Weve all been going about this all wrong.
There is no such thing as The Great American Novel. No one has achieved riches from one idea. We you, I, your friends, and everyone around you have been going about this all wrong.
Myself and Q, we discovered this Great Truth whilst discussing the future of our lives: Its not about the destination, but our focus ON it. So many of us, myself included, assume that, with one brilliant idea, with one unique talent, can achieve fame and fortune; that we can give up our nine-to-five lives and lounge upon waters of lenient indolence, if only we could write that one great novel; IF ONLY we could create that one amazing film.
To quote Tyler Durden, weve been raised to believe that one day well all become Rock Gods and Movie Stars, but thats IF ONLY we create that ONE GREAT SONG; if only we could BLANK that one BLANK BLANK.
But we wont, will we? Well never be able to achieve emancipation from daily lives; well never be idolized through marble statues or given granite stars. You and I, like our fathers and our fathers fathers, will simply whither and die in shadowed-obscurity.
I discussed this in great length with a very good friend of mine, whilst bemoaning the state of our lives. It was discovered, through great debating, that it was not WE who were to blame, but how we FOCUSED ourselves. Like so many billions of individuals, we sought out RICHES and FAME, refusing to consider the WORK and SACRIFICE required for achieving those ends. We never once figured in FAILURE; we never asked ourselves if what we were doing was worth no one caring for; we never asked if we would continue sacrificing our free-time, our sleep, our SANITY, to achieve.
Everyone wants to be rich; everyone wants to be famous; very few of us want to WORK.
But therein lay the rub: To be rich and famous, you have to WORK for it; to be successful, you have to give more effort than you EVER could to just survive.
Every day, you are bestowed twenty-four hours; every week, you are gifted one hundred sixty-eight hours. Still, the majority of us will only spend forty ours of those weeks working and fifty-six of them sleeping; the rest of those hours will be spent in front of the television or accomplishing menial tasks. No one, not a one of us, will be willing to sacrifice that last forty-two hours we are provided towards achieving ANY of our goals, no matter how menial OR lofty they may be.
This is, and even *I* am willing to admit this right-out, because we are too focused on the DESTINATION and NOT the journey.
We all want to be Rock Stars, but how many of us are willing to put forth the HOURS of practice required to master an instrument; how many of us are able to compose a song or devote any of our ever-so-valued free-time towards finding a band to join or exposing ourselves to an audience-at-large, without considering the POSSIBILITY that no one would ever care to listen to us? How many of us would-be-writers will *ever* devote ourselves to putting down our sewing needles and putting our calloused fingers to the keyboard; how many would put our thoughts onto paper and type them out and not CARE if anyone else liked what we wrote?
How often do we hear the successful complain about what they do? How many of the Starving Artists go to work smiling along the way? Who is the more successful: The person who hates what theyre good at, or he who is terrible at what he loves?
Not all of us are made to be writers, despite how EASY it may look; only a few of us can be movie stars, regardless of the glamour they produce. This is because, and I say this with a heavy heart, that it takes more WORK to become RICH and FAMOUS than it does to be MEDIOCRE and UNKNOWN.
But therein lay the rub: We ALL own stories that, we feel, are worth telling; we ALL have something we LOVE to do, with our talents being incidental in the overall scheme. The difference between we who WANT to do them and those who are SUCCESSFUL is that THEY do it REGARDLESS of whether they will become rich and/or successful for it. Those who are most joyous do what they do BECAUSE they enjoy DOING it and NOT because they stand to gain FAME or RICHES from it. For the creators of Penny Arcade and for writers like Steven Spielberg, they became successful AFTER THE FACT; they achieved success REGARDLESS of their goals. Spielbergs goal was not opulence, but to get his work PUBLISHED; success, overall, was a side-effect of his novels being well-written and excellently-executed. J.K. Rowling wrote Harry Potter NOT to be famous, but because, she felt, her story NEEDED to be wrote; the success and fortunes PROCEEDED from the excellence of her writing style.
I wonder, though, out of those few who grace our newspapers and adorn our bookshelves, how many more did NOT get published; or, better still, DID get published but did NOT find success? Would you consider them failures? Or, having actually BEEN published, or having been rejected but still gone as far as to COMPLETE a whole novel, are they still more successful than ANY of us could EVER hope to be?
So I ask: If you knew, with certainty, that you would never become rich or famous, DESPITE how much you wrote or WHAT you filmed, or even how WELL you acted, would you still attempt to write the Great American Novel or audition for that Amazing Stand-Out Role? Would you try to invent that fantastic device, which you KNOW will improve the lives of all Mankind, if you KNEW that it would NEVER make you Rich or Famous?
Fools; you are all fools, for you number yourselves among those Selfishly-Wicked, who expect fortune with Minimal Effort. Glory to those who write because they LOVE writing; blessed be the inventor who builds The Great Device NOT because he demands a parade or a mansion, but because he feels it NEEDS to be done.
Do it, not because itll make you successful; do it to DO it. Write because you love to WRITE; build because you love to BUILD. If you are GOOD ENOUGH, fame and fortune will FIND you; if you are terrible at what you do then you are always able to return to your Day Jobs with the knowledge that you did that which you enjoyed doing, regardless of what the hecklers screamed.
In this world gone upside-down, simply ACCOMPLISHING something is worth note; SUCCEEDING at it is an exception that should be accepted graciously but NEVER demanded. If you want do be successful or rich, you must first be willing to accept with full KNOWLEDGE of the consequences therein that you will never be Rich or Famous; that women will NOT crawl to your feet, nor will awards be given from up on high. You must first find JOY in what you DO long before you can discover SUCCESS in the doing of it.
Success is never guaranteed, but love of what you do is, provided it is something which you enjoy doing. Dont write to be famous, but, instead, write because you LIKE writing; act, because you LOVE acting; and, if youre good enough at any of these, someone will come along and pay you to do what you were initially doing for free If, though, however, no fame or success comes from it, you should do it because you LOVE to do it, and not for anything else.
Fame and wealth shall come AFTER; until then, do what you WANT to do DESPITE the fact that you will not find success, as you will finally find something that you enjoy.
I implore you to share this philosophy with all those you know, and those you don't, so that, finally, those naive few who expect to become the next James Dean or Stephen King will now how best to adjust their focus for maximum enjoyment and minimal dejection.
For the rest of you, I wish you God's Speed on your journey. Even if you never find Wealth, may you be burdened with a surplus of Happiness.
The Chosen One has spoken. Heed and obey.