Edit posts that no one reads. Posts on a personal blog meant for sharing thoughts and feelings rather than scripted performances or essays. It sounds a bit insane, doesn't it?
At the time, I thought it would make me a better writer. I was thinking at the time that it was a measure that would lead to excellence, that pointed toward a higher level of rigor and discipline. Original, unshaped posts did not possess quality. Improving them meant improvement of myself. It made sense.
Lately I have been spending a lot of time improving. Playwriting, journalism practicums... I dedicated a lot of time, offered up a lot of energy to learning the techniques, the methods, the structures, and these disciplines that were completely new to me. Pursuing them took up many of my days and almost all of my thoughts. I feel I have learnt much, but perhaps that is just the euphoria of passing through a difficult stage. In reality, I don't really know if I've learnt enough.
I went through all that stress thinking it would make me a better writer.
"Abt six mths till e big day! Gasp! Time's been flying cos of e work i've been drowning in... :s" -Random Facebook friend
I'm only working part-time right now, but I realize that I feel exactly the same way. The days seem to be blowing by rapidly. They are unmemorable. Each day, I have felt rushed and hurried. Prayer is impersonal. Time spent with friends is not fulfilling. I try to enjoy the company of my friends, but in the back of my mind, a little part of me is whispering that every hour spent in such a way is an hour lost. It urges me to spend every waking moment at work, improving my skills and drilling into the heart of my story so that it will be great and I will be great and finally a somebody who is not a nobody...
I don't even work all that hard. It's the fearful thoughts of not doing enough that take up just as much energy as the work itself.
I realize: I need writing so much because I think it will make me great. I need to be great because I am afraid to be a nobody. I am afraid to be a low-salary, low-status, no-meaning nobody who struggles to survive in a rich, filthy rich country filled with hyper-capable, fertile-minded domestic product producers...
As Christians, we're supposed to let the God we believe in be the center of our lives. I'm supposed to trust that God has a wonderful plan for me, that he will provide for me everything that I truly need in life (though maybe not want) [Matthew 6:30]. I'm supposed to let God's love be the basis for my self-confidence in life; this is the best way because he loves us from beginning to end, but the things of this world always fail us. We can't base our self-worth on them. If it's skill that makes us feel good, that skill will fade. If it's the love of people... well, people can walk out of your life. If it's money, then we have to know that we can't take our money with us to see God in heaven. Christians are supposed to place God's love and his providence at the center of their lives.
In reality, that's a hard thing to do at times. Especially if life is not on track. The fear of "nobody-ness" is absolutely terrifying. It can drive you to be on guard every second. It can push you to toil endlessly. What if we lost focus for just one second and missed the boat to success? What then, if adventure and travel and love and luxury pass us by? Certainly, doctors and lawyers ruminate on such things much less frequently than the humble humanities graduate.
Laziness and complacency can destroy. They can cut off a future meant to be filled with all kinds of wondrous relationships and experiences and the occasional cool piece of stuff. I'm sure that my own complacency has already cut off many potential dazzling futures from my life.
Recently though, I've begun to think that something else can destroy. Namely, hard work fueled by fear. It's the kind of drive that makes you impatient with close friends and indifferent to the world around you. It's the kind of drive that robs you of your joy, and ultimately, your integrity as a human being. It is rooted in the fear of being a worthless nobody, the kind of flavorless moneyless average Joe that doesn't play the star role and doesn't get married to a prettiful Singaporean girl-next-bungalow-door.
I was afraid, and so I kept editing. But it wasn't to become a better writer. A good writer - and I mean a really good writer - will want to communicate something from the bottom of his heart to his readers. In an imperfect but rightful following of God's example, he/she will want to think carefully about what he is creating, in order that the creation might bring something good, something positive to the world.
I just wanted to be a good-looking writer. I only wanted to be impactful, only wanted to make a splash. I didn't really care what it was that I wrote at that point.
The thought of being a nobody is frightening, and I want to be free of it. Not free of the responsibility to earn money and support my parents, not free of the responsibility to develop and believe in myself, but free of the need to fill myself with things, free of the desire to acquiesce to or rebel against those particular expectations of society that are meaningless. I want to be free from writing things with an eye to tailoring them solely for comfortable consumption. I want to edit what I write for the honest joy of it, not so that I can be well-regarded for spiffy sentences or flawless grammar.
It's hard to abandon this very logical obsession with hierarchy and rely on the love of an invisible God, a concept that seems so utterly illogical at times. What unshakable logic exists beyond the very human mindset of give-and-take? Perhaps there is none... I don't have an easy answer to explain this bond, this gift that I don't understand. I only know that when I remember his promises and the times I've seen his grace in my life, it becomes a little easier to accept the possibility of becoming an average Joe who is loved by an amazing God.
I'm only working part-time right now, but I realize that I feel exactly the same way. The days seem to be blowing by rapidly. They are unmemorable. Each day, I have felt rushed and hurried. Prayer is impersonal. Time spent with friends is not fulfilling. I try to enjoy the company of my friends, but in the back of my mind, a little part of me is whispering that every hour spent in such a way is an hour lost. It urges me to spend every waking moment at work, improving my skills and drilling into the heart of my story so that it will be great and I will be great and finally a somebody who is not a nobody...
I don't even work all that hard. It's the fearful thoughts of not doing enough that take up just as much energy as the work itself.
I realize: I need writing so much because I think it will make me great. I need to be great because I am afraid to be a nobody. I am afraid to be a low-salary, low-status, no-meaning nobody who struggles to survive in a rich, filthy rich country filled with hyper-capable, fertile-minded domestic product producers...
As Christians, we're supposed to let the God we believe in be the center of our lives. I'm supposed to trust that God has a wonderful plan for me, that he will provide for me everything that I truly need in life (though maybe not want) [Matthew 6:30]. I'm supposed to let God's love be the basis for my self-confidence in life; this is the best way because he loves us from beginning to end, but the things of this world always fail us. We can't base our self-worth on them. If it's skill that makes us feel good, that skill will fade. If it's the love of people... well, people can walk out of your life. If it's money, then we have to know that we can't take our money with us to see God in heaven. Christians are supposed to place God's love and his providence at the center of their lives.
In reality, that's a hard thing to do at times. Especially if life is not on track. The fear of "nobody-ness" is absolutely terrifying. It can drive you to be on guard every second. It can push you to toil endlessly. What if we lost focus for just one second and missed the boat to success? What then, if adventure and travel and love and luxury pass us by? Certainly, doctors and lawyers ruminate on such things much less frequently than the humble humanities graduate.
Laziness and complacency can destroy. They can cut off a future meant to be filled with all kinds of wondrous relationships and experiences and the occasional cool piece of stuff. I'm sure that my own complacency has already cut off many potential dazzling futures from my life.
Recently though, I've begun to think that something else can destroy. Namely, hard work fueled by fear. It's the kind of drive that makes you impatient with close friends and indifferent to the world around you. It's the kind of drive that robs you of your joy, and ultimately, your integrity as a human being. It is rooted in the fear of being a worthless nobody, the kind of flavorless moneyless average Joe that doesn't play the star role and doesn't get married to a prettiful Singaporean girl-next-bungalow-door.
I was afraid, and so I kept editing. But it wasn't to become a better writer. A good writer - and I mean a really good writer - will want to communicate something from the bottom of his heart to his readers. In an imperfect but rightful following of God's example, he/she will want to think carefully about what he is creating, in order that the creation might bring something good, something positive to the world.
I just wanted to be a good-looking writer. I only wanted to be impactful, only wanted to make a splash. I didn't really care what it was that I wrote at that point.
The thought of being a nobody is frightening, and I want to be free of it. Not free of the responsibility to earn money and support my parents, not free of the responsibility to develop and believe in myself, but free of the need to fill myself with things, free of the desire to acquiesce to or rebel against those particular expectations of society that are meaningless. I want to be free from writing things with an eye to tailoring them solely for comfortable consumption. I want to edit what I write for the honest joy of it, not so that I can be well-regarded for spiffy sentences or flawless grammar.
It's hard to abandon this very logical obsession with hierarchy and rely on the love of an invisible God, a concept that seems so utterly illogical at times. What unshakable logic exists beyond the very human mindset of give-and-take? Perhaps there is none... I don't have an easy answer to explain this bond, this gift that I don't understand. I only know that when I remember his promises and the times I've seen his grace in my life, it becomes a little easier to accept the possibility of becoming an average Joe who is loved by an amazing God.
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