MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents"
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MAIN EVENT. A Good Place to Get Started --- a.k.a "Table of Contents" |
| MY GLASS HOUSE | THE PREVIOUS EVENT | THE NEXT EVENT | THE WRITERS/GUIDELINES | |
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Here's a hypothetical problem:
I think it's a fine thing to earn a living. I left home at 17 to make my way in the world, and I always enjoyed work-for-hire (a legal term that has special significance for filmmakers). We all rejoice in financial success. It's an objective reward. Somebody valued you enough to pay for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and last month's phone bill. This is good.
But it complicates the matter of pro bonoactivism, because working for a living uses up a lot of energy.
When I was climbing rooftops last July at the rate of $30 per climb, my writing output declined to one page a week. I had few ideas, many aches and pains. Being age 49 has its limitations. Sleep comes less easily. The years behind are numerous and complicated; the years ahead less certain.
Queenie has threatened to put me on an IV drip of Siberian ginseng and fish oil goop, because I hate eating horse-size pills.
Maybe I should buy her a horse. He can eat my share of Life Extension & Never Die cod liver capsules.
Queenie always wanted to own a horse, anyway. If I cease writing for a decade and devote every waking moment to roof climbing, I could probably afford to buy her one in 2009. How much does a saddle cost? Hmm. Probably need a corral, too. Maybe a barn. Shit.
The nice thing about being age 49, however, is the terrific sense of integration that grown-ups enjoy. It took approximately forever to get here -- an organized thing of my own making, no longer baffled by the world in which I live. That's the good news.
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A lot of writers (Voltaire, Karl Marx, Simone de Beauvoir) lived in "grace and favor" homes.
If I am to produce an intellectual legacy worth keeping, my job is to express something more than thanks. Nor is it obvious who should be thanked. The Eternal doesn't care whether I thank Him or Her or It -- and there are too many Living Things in my immediate vicinity to praise them individually like a bhodisativa.
For instance, there are six different species of ants on this estate, each numbering in the tens of thousands, who collectively frustrate the prospect of leaving a cookie on my desk unguarded for ten seconds. If I walked into the jungle to thank the fire ants, I'd probably lose an ankle.
So let's leave gratitude out of it. I'm thankful, you'renny's.
Being broke is okay, especially if one's living expenses are being paid by a benefactor, of which there are many, both public and private.
In Britain, millions of people are receiving a handsome weekly gift from H.M. Treasury. America has tens of millions of artists, musicians, university professors, college students, homemakers, preachers, teachers, elders, and children who have been exempted from the problem of survival. We can argue about whether or not their stipends should be raised or lowered, but it's obvious that a lot of people are being paid to do less and be more.
It is part of the liberal tradition to treat folks as if every human life is valuable and important -- certainly worthy of a free lunch and good enough to be sheltered from the storm. Prisoners aren't tortured to death in American jails. They are fed, clothed, and educated. Some of our laws and public policies take this a wee bit too far, labelling every U.S. banker "too big to fail" and every American toddler "uniquely gifted." But in the main, we've got it right, that hardship and humiliation are a harsh, indiscriminant hell that no one deserves.
That's why I'm in favor of rest. Lots of it. Especially for poets. I mention this for a man who knows I am speaking of him, but who thinks he is ineligible. No rest for the wicked.
If it's true that the liberal enterprise is honorable and right, then I submit that the few who sacrifice themselves for the good of all are making a mistake.
Among the Six Billion, you have as much right as anyone else to happiness.
To be more, do less. Everybody is depending on you, because you're smarter than the average bear and the world needs your brainpower, compassion, and creativity. While you are applying yourself --- at great personal cost --- so that civilization doesn't crumble quite so fast, you also have to earn a living and take out the trash every Thursday morning.
The trash isn't really hypothetical. If I forget to take out the trash precisely at 8 a.m. Thursday, it won't be collected. Old garbage attracts neighborhood cats and raccoons. Since my neighborhood is a tropical jungle, you can guess the size and disposition of the critters in question. Making a living isn't hypothetical, either. I've done plenty of it. Queenie has, too.
The bad news is that I'm dirt poor and have been as long as I can remember. Queenie and I are currently residing in another "grace and favor" villa -- our sixth in recent years. The first one was a house on a 300-acre ranch in Northern California. The second was a garage in Petaluma. The rest were too weird to explain.
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Here's why: I've written a quarter million words in rent-free accommodation and practically zero whenever I had to pay the rent.
I like being subsidized, kept, co-opted, spoiled, celebrated, exaggerated, and pampered -- although it's a pain in the butt on occasion when I have to say thank you. I say it often and sincerely. I am indeed grateful to have a roof over my head at someone else's expense. But being grateful is a simple, personal response. Professionally, I have to ignore it when I sit at this keyboard.
Preservation of this liberal view (and the prosperity which makes benevolence possible) is the purpose of writing. Every new citizen needs to hear the facts. Every watchful eye should monitor our progress as a global community. Every threat to peace and prosperity deserves our thoughtful concern. This is best achieved by doing less. Writers need time to read, absorb, reflect. We also need a walk in the park, companionship and support of close friends, and the luxury of sleeping two or three days straight, if we wish. When one mentally shoulders the whole of human suffering and all of man's highest aspirations, the job entails more than a day or two of tears, more than a few restless nights.
Make this the first goal. Devote your time to it and seek the enjoyments that make life wonderful for you. They aren't hard to find. But you must be willing to do less for others -- be more the freed, forgiven individual you are. My best advice is the reverse of conventional wisdom. Do not get shackled to a career, do not throw yourself at the business of living, and never say that you're grateful for crumbs.
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