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.
I'm a parent and my two children roughly fall into these two categories. One succeeds at everything he does seemingly effortlessly, though he is also a hard worker. The other is incredibly capable, but often crushed by anxiety and social uncertainty. Your description of the father rejoicing in both is the first time I've read an articulation of how I feel about them. Thank you, you can't imagine how much I needed that this week.
"... 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I also feel this constantly, and it's made so much more difficult by the fact that I'm also a struggling and yet-unpublished writer (partly because I have yet to really finish anything.....).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.
As another commenter, "Andy K," points out, a lot of what ultimately separates writers who end up published from ones who give up and get "real" jobs is not talent or discipline but being able to persist at it despite not making any money from it for long periods. In other words, wealth and class. Which is a kind of luck. And a lot of my own life and career has been lucky, in this sense. My parents, unlike a lot of parents, believed in my talent and were willing to subsidize it, and could afford to. (I avoid using the word "privilege" because a.) I don't want it revoked, but extended to all, b.) it's been overused to the point of tedium and meaninglessness, and c.) it seems as if everyone who uses it is also insufferable.)
By way of encouragement I would say that your mid-20s is still very young, and it really takes a lot of time and work to get to be good at any art. So the only advice I got for ya is already in the essay: just don't stop. Do it every day. Finish something, even if it's bad. You'll probably never stop feeling surly and sorry for yourself and as if you really should be more successful than you are—I haven't—but it definitely feels better to have been published than it did not to have been.
Wiping up the coffee I just spit out over "who’ll just end up department chair" (I feel seen) -- and pausing long enough to say that this was thoroughly lovely but also: do we not covet others' inner lives? That line struck me as brilliant at first but then a second later as maybe not quite right. I covet others' equanimity, resilience, "secure attachment" all the time. But that is speaking as a stone-cold Judith. Thanks, as always, for writing.
This is lovely.
Those are two lucky ladies right there, to have you in their lives. So are the rest of us. Thanks for this
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.
I'm a parent and my two children roughly fall into these two categories. One succeeds at everything he does seemingly effortlessly, though he is also a hard worker. The other is incredibly capable, but often crushed by anxiety and social uncertainty. Your description of the father rejoicing in both is the first time I've read an articulation of how I feel about them. Thank you, you can't imagine how much I needed that this week.
"... 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.
As another commenter, "Andy K," points out, a lot of what ultimately separates writers who end up published from ones who give up and get "real" jobs is not talent or discipline but being able to persist at it despite not making any money from it for long periods. In other words, wealth and class. Which is a kind of luck. And a lot of my own life and career has been lucky, in this sense. My parents, unlike a lot of parents, believed in my talent and were willing to subsidize it, and could afford to. (I avoid using the word "privilege" because a.) I don't want it revoked, but extended to all, b.) it's been overused to the point of tedium and meaninglessness, and c.) it seems as if everyone who uses it is also insufferable.)
By way of encouragement I would say that your mid-20s is still very young, and it really takes a lot of time and work to get to be good at any art. So the only advice I got for ya is already in the essay: just don't stop. Do it every day. Finish something, even if it's bad. You'll probably never stop feeling surly and sorry for yourself and as if you really should be more successful than you are—I haven't—but it definitely feels better to have been published than it did not to have been.
We’re all crazy and lost here, my dude. We writers just leave proof.
Shamble on, shamble on.
Wiping up the coffee I just spit out over "who’ll just end up department chair" (I feel seen) -- and pausing long enough to say that this was thoroughly lovely but also: do we not covet others' inner lives? That line struck me as brilliant at first but then a second later as maybe not quite right. I covet others' equanimity, resilience, "secure attachment" all the time. But that is speaking as a stone-cold Judith. Thanks, as always, for writing.
Tim, this is such a beautiful, truthful, and heartfelt column. Thank you