Thursday! 3-5: The Universe Doesn't Care, But You Do.
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Have you ever read Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist? It’s an odd book, not quite an actual novel and more a self-help book wrapped in a narrative of a poor shepherd boy who goes off in search of treasure or his destiny or both. In it, Coelho wrote something that has since landed him on bestseller lists, Oprah’s show1, in front of huge crowds, and classrooms. Here is the core of the book’s message:
And, when you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.
Sounds cool, doesn’t it? Resolve to do something and watch the universe shift itself to have your back. Curtains will part, your creativity will blossom, your schedule will ease, friends and family will accommodate you at every turn, publishers and patrons will beat down your door. Heck, even Oprah herself might give you a ring!
Except you know that’s bunk. Not only will the universe not conspire to help you; the universe will array itself against you.
We’ve all seen it happen. We finally resolve to take real steps toward that thing we most want — finishing a novel, selling a book of poems, getting a degree later in life, being the feature artist in an exhibit — and all sorts of things seem to rise up against us. Someone gets sick or our car breaks down or the person who offered us the big chance moves to a new position and that chance disappears. Our joy and enthusiasm evaporates like an ice cube in a sauna.
We think we must be doing something wrong because wasn’t the universe supposed to help us? What if we didn’t want hard enough? What if we messed up somehow? Did we even want the right thing? Maybe we’re the one person who is the exception to the universe’s rule of generosity.
My friends, let me be the anti-Alchemist for you. You are fine. Your desires are fine. The universe doesn’t care. You know who does care, though?
You do.
That matters a lot more than you think because your own determination to do what smolders in your heart at this very minute2 is, quite literally, the only part of your art you control. As I've written in previous weeks, you can't control how people will react to what you make nor can you control. All you can do is make it and turn it loose. When you bring your own resolve to bear and decide you're doing to be an artist no matter what else may come, an odd and wonderful thing happens, not to the universe, but to you.
See, when you decide you’re going to make the art you want to make, little difficulties don't stop you and big difficulties only slow you down. The universe hasn’t changed but you have. You choose, every day, not to take “no” for an answer. You choose, every day, to be stubborn and stubbornness matters more than magical universe conspiracies. Maybe the universe helps you and maybe it works against you but you don’t care because you decide every day to make your art no matter what it does. In fact, your own stubbornness pushes you through some difficulties so quickly that it seems magical. People around you notice your determination and decide to help you in their own ways — more magic!
I don’t blame folks for thinking that’s magic. When the work that seemed tough yesterday moves along today on greased tracks, it’s easy to shrug and say “Well, that’s fate for you”. But that’s not fate. That’s you taking yourself seriously and doing your work. That’s you pushing past tough times because you’re an artist and artists make art. That’s people around you seeing resolve in you and deciding they want to be part of whatever you’re doing.
None of that is alchemy. All of it is taking yourself seriously and treating yourself like you have something worth making and putting out into the world. That’s not advice that will get you on a national talk show, but it sure as heck will get your art made. Isn’t that what you really want? I think it is.
What I Wrote (Kind of) Last Week
More than once, I believe.
Please do not confuse heart-smoldering with heartburn.