I excel at not making friends. Really, I'm exceptional at it. If you'd like a role-model in not making friends, I'm your man. This null-success is my bread and butter. Self-published instructional pamphlet forthcoming.
The toil of mankind,
The sweat, the cash, the prestige
Or a cold, wet, drink
I just had a moment where I thought, “If I’m not a writer, am I anything?” meaning “anything of value.” I have an attachment to being a writer, or being a something, and attaining my idea of life. If I am not a writer, a thinker, an artist, a good father, someone who can control his addictions and his time, someone who can think without worry, who can find what he “should do,” who can understand, who has some unique skill or calling or benefit, who succeeds and is known for it, who doesn’t care about success or praise, who has useful and profound and beautiful thoughts, who hasn’t been found out as a failure in all these things—
For my writing this morning, I made an emoji to more accurately depict my mood.
Lord,
I believe.
Help
My
Wisdom.
I wish I could find it, but I read a meme earlier with a pic of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer that said something like, “Standing out only leads to benefit if it can also benefit other persons, in which case it becomes extortion.” And that’s quite like the idea of the story, though from a cynical slant.
And while I think the idea needs some counterbalancing to be true, I think there’s something to be said about how worldly success works. Every person is intrinsically out for his own good. Such was the effect of the fall.
If artistic success, and indeed Christian success, is not measured in dollars, then what is success? What would success be for my pursuit of writing?
A life of love is a success. A life spent, poured out, in service to God and others. And what does that look like? It looks like quality relationships. Dialogue. Humility. A corporate and cooperative search for truth. It looks like learning, like recognizing failures and doing what I can to make up for them. It looks like depending upon grace and extending that same grace to others.
If you can’t love the persons already in your life…
Not that getting to the place of writing to the masses is the thing to pursue.
Love those who are in your life, and you may be given more persons to love, like the parable of the talents. But because you love—because you aren’t just wanting to be loved by the masses—you will think of the masses not for fame, like you tend to think of them when not loving, but as recipients,
First off. Yeah right. Get over your anonymity, Patrick. The shadow of success ever keeps you dependent.
But if it did happen. Doesn’t celebrity, at least to some degree, mean that you match the world’s idea of what’s valuable to consume? And doesn’t the world typically want to consume those things that are not good? So wouldn’t celebrity be an indication of your valuelessness?
That’s cynical.