Talent is what we do naturally well. It is what we seem to be born with. It is what, as young children, we play using. We have control of our play.
A forgotten part of talent is keeping with it.
A dreamer dreams. A writer writes. I have found talent is not as uncommon as one might think. Work ethic is. The physical tools are simple: pen, paper, keyboard, screen. Too often, the intention is that the would-be author will write every day and work at writing as a profession after his first book is published, and he can quit his day job. This is a bit of the cart before the horse. To have the book published, he will probably write dozens of short stories, a hundred poems, and several novels that are more useful for starting a chimney log fire than reading. Yet, too often, these talented would-be authors will wait until just the right idea comes. It rarely comes. And, if it does, the writer who doesn’t write the distance between poorly and competently before the revelation will not be equipped to handle it. We are on our own through this apprenticeship.
When a book does come, there are no lauds for the writing, but rather the book itself. There is public satisfaction with publishing a book, but we must find our satisfaction in the writing. This will come only from us. But honestly, is it the book that we are after? Or is it the grand immortality we will find knowing we are in the memories of those who have read our book or will continue, if we are lucky, to read it decades or even centuries beyond when we are gone? If that is the goal, there can only be heartbreak.
Immortality is for the few and usually appears in the less likely. We have no control over that, whether we publish, how our work will be received, or how posterity will view us.
But in some things, we do have control.
We do have control of the checked vanity of our dreams. We do have control if we show up and write. We do have control of being godlike and creating worlds and characters. We have control over being obsessive, which I think talent requires to blossom. Writing can be coerced from the outside, but it only truly flowers when its roots are deep within us, when it comes from inside.
We do have control to play. We do have control to write. We do have control to get better.
I love that control. It’s all that matters.
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