(Image by Samuel Ramos, via Unsplash)
So yesterday, I used my lapsed bowling career as an example of the distance between people who are merely reallyreallyreally good and people who are at the peak of whatever endeavor they’ve chosen. I think, in principle, that the same general logarithmic distance is true in whatever field of practice we might consider. Every step is a mile, and there are a lot of steps to take.
But bowling is limited in its utility as a model, because it’s objective. Scores are scores, tournaments are won and recorded, and there’s no argument about intentions or values. There are lots of endeavors in which we might excel in ways that aren’t as easy to know, or to agree upon.
I’m enough of an elitist to resent being labeled a “local author.” But certainly the objective record of my fiction writing is exactly that. I’ve not had fiction published, by a major house or a minor indie. I do it because it’s a meditative act, because the craft matters. Using language to render complicated lives in complicated circumstances… there’s nothing that absorbs me more fully.
But if that’s my motivation, why would I inflict the outcomes upon others? Why not just leave it on the hard drive? That’s the point at which the questions of relative quality emerge. Is it good enough to share? Am I proud of it? Will the person I’m sharing it with enjoy it? Will they TELL ME they enjoyed it? It’s just an ugly smoothie blended from mixed ingredients: vanity and generosity, validation and hope.
One of the thoughts I’ve shared with my writing group a few times is that for me, giving someone one of my books is like making them a meal. I just want them to have a nice evening, and I have enough confidence that my cooking matches their tastes to make the offer. And ohhhh, does one of my colleagues hate that idea! It demeans the craft, it doesn’t take the work seriously. He’s also said that he’s terrified of dying, though, and I think he wants something to live on when he’s gone.
I don’t, oddly enough. When I’m dead, everything I ever could have done, generous or otherwise, will be done. The rest will be compost. So because I’m not in the game of “legacy,” I have a little less interest in comparing quality. It’s as good as I know how to make it.
What I need is to be acknowledged, by an audience larger than my friends and neighbors. And that’s a sad fact to sit with.
The Dunning-Kruger effect comes into play here as well. When I was a Level Three bowler, I thought I was going to be a professional. Once I got to Level Five, I recognized that I wouldn’t. Not because I’d stopped trying or gotten lazy, but because I knew so much more that I could appreciate how much broader the chasm was that lie ahead. The more you know about something, the more you know you don’t know. The less you know about something, the easier it seems. I mean, everybody can write, right? Everybody can sing, everybody can drive a car and ride a bike. Being a professional at those things must just mean doing more of it.
You have to go a long, long way down the road to realize how vast and complicated the road is. And by that time, you’ve dedicated most of your young life to the journey. The craft matters to you, you’ve given yourself to it and received so much beauty in return. But there will come a moment when you realize that you will never be Simone Biles, or LeBron James, or Yo-Yo Ma, or Lewis Hamilton, or Emma Stone. There will come a moment when you realize that your ticket won’t take you to the final station, that you’ll disembark in some one-dog town along the way.
More again tomorrow.
Herb Childress 