Some More Thoughts on Writing

I wanted to add a little to what I wrote on Friday.

I am trying to give up the notion that my success or failure as a writer will be influenced by how well I manage other areas of my life.

I’ve noticed that I have a tendency to believe in cause-and-effect relationships that simply aren’t there. Nor is this unique to me; a lot of what people commonly understand as karma is predicated on this notion that what goes around, comes around. When I was waiting for feedback on my manuscript, it occurred to me that I had promised to read and review a book that another author had mailed me. (Actually, it didn’t occur to me; the guy had to email me and ask if I’d done it yet, at which point I promptly remembered that I had put the big shipping envelope with his book down at the bottom of my pile of mail that kinda sorta needed to be acted on eventually, and I’d promptly forgotten about it.) So naturally, I figured that all the invisible mojo was somehow blocked up, and if I reviewed this guy’s book, I’d promptly get the feedback I’d been looking for on my book.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened. I read his book, wrote a thoughtful and incisive—albeit harsh—review, and shipped it off to him. And I got none of the feedback I was waiting on.

So what? You may rightly ask. Yeah, in the grand scheme of things, perhaps it doesn’t really matter all that much. I guess the big lesson is that I should do things for their own sake, and not for the sake of some imagined unrelated outcome. I’m glad I reviewed the other author’s book, but I’m glad because it was something I promised I’d do, and because I got something out of it.

There’s a large blue book that I read fairly frequently that mentions that people like me are usually a victim of the delusion that we can wrest satisfaction from life if we only manage well. It is a delusion; if I manage well, it will not necessarily bring about all the things I want in this world, and even if I were to get all the things I want in this world, it wouldn’t necessarily make me happy. Other people’s free will and other people’s choices are often at work, sometimes in ways I don’t even know about, and sometimes working towards ends far contradictory to mine. And more importantly, God’s running the show, not me, and the things I strive for are often the things that make me unhappy, whereas the things I avoid are often the things that help me grow and benefit me in the long run.

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with striving to achieve my goals; I just have to keep in mind that it’s not all about me, and that any setbacks or detours or hardships along the way are ultimately for my benefit, as is the ultimate outcome—even if it’s not the outcome I intend.