Sep. 21st, 2010 11:04 am
Making it happen
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textualdevianceScalzi posted something recently about new writers trying to find the time to write with busy schedules, parenting, etc. The gist of his advice was this: If you really want to be a writer, you find time to write. The obvious extension of this idea is that if you really want something, you find a way to make it happen. (Obviously, taking into account actually insurmountable limitations.)
This idea has been gnawing at me the last several days--the idea that if I don't have some of the things I want, yet (a proper career, a kid, etc.) then I must not really want them that badly because I haven't found a way to make them happen.
Only... I don't think that's actually true. It may be true that I haven't put massive effort into certain things, but it's not that I don't want them. It's that I'm afraid of putting in all that effort and coming up short anyway. Because that's happened to me so many times I no longer have any confidence that hard work/sacrifice is always or even most of the time going to pay off.
Losing weight, for instance: I have been on every diet known to man, and have gone through months of miserable constant hunger and exhaustion, only to see whatever few pounds I lose this way come right back--and bring friends. Until I know for sure that my screwed-up endocrine system (among other things) isn't going to be sabotaging that effort, I'm not going to bother making it. Otherwise, it's banging my head against a wall just to enjoy the sound it makes.
Likewise, wrt the breeding thing: I already put a considerable amount of effort into trying to get pregnant, and it simply didn't happen because the eggs I was producing weren't properly fertile. There's a tiny smidgen of chance that IVF might work--finding the one egg in five or so that actually takes--but they won't do that for me unless I drop 100 lbs. And, well, see above. Even if I did manage to take off the weight, the chances of finding that one fertile egg are so small--and getting smaller the older I get--that there's really no point to making that effort just for that one, tiny chance.
I'm absolutely willing to put in quite a bit of effort if I have some sense that doing so will give me at least some semblance of the results I want. The uprooting thing, for instance. I worked my ass off to make that happen because I knew that there was a good chance it would. And, well, a year later, here we are, happy as little clams in our new pad. Same thing with my last degree. Spending $30k and living in B'ham for almost two years wasn't exactly easy, but I knew I could do it, and at the end of it, I have a pretty little certificate hanging on my wall and a far greater earning potential than I would've had otherwise.
Yet if I'm not certain, or don't think I have at least a fighting chance to reach my goal? Then no. No matter how much I may want something, if I don't have at least some confidence that the odds are in my favor, I just can't see blowing that much time and energy on it.
It may break my heart--and does, to an extremely painful degree--that I wasn't able to put together an opera career, but once I realized that no matter how good I was, it wasn't good enough because I didn't have the right pedigree, I gave up. Likewise, I dropped my music degree at the very end of it because there was no physical way possible for me to pass the keyboard competency part of it. I wanted those things. Really, really, really wanted them, but it eventually became clear that wanting and working at them wasn't going to be enough, so I had to let them go and move on to a career in which I had a fighting chance.
I sincerely believe that hard work is necessary to reach most goals. Some folks are born with privilege such that they don't have to work as hard as others, and that sucks. Level playing fields would be nice. But aside from that, yeah, all of us need to put in some effort. However, I really dislike the implication that if we don't have something we want, it's just because we don't want it enough to work at it.
The truth of life is that, even beyond hard limitations outside our control, often the effort required to reach a goal is far, far out of proportion with the chances of getting there, and with the benefits of that goal. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether what you want is really worth the massive outlays of time, money and energy necessary to get it.* And just because someone isn't willing to torture themselves like that for something doesn't mean they're lazy or don't "really" want it. It just means that they've made sensible choices of what to do with their resources and have decided that those resources are better spent on something else.
Pursuing a dream is all well and good and sounds romantic, but reality and responsible adulthood aren't often compatible with that pursuit. A person who acknowledges that reality and responsibility isn't a lesser being for having done so.
And yes, I'm musing over that question a lot these days wrt the adoption.
This idea has been gnawing at me the last several days--the idea that if I don't have some of the things I want, yet (a proper career, a kid, etc.) then I must not really want them that badly because I haven't found a way to make them happen.
Only... I don't think that's actually true. It may be true that I haven't put massive effort into certain things, but it's not that I don't want them. It's that I'm afraid of putting in all that effort and coming up short anyway. Because that's happened to me so many times I no longer have any confidence that hard work/sacrifice is always or even most of the time going to pay off.
Losing weight, for instance: I have been on every diet known to man, and have gone through months of miserable constant hunger and exhaustion, only to see whatever few pounds I lose this way come right back--and bring friends. Until I know for sure that my screwed-up endocrine system (among other things) isn't going to be sabotaging that effort, I'm not going to bother making it. Otherwise, it's banging my head against a wall just to enjoy the sound it makes.
Likewise, wrt the breeding thing: I already put a considerable amount of effort into trying to get pregnant, and it simply didn't happen because the eggs I was producing weren't properly fertile. There's a tiny smidgen of chance that IVF might work--finding the one egg in five or so that actually takes--but they won't do that for me unless I drop 100 lbs. And, well, see above. Even if I did manage to take off the weight, the chances of finding that one fertile egg are so small--and getting smaller the older I get--that there's really no point to making that effort just for that one, tiny chance.
I'm absolutely willing to put in quite a bit of effort if I have some sense that doing so will give me at least some semblance of the results I want. The uprooting thing, for instance. I worked my ass off to make that happen because I knew that there was a good chance it would. And, well, a year later, here we are, happy as little clams in our new pad. Same thing with my last degree. Spending $30k and living in B'ham for almost two years wasn't exactly easy, but I knew I could do it, and at the end of it, I have a pretty little certificate hanging on my wall and a far greater earning potential than I would've had otherwise.
Yet if I'm not certain, or don't think I have at least a fighting chance to reach my goal? Then no. No matter how much I may want something, if I don't have at least some confidence that the odds are in my favor, I just can't see blowing that much time and energy on it.
It may break my heart--and does, to an extremely painful degree--that I wasn't able to put together an opera career, but once I realized that no matter how good I was, it wasn't good enough because I didn't have the right pedigree, I gave up. Likewise, I dropped my music degree at the very end of it because there was no physical way possible for me to pass the keyboard competency part of it. I wanted those things. Really, really, really wanted them, but it eventually became clear that wanting and working at them wasn't going to be enough, so I had to let them go and move on to a career in which I had a fighting chance.
I sincerely believe that hard work is necessary to reach most goals. Some folks are born with privilege such that they don't have to work as hard as others, and that sucks. Level playing fields would be nice. But aside from that, yeah, all of us need to put in some effort. However, I really dislike the implication that if we don't have something we want, it's just because we don't want it enough to work at it.
The truth of life is that, even beyond hard limitations outside our control, often the effort required to reach a goal is far, far out of proportion with the chances of getting there, and with the benefits of that goal. At some point, you have to ask yourself whether what you want is really worth the massive outlays of time, money and energy necessary to get it.* And just because someone isn't willing to torture themselves like that for something doesn't mean they're lazy or don't "really" want it. It just means that they've made sensible choices of what to do with their resources and have decided that those resources are better spent on something else.
Pursuing a dream is all well and good and sounds romantic, but reality and responsible adulthood aren't often compatible with that pursuit. A person who acknowledges that reality and responsibility isn't a lesser being for having done so.
And yes, I'm musing over that question a lot these days wrt the adoption.
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no subject
It's precisely because the barrier to being a writer is so low that the advice is meaningful. Anyone can write a few hundred words a day. Most of us do it by accident - all it takes to accomplish that minimum step of "being a writer" is to do that. But there are hundreds of people hanging around Scalzi's blog who talk about the novel they're going to write someday - they hang around all over the SF community, and talk about all the things that prevent them from writing the best novel ever, and this advice is very applicable to them. You become a writer by writing, and if want to be a writer but think you do not have time to write, then you need to ask whether all the things you are doing instead of writing are more important to you than writing.
It's not The Secret; it's not that hideous entitlement/privilege philosophy that you can have Anything if you just want it hard enough. It's just about writing. If you have something that can mark letters on something else, and can scrape up twenty minutes a day, then you can be a writer. (Now, from there, the question of whether you can be a good writer is a very different one, and that's another question for aspiring writers to ask themselves. But being a writer is a necessary prerequisite to being a good writer.)
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no subject
I will say that there's still quite a lot of social pressure against writing, however, particularly because it's so hard to turn into a legit career. Like a lot of other things, the stupid Puritan work ethic thing comes into this: The notion that unless what you're doing is aimed squarely at survival, making a living or raising the next generation, it's wasteful. Art for art's sake doesn't even come into the picture.
That being the case, I think a lot of potential writers are more psychologically comfortable thinking of it strictly as a hobby--something they do only when they have a few spare moments--rather than something they take seriously. Unless there's a very good chance of selling what one writes, it's nothing more than a self-indulgent folly. If one's culture and mindset are compatible with such follies, then sure, pouring more time into it isn't a bad thing. That's not the case for most folks, however.
(This is especially true for working-class folks, fwiw. Unwinding on the weekend by watching football or fishing? Sure. Doing so by laying down a chapter or two? No way.)
no subject
However, I really dislike the implication that if we don't have something we want, it's just because we don't want it enough to work at it.
I think where people get tripped up is that they want to think that if they don't have something, it's due to circumstances beyond their control - that's certainly easier.
But then, you hear all these stories of people who overcame what would be, to anyone else, insurmountable odds or obstacles. Like the kid born without lower legs, who had much of his upper legs amputated - and he's a swimming champ up there with the best of them. It really does start to feel like, if all you ever had to 'get over' was not having college money readily available in mommy and daddy's bank account, that you're just being a whiny little shit.
But at that point, we're discounting all of the myriad ways that circumstances and neurological make-up interact. Sure, that kid didn't have legs. But he had something else, some other (seen or unseen) advantage, that maybe the next person with a similar disability wouldn't have. So you really, really can't compare.
I totally agree with setting priorities on your resources, and definitely knowing when to give up. That's the hardest part, really. Because yeah, you can work and work and work and work - but if you're getting nowhere, it's just a waste.
It's especially hard when you don't know, *know*, that what you're doing is the right thing, that you're doing it the right way.
The illustration I use is - last summer, I tried to lose weight/get in shape, by taking a personal training class. I worked out, *hard*, three nights a week, and I attempted to eat much better than I had been - salads instead of fast food, etc. After three months, while I saw improvement and gains in my strength, and *slight* definition in my arms - nothing else had changed at all. I hadn't lost any weight, I hadn't even lost any inches. I felt like I was busting my ass, losing time with my family, and spending money that I really didn't have, for absolutely no return on my investment.
And I thought - it's like living in Chicago and saying, I want to drive to California. And I'm going to get there, no matter what it takes. Lost sleep, gas money, flat tires - I'll manage it all. And so you pack up, and you get in the car, raring to go.....but you turn East instead of West. All the driving and gas money in the world won't get you to California if you're driving East.
I just want someone to tell me if I'm on the right road, you know? If the road I'm on is actually going to get me to my destination, or if I've fucked up before I've even started--because it's not worth wasting my time, money and effort if that's the case. I'm willing to work like crazy to get to my goal - but reaching the goal has to be possible in the first place.
no subject
Exactly.
I think also in my case it's an age/lifespan issue. I know I only have 20-25 years of my life left, so I really can't afford to waste it on something I'm not sure of. Yeah, in my 20s, I changed majors several times and took a lot of other chances and dipped my toes in a lot of ponds, but I don't have that luxury anymore. Whatever I do from here on out--as far as long-term/high-effort projects go--it's going to have to be something that bears fruit.