Over the past few days, I’ve visited this blog and attempted to write a new post. I want to. I miss writing here regularly, and I miss writing well and about meaningful things. But I’ve been cursed with a lack of ideas, the usual problem, and I’ve deleted each attempt because, frankly, it sucked and I already feel my posts have been declining in quality. No need to worsen that.
I’ll tell you what’s on my mind, though, aside from the regular stuff. As I said, I miss writing, and in my few spare moments when not editing or at the clinic I’ve been reading stories online, a few fiction journal submissions, etc. I’ve been feeling very motivated to get something out I can publish. The question is, as always, when can I make time, and what do I write about when I don’t have any ideas? I think my failure to prioritize writing time stems from my fear of wasting that time chewing my fingers and writing twaddle.
And then I think of something I watched JK Rowling say in a documentary that covered a year of her life. In fact, I saw this on Saturday and I haven’t stopped thinking of it since. She said she was lucky to have had the idea of Harry Potter. When asked how she got it, she said, “I was taking a long train journey from Manchester to London in England and the idea for Harry just fell into my head.” Another time she answered, “Harry just sort of strolled into my head, on a train journey. He arrived very fully formed.” (Note the ease!) The rest you already know.
Twilight author Stephenie Meyer had a dream one fortuitous night about a vampire and a human girl in love. The rest of that story I assume you know as well.
I have thought that, yes, these women were lucky to have been hit with their ideas, and then smart to have seized the opportunity to develop and write them. But now I’m bothered by that word lucky. Words and their meanings are important to me as an editor, and luck is a word often thoughtlessly used. I keep asking myself, what does luck really mean? In this case, does it mean there are chosen ones, Lucky Ones? That I am not lucky because I haven’t had a good story idea? That I have to wait to get lucky or that I might never? Suddenly, things don’t seem very fair. And since I was kid, fair has been a big deal to me.
To a great extent I do believe that we create our own reality, that our choices dictate our lives. Luck, then, doesn’t seem to have much to say, although I admit I slip and let feelings of victimization and unluckiness overwhelm me. But if we determine what happens, if life does not just happen to us, I suppose that would mean that authors like Rowling and Meyer came upon their ideas by maintaining a state of creativity, being observant, as good writers are, and focusing on how they’d rather their lives were. Neither of them imagined the fame that would result; the important thing is that they recognized opportunity and followed through.
Of course, then, this means I have to do the same thing in order to succeed. I have the basic requirements met: some writing talent that can be worked with and the extreme desire to write something really satisfying that is also publishable and marketable. I think that while not wanting to believe in luck because it seems so unfair, I have been believing in it anyway, waiting for it to strike, holding out for that bolt of inspiration to hit that I can act on, when all along I should instead be fostering the right conditions that would allow my brain to conceive something brilliant.
I don’t want to believe that writers who get published are lucky. As an editor, as someone who is aware of how difficult it is to not only be published but be successful, as someone who knows how much work goes into writing and the publishing and marketing process, I’d like to believe luck has nothing to do with any of it. As Thomas Jefferson said, “I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it.” Even the author who is accidentally discovered when an agent happens to walk into her workplace and she happens to mention the novel she’s working on and the agent happens to be the kind sort who says, well, send it to my office and I’ll have a look, and then he loves it and she gets published—even she is not lucky. It’s something else. It must be.
Yet part of me still struggles with the idea. What of the girl who gets discovered while shopping at the mall and becomes a supermodel? Sure, she had to have the material to work with first, as did the author who met the agent at her work, and it might have been as a result of healthy eating and regular exercise—or smoking a gazillion cigs and drinking litres of coffee and getting no exercise, whatever—but what of the girl who was simply born with good genes? Luck seems to be rearing its smug head right about now.
The thing is, I need to believe I’m in control, even if that means (much) more work. As much as I would love to be lucky, I can’t stand the thought of thinking I might not be so fortunate. My idea might not come upon me while I sleep and I might not be visited by a character while riding the train. I might not be in the right place at the right time. Instead, I have to work hard at not only the writing but also the development of an idea. Just in case.
So I conclude, while damning myself for it because now it means I have to follow through and work at not writing twaddle, there can’t be any such thing as luck. Luck just isn’t fair. As Seneca said long ago, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”
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Luck suggest randomness. Randomness sounds a lot like chaos.
Does believing in luck equate to believing in the chaos theory?
Something to think about
Personally I don’t subscribe to the chaos theory.
BTW – I think Thomas Edison would agree with you…
“I never did anything by accident, nor did any of my inventions come by accident; they came by work. “
Steph, don’t you know we all write our own destinies? Luck has nothing to do with it. It’s recognizing an opportunity when it happens and grabbing it with both hands.
Opportunities happen everyday. You just have to keep your eyes open.
Colin: I’d have to read a lot more about the chaos theory because all I know is the flutter of a butterfly’s wings…and that I agree with. But I did conclude that it will take work, not luck, for me as a writer.
Deb: I agree! But I was going past that, actually lamenting that I can’t seem to find opportunity. Had I an excellent idea, you can bet your life I’d run with it! It’s creating that idea I’m having trouble with. In this case, I wish for a bit of luck!
As a person with a blog for the primary purpose of having a place to scribble down tidbits from my nigh-unending stream of ideas I suppose my perspective on this is going to be a bit different.
Luck. To not believe in luck or chance is like disbelieving in variables and accidents. Luck can be both good and bad. Don’t forget the person who got blindsided by a drunk driver on their way home had bad luck… Unless you believe that they didn’t work hard enough at not being blindsided by the drunk driver, that they did not have enough preparation or energy invested in avoiding it. Also, opportunity was there when that agent walked into that receptionist’s office and she mentioned she had a novel, but didn’t she have to happen to hold the skill sets to write something he loved?
On the other hand, to believe in luck alone is like believing in chaos. Does it matter what you do in life? Of course not if luck is going to serve up your next course. Now, providing yourself the skills and talents to work toward your goal, that helps to feed opportunity so that when the right person or set of ears does come along you’ve got the foundations of what they’re looking for.
Do we make our own luck? Well, it’s certainly not out of our hands, but I think it would be foolish to believe that luck plays no role in life. I suppose the key comes down to what we do with the luck we are given. Of course at this point I suppose I’ve brought ‘luck’ in my mind down to a definition only slightly variant from ‘circumstances’, but to me that’s what luck is. Luck is circumstance that we perceive in a favorable or unfortunate light.
Do we foster an atmosphere that caters to our dreams so we can build upon it? Make an investment in the tools we need to exercise our talents or skills? Or maybe reach out to people we know can help get us where we’re going. Sometimes all the details fall into place; other times, you have to bring them together.
My two cents.
@steph – I don’t think the butterfly analogy really explains the idea of chaos theory. If the flap of a butterfly’s wings can cause a tornado on the other side of the earth, that sounds more like cause and effect.
Chaos suggests randomness. That it doesn’t matter what you do, the results are never predictable.
Considering that there are many formulas that create predictable results in this world, it causes me to believe that this world is not chaotic.
@ Kat – But then, how do you deal with the drunk driver analogy. Perhaps that’s related to karma? I’m not totally sure, but I’m leaning toward believing in karma.
Karma would help explain a lot of “unexplainable” things if you don’t believe in chaos.
Karma would also help explain “luck” within an orderly Universe that has laws that govern its’ operation. Cause and effect.
Create the right causes for luck and you have a formula for creating positive experiences in your life.
@Colin –
Alright, let me take a moment to venture from the thoughtful and creative side of my brain to the logcial side I call upon in my everyday work as a programmer (and don’t get me started on how much I’ve found I dislike this job).
“Considering that there are many formulas that create predictable results in this world…”
You know how in video games there’s “random encounters” and how other applications meant for entertainment (usually) provide a means to draw a “random” card or figure? A programmer CANNOT seed a random number properly. There is no random in computer logic. The closest we can get is refining an algorithm that draws a number from a highly complicated sequence based on something like.. say.. time. So if I were playing a well-programmed game I could draw a “random” card now and it would be something that would be a unique occurrence since I can’t draw the same card from the same algorithm two seconds later when the timestamp has changed. However… It’s still not truly random. The algorithm runs against a time stamp incremented by seconds and the card produced comes from the same position in the queue as in accordance with said algorithm. Mindboggling and complex? Perhaps so.
Sounds to me like that’s how you are sort of perceiving life judging by, “…it causes me to believe that this world is not chaotic.”
But how can you (and I’m asking myself this as much as I’m asking you) believe it’s not chaotic? Perhaps we make the chaos in it, but it’s really hard for me to think that if someone sat there and did the same thing over and over again from the start of time until the end of eternity there would never be a variance in the results… I mean, if it’s really static then in the future our society is going to be a lot worse than even movies like Gattaca suggest.
And as far as Karma goes? I lean toward believing in it too. Probably because I like to believe that ‘bad’ people ‘get theirs’ in the end, but moreso that ‘good’ people are rewarded for their sacrifices and efforts. >.> Now, does that make much logical sense? Only if you consider how one person might impact another’s life and thus bring a full cycle..
Person A compliments Person B who compliments person C, etc. … who compliments Person A which brightens their day. And the reverse of course.
But you still have to accept that somewhere down the line the ripple effect would reach Person A. Take it on faith? Perhaps. Or maybe I’m overanalyzing.
I do believe, however, that we can create the circumstances to nurture luck as much as we can create the circumstances to nurture creativity.
@Kat
Interesting analogy to the computer program.
However, I still believe the same parameters will always generate the same results.
Let me explain…
The only way that the results can change is if one of the parameters change within the formula.
Based on the programming logic you noted above, the parameters change each time to generate a ‘random’ event. Such as “if X then Y” vs. “If Z then W” at a different time stamp. By changing the circumstances based on a time stamp, you’ve in effect changed the formula. However, if you were to continually pick the same time stamp, you would continually generate the same result.
Life is similar. Performing the same task over and over again will continue to generate the same results until one of the parameters change. Time can change circumstances (parameters), which in turn can change the results. The formula has in effect been changed.
It’s not random, it’s just a change in the formula.
@Colin
That was actually kind of my point with the programming example. But.. I hate to think life is predetermined by a formula whether or not we control it so I have trouble accepting the same logic that proves to me a programmer can’t make a truly ‘random’ event occur when it comes to living.
I guess this is where the trouble in being both highly logical and highly creative lies. On one hand I believe what I know, on the other I desperately wish to believe something completely different.
I’d cite thought patterns, but they’re not really random either, no matter how nonsensical one person’s thought patterns might seem to another. Something to ponder at the very least. I think I’m done hijacking Steph’s blog for now, but maybe I’ll come back to this one later if I come up with a good ‘random’ example.
@Kat
I’m not saying that life is predetermined. We all have free will – the ability to make choices. If we make different choices and try different approaches, our results will change because we’ve changed the formula.
In theory, we have the ability to create the life we wish if we can only figure out and apply the correct formula.
Considering something to be pre-determined is fatalistic. If you believe in fate, then there isn’t any reason to ever put any effort into anything. Why bother if we’re fated to be this or that?
Hmmm, this discussion is actually helping me flesh out my world view…
Thanks Kat!
@Colin
No problem. I love things like this. Things I consider to be “thinking” discussions. =)
And I really didn’t express myself clearly enough on my last, by life being predetermined I hadn’t even begun to think of life in the grand scheme of things.. Just.. To take the principals of programming having no chaos or random element and applying it to every mundane thing in your living life.
X person consumes Y amount of alcohol and hits Z person.
Nevermind the other forty billion things that would go into the formula to determine this occurence. Is that karma? Or is it chance?
Was it fate that X consumed Y drink and Z happened to be at the spot where X missed the red light at the exact time X did so?
You get where that’s going right? Could not have been simple, dumb, foul luck?
I suppose I may never know. More optimistically, perhaps I’ll know when my perspective changes in a more profound way.
Thanks again for the thinking conversation. I’m off to take my late lunch… Three hours late to be precise.
Now I wonder… as far as being so late to lunch: Chance, fate, or formula?
@Kat
Let me leave you with another question to ponder then…
Does the concept of chaos not suggest total randomness? Can the universe possibly be both chaotic and orderly at the same time?
I personally don’t think the two can co-exist.
@Colin
Alright. I’ve actually been thinking along these lines recently. I am the co-creator of a campaign setting. One of the things the other creator recently asked me to do was create two deities… The deity of Fate and the deity of Chance.
Could you be asked to make two more opposing entities? So I designed a Goddess of Fate… She was cold, calculating, and distanced originally, but as my thoughts rolled over the concept.. How to encompass a deity of Fate.. Well… She would know what was coming, she would ensure what was intended to pass actually passed. So Fate has a spider named Revven who maintains the Eternal Web, wherein all things reside. The souls of people, the destinies of items, the future errors and triumphs of whole civilizations.. It’s all stuck in the web.
Meanwhile… I had to make a deity of Chance. Now I figured a ‘Lady Luck’ would be appropriate. She’s dressed in red with a carefree attitude. Tips the scales of battles, chance, and destiny on a whim without a care. The two completely oppose one another.
Can there be order to chaos? We can conceptualize such… Can there be chaos to order? Have you seen a justice system at work (particularly ours (American))? =p
I don’t know. I think if logic and emotion can coexist than surely chaos and order can as well…
We are the creators of our own destinies…
To a point.
There are some things that we cannot do, no matter how hard we try.
For instance, though I know many writers (including myself!) who have great stories to tell, we all cannot be JK Rowling.
Why is that? Well, could we have a market of billionaires buying books from each other? No.
Ms. Rowling had a great idea. Many of us do – check.
Ms. Rowling worked very hard. Many of us do – check.
Ms. Rowling had the *right* great idea and worked hard at the *right* time and was fortunate enough that the *right* person saw her work and put it in front of the *right* person.
That’s called being fortunate, or as some would say, lucky.
She was fortunate enough (still, even though her life was hard) to live in a country with fairly good social systems.
Had she lived in (insert name of grim third world country), we would not know her name, in all likelihood.
So…
Take your great idea.
Work very hard at it.
And perhaps you will be fortunate enough to be the next JK Rowling.
In the mean time, a good idea and hard work does allow us to make a reasonable living where many of us reside.
–
I am reminded by an old friend and co-worker of mine, from eons ago.
His name was Yassis.
Yassis used to say, “I do not believe that bad things can happen to good people.”
He was a happy, cheery fellow. He was a good person.
And then one day, his wife left him, and took their kids back to India with her.
I never heard him say that again.
–
When we lost our daughter in 2001, our minister said something that I thought made a lot of sense.
Of course, all kinds of people were saying stuff like, “She wasn’t meant to be”, or “She’s with God now”, “She’s in a better place”, etc.
Our minister said, “Life is not fair or unfair, life just is – sometimes shitty things happen to really nice people, for no reason at all. God didn’t make this happen to you, but if you want to hate someone, hate Him. He can take it.”
That was one person of the cloth who “got it”, in my opinion.
(Oh, by the way, her husband left her too, about a year later.)
Now I hope I didn’t depress everyone!
Basically, stuff happens, it is how we react that makes the difference, and being prepared for what comes our way as much as possible is often critical for success.
–
Bill Gates on luck:
Q. What kind of role did fate or luck play in your success?
Bill Gates
A. I get a lot of questions about my success, so I’ll answer several and then reflect on the importance of mistakes, the flip side of success.
Luck played an immense role. Some of it came after I entered the business world, but my lucky streak started much earlier than that.
I was fortunate to have family and teachers who encouraged me. Children often thrive when they get that kind of attention.
I was incredibly lucky to become boyhood friends with Paul Allen, whose insights proved crucial to the success of the company we founded together. Without Paul, there would have been no Microsoft.
Our timing in setting up the first software company aimed at personal computers was essential to our success. The timing wasn’t entirely luck, but without great luck it couldn’t have happened.
The importance of being born at the right time is a point I make in the revised edition of my book, The Road Ahead:
“My friend Warren Buffett, who’s often called the world’s greatest investor, talks about how grateful he is to live at a time when his particular talents are valuable.
“Warren says if he’d been born a few thousand years ago, he’d probably have been some animal’s lunch. But he was born into an age that has a stock market and rewards Warren for his unique understanding of the market.
“Football stars should feel grateful too, Warren says. ‘There just happens to be a game,’ he says, ‘where it turns out that a guy who can kick a ball with a funny shape through goal posts a fair percentage of the time can make millions of dollars a year.’ ”
Like Warren and today’s football stars, I was born at the right place and time.
When you’re lucky and successful, it’s important not to get complacent. Luck can turn sour, and customers demand a lot of the people and companies they make successful. Big mistakes are rarely tolerated. I hope to remain successful, but there are no guarantees.
Holy crap, you guys went to town! I’ll have to read and respond to these later, and it could be a while. But thank you for carrying on the conversation without me! I will respond.
@Steph
Haha, much as I tried to resist making your comment section scroll anymore, I couldn’t. >.> The conversation was too fun (much thanks, Colin). In any event, take your time responding, Silly. ‘Tis the holiday season after all!
Steph,
I tell my kids this all the time and they hate it. They cover their ears and don’t want to hear it. THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS FAIR.
There just isn’t. It isn’t a reality. I personally believe that many of the depressions out in the world right now are because somewhere we sold our kids a bill of goods by making them believe in this illusionary concept of fairness.
It doesn’t exist. The only tangible thing that does exist is what you can do with the choices you have. The power you have to make the best of the options in front of you and to expand on them. Breathe life and imagination into them.
Great ideas are happening every moment. They happen in the grocery store, in the car, in the shower, in the tub…( I personally believe that water is an amazing conduit for great ideas) IN FACT…I tell our team at Sirius all the time…there is no such thing as a bad idea..just unexplored ideas.If it doesn’t work in its current form then ask…what if? and watch where the idea can go. There is no ceiling on any idea if we keep on listening to it talk.
My attitude is that in life, shit happens. Randomly. We have no control over that. .
But we CAN control how we deal with it…so when life throws us a curve-ball, it’s up to us to decide how to handle it.
But luck also has a lot to do with people’s success. How often do we hear that cliche: “It’s about being in the right place at the right time.”. There’s some truth to that.
Maybe there’s another J.K. Rowling out there, with a book just waiting to come out. But she lives in Sudan or Afghanistan…and there’s no way it’s ever going to happen.
Or take someone like me, for example. An English-speaking white male, raised in Canada with middle-class parents who were able to send me to university. Holy crap…when I realize it..that’s already HUGE advantage over most of the planet. And I didn’t earn it. I was born into it.
Like Wendi says, life’s not fair. Yes, it’s not not fair that I have that advantage. But I do have that advantage, that’s what Life dealt me.
But then, it’s up to me to decide how to put it to good use, and not squander it.
Holy moly, I’m so sorry I haven’t been following this! Now I’m behind. My parents are here from Malta so I’m not on very much at all, and I’m also back to work till the 24th, but anyway.
This is such a difficult discussion! I’ve been thinking about it. On one hand, I don’t think I believe that shit happens and life just isn’t fair and that we have no control over that. I believe that everything happens purposefully, good or bad. At the same time, people losing their homes to earthquakes and tsunamis, or their loved ones to tragedy, or their jobs because of “right-sizing”…well, that is really shitty and unfair in the sense that they didn’t bring that on themselves and look what they got.
So are our definitions of unfair and fair skewed or do we know what those words really mean in this context? If we create our own reality, in the end, then I guess what results from our emotional, intellectual, and physical efforts is quite fair. There are those who don’t seem to get ahead despite their earnest efforts, but that has been explained with emotional and mental blocks they have and it’s been proven they can change their circumstances if they can get rid of these blocks. And if everything happens for a reason, there is perhaps also timing that comes into it. Everything happens for a reason and at the time in our lives when we need to either learn something or be rewarded.
I am just too uncomfortable thinking that there isn’t some force, whether God, the universe as a whole, or whatever, in control or that things are simply random (Friar, as a science nerd, I’m kind of surprised you said that, since I thought the universe was quite ordered and formulaic) and that cause and effect isn’t…in effect, I guess, all the time.
As has been suggested earlier by someone, it’s all about how we interpret our circumstances, I guess, me included, of course. I can think something isn’t fair, as I often do, or I can choose to see it as a chance to alter my approach. I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to see the challenge rather than the obstacle. Or I can not judge the situation at all, see only the facts and do something about them.
There are those, yes, who are born into disadvantaged situations (by our standards, or by general consensus), and things are in the end up to you, whatever your situation. You can act or not and you can choose how you do this. A poor person, or an uneducated person, for example, can change their circumstances. There are too many “impossible” stories that prove we can do *amazing* things to change our reality. That author in Afghanistan Friar mentioned is quite able to be published if he or she submits to the right place. If they want to do it badly enough, they will find a way, perhaps, as Yasmina Khadra has, using a pseudonym. I have several books that are bestsellers written by Middle Eastern, even oppressed authors (in fact, publishing them has been a big trend for a while now). The budding author just has to write the right stuff and do what it takes to be successful.
Gandalf said, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us,” and I agree with that, as I think Friar does. In that, we also have to decide how to interpret our circumstances, perhaps even forgoing the judging of them, as I said, whether or not they’re good or bad, just acknowledging them and then doing something about them. I think fair and unfair come from our tendency to judge stuff, and too often the words trap us into thinking negatively. Now that I think of that, I wonder what Buddhists think about fair and unfair?
Does any of this make sense? My thoughts are quite disorganized and I’m unsure of them.
@Steph
They make sense to me. I had a good little giggle over the “Gandalf said” bit. Something about it struck me as so appropriate coming from you where others might write, “Jesus said” or “The Bible Says” or “As popularly demonstrated by Murphy’s Law”. Fitting, yes. =)
In any event, I can see what you’re getting at. Ultimately this whole chain of comments reminds me that reality is each person’s to create. What we believe, what we aspire to, what standards we hold ourselves to, and what efforts we’re willing to put forth all fall into the scope of that reality we decide to create.
I for one rather enjoy my little reality. Sure, I work in a tedious job, but I’m making visible progress toward life dreams. I made the decision to start pursuing them, and now I’m seeing results. Cause and effect? Perhaps. Luck factor? Well, it might have been God’s will, or just my time, or maybe karma, but I sure feel ‘lucky’ of late.
Happy Holidays, Lady. To your parents too.
Happy Holidays to everyone else as well.