Thursday! 3-11: The World Isn't Fair and That's Not Okay
V3, I11
I am not sure this will be a good newsletter.
I am not sure I will ever write a very good newsletter.
I am not sure I can even write a good poem or story.
I am not even sure I could write a check correctly if I had to right now.
I am probably wrong about two of those four sentences1.
Here’s the thing. The universe isn’t fair. We are not often rewarded based on how good our art is nor on how diligently we pursue excellence. Right now, writers and directors and artists who stink on toast are getting red hot book contracts and television deals. The lying, corrupt politician who ought to be in jail or working at a McDonald’s instead will win election again and put a few more million dollars into his or her pocket. That suck up co-worker who took credit for the work you did will get the promotion, then another one, then another one, then get pension checks more than your regular salary. The people who swore yesterday they’d give you a leg up once they got the chance forgot all about you when those chances show up in battalion strength.
You can’t do anything about any of that. The breaks come when and where they come and maybe you’ll be around for one of them but probably you won’t.
The basic unfairness of the world has been gnawing at me for the past couple of weeks, for a few reasons I won’t get into here. I’ve watched some terrible people get well ahead in their nasty, mean endeavors. I’ve watched a few slackers slack their way to even cushier and more lucrative gigs. People dear to me are dealing with some hard matters and I can’t do anything tangible to help them. Amazing artists I know are scrapping for any chance to get a little bit ahead while artists who barely deserve the title fall into fortune and fame. The stuff I write falls into a great void, unseen by all but a very few. The sharing algorithms are not on my side nor will they ever be.
It’s heavy and it hurts. I want to change it and I can’t. The weight of it makes me doubt my purpose as an artist. Why make something cool if I’m the only person who’s going to see it all? What’s the point?
I suspect I’m not the only one who’s felt this lately. I see some of you struggling as well and I think we may be struggling together. Maybe the point of my struggle is….heck, I don’t know. I can’t make this happy and motivational! I’m not the happy, breezy kind of guy who can pull that off then sell you on a Make Your Struggles Work For You online seminar for the low, low price of $149.992. I don't know why the world works the way it does. The rain, as Jesus said, falls on the good and the bad, on the just and the unjust. That's both good and bad, right? Some days you want rain to fall and some days you don't, but you don't control where and when it falls. That's not up to any of us.
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Here’s what you, and I, control: our effort. I’m sure I’ve written this before, but I won’t get my poetry in a magazine unless I write it and submit it3. Most likely, my poetry won't make it to publication, but "most likely" is not the same thing as "won't ever". There's always a chance. Maybe an editor wants just the kind of thing I wrote at just the right moment. Maybe it all falls in just the right way and one of my poems does make it in front of even more people who then might love it and want more.
Remember the story submission I told you about last week? I’ve not heard from the editor yet but odds are she’ll reject my story. After all, she got over 50 submissions and she most likely won’t keep more than 20. The odds are not in my favor, even though my story is strong. I’m expecting a rejection, but there’s a chance I’m wrong. The only thing that that gives me that chance is that I submitted a story in the first place. I’m in the game and, well, crazier things can happen, right?
You never know what will happen once you make something cool and send it out into the world. Probably, nothing will happen but perhaps something will. Maybe they’ll hate your story, ignore your poem, not buy your painting, laugh at your song. Or maybe one person — the right person at the right time — will love it the way you love it. Maybe that one work of art is the spark that lights the rockets under your artistic career. Maybe that chance you took pays out bigger than any dream you’ve dared to dream.
I’m not blowing smoke here. The chances aren’t great, but they’re still chances. Bad people get rewarded every day, but sometimes good people do, too. You might be one of them — today, tomorrow, next month, next year. You can’t give up. Neither can I.
Giving up is the only way we are sure to lose to the unfairness.
I don’t want that for you. keep at it. I will too.
Even if I never write anything good again. Heck, if the person who wrote that horrible show about Velma can keep can keep that gig, surely something of mine can get a look!
What I Wrote Last Week
Probably the second and third, though I’ve not written a check in a while, so that fourth one might be in play, too.
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Hence my One Thing for this year!