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Jessica Nordell's avatar

Tim, this is so moving.

I was just talking to my cousin, a music producer, about the creative life, and he said, "The bad news is, you didn't have success in your 20s. The good news is, you didn't have success in your 20s." I think the best we can do is, like in second grade, keep our eyes on our own paper. It does feel easier, somehow, as I get older, to keep a steady grasp on the fact that we are all on different trajectories, coming from different contexts, with wildly different troubles and glories. Thanks for this beautiful and humane reflection.

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The Omphaloskeptic's avatar

"... I still feel like John Milton’s Lucifer or Wagner’s Alberich or fucking Gollum whenever I contemplate the acclaimed hacks and beloved frauds who are my own artistic nemeses—some wretched creature seething with ressentiment, sneering and spitting spite and vengeance from the pit. I just learned the Czech word litost, translated as “the humiliated despair we feel when someone reminds us, through their accomplishments, of everything that has gone wrong in our lives.”

I also feel this constantly, and it's made so much more difficult by the fact that I'm also a struggling and yet-unpublished writer (partly because I have yet to really finish anything.....). I'm terrified that I'm not trying hard enough, and/or it will all come to nothing. I can't help but wonder why others are lucky and I'm not. I know it's not fair to them or me to make those comparisons, and that mid-20s is too early to call quits, but it's a lesson that my heart still refuses to learn.

Thanks for writing! I read one of your books last week and I loved it.

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