Ignore Everybody - MacLeod, Hugh [21]
It certainly worked for me. As I said in the preface, this book you’re now reading started life out as a 13,000-word essay on my blog, gapingvoid.com. It was downloaded and read about a million times, then the next thing you know publishers started approaching me. Happy Ending.
And of course, I wouldn’t limit this advice just to writers. If I were a painter, I wouldn’t move to New York and wait tables for ten years, trying to find an art gallery to represent me. I would just post the paintings online, build up a large enough audience, and eventually the sales will come.
And I wouldn’t stop there, either. The fact that you’re reading this probably means that you’re in a line of work that is idea-driven, be it IT, law, accounting, whatever. So put some of your ideas on a blog and get them “out there.” Eventually the fish will start biting. Just remember that it doesn’t happen overnight. It usually takes a couple of years of continual posting to build up enough trust to where people are willing to invest in you financially. But you never know. It could be a couple of months, it could take a couple of years. But it certainly beats a decade waiting tables in Manhattan.
38. Meaning scales, people don’t.
From my blog entry “Meaning Scales,” February 2005:
As Buddha says, there is no one road to Nirvana. Enlightenment is a house with 6 billion doors. While we’re alive, we intend not to find THE DOOR, not A DOOR, but to find OUR OWN, UNIQUE DOOR.
And we’re willing to pay for the privilege. We’re willing to give up money and time and power and sex and status and certainty and comfort in order to find it.
And guess what? It’ll be a great door. It’ll add to this life. It’ll resonate. Not just with us, but with everybody it comes in contact with. The door will be useful and productive. Alive and kicking. It’ll create wealth and laughter and joy. It’ll pull its own weight, it’ll give back to others. It’ll be centered on compassion, but will also be intolerant of dullards, parasites and cynics.
It may be modest, it may not. It could be a little candle shop; it could be a software company with the GNP of Sweden. It could involve politics or working with the elderly. It could be starting a design studio or opening a bar with Cousin Mike. It could be a screenplay, oil paints, or discovering the violin. It doesn’t matter. Meaning Scales.
Sure, I was pretty drunk on the Kool-Aid when I wrote that, but I think the main point is still valid. The size of the endeavor doesn’t matter as much as how meaningful it becomes to you.
But given a choice between two paths, both valid, how do you know which one to take? How do you know which one has the meaningful payoff?
The answer, of course, is that you don’t. Whether we’re talking about moving to New York to become an “Art Star,” or opening up a humble coffee shop in Alpine, Texas, that’s why they’re called “adventures.” Because you don’t know how it’s going to end.
All you can do is admit to yourself that yes, this is an adventure, and to accept it as such, surprises and all. With a little bit of practice you eventually get into the flow of it.
Yes, anything worth doing takes lots of practice. Adventures included.
And when I say “People don’t scale,” I’m stating the obvious: that no matter how meteoric your rise to the top [or not], you are still as beholden to the day-to-day realities as any living creature.
Birth, sickness, death, falling in love, watching TV, raising families, mowing the lawn, going to the movies, taking your nephew to a ball game, drinking beer, hanging out with your buddies, playing Frisbee on the beach, painting the house, tending the garden. No matter where your adventure takes you, most of what is truly meaningful is still to be found revolving around the mundane stuff you did before you embarked on your adventure. The stuff that’ll still be going