Why We Write: The Third Thing
By John Vorhaus | June 25, 2016 |
My nephew turned twenty-one last night, so I did the avuncular thing and took him out for his first legal beer. The talk turned, over beers, as talk will turn over beers, to “the meaning of life and the isness of it all.” He asked me why I write, and, in true Socratic fashion I tossed the question back to him. “Why do you think I write?” I asked, and he told me the two reasons that immediately sprang to mind: money and ego.
We parsed these possibilities, and soon dismissed them as dead ends. If I were in it for the money, we reasoned, there were many other careers I could choose that would draw a more reliable and ready earn. The writer’s path, on the face of it, is just a lousy longshot choice if all you want is walking green.
Ego, then? Ego? The soul-satisfying sense of everyone looking at me in admiration and deep awe? That’s a great goal if you’re [insert famous writer’s name here.] However, if you’re a low- to mid-list author like me, the search for ego gratification through writing is, like the search for fat paychecks, kind of a dry well. More often than not, it’s going to go the other way. The world will largely ignore, or resoundingly reject, my written words, and then the only thing my ego gets is the grey, dismaying sense of, “Ouch, my feelings.” No fun. And no path that a sensible person might choose.
At this point, I think, my nephew began to become dismayed – sad for his “silly Uncle John,” who has never successfully masqueraded as a sensible person but could at least be counted on to make choices in his own self-interest. If the money wasn’t there, and the ego strokes weren’t there, what could possibly be worth banging my head against the page for day after week after month after year? Was my career, in the end, not the very definition of insanity – doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results?
That’s when I hit him with the third thing – the one thing that’s kept me coming back to words on the page from the very start to these very words here. What’s the third thing? In a word: legacy. I write not for money or for ego, but to build, and build upon, my legacy as a person having a meaningful life experience and, through communication of my discoveries, contributing to the meaningful life experience of others.
By this point, we’re well into our second or third pints, and the world is getting kind of swirly. He asks me, rightly, what makes me think that my writing will lead to legacy any more surely that it will lead to money or fame. The answer I give him is, it already has. Thanks to my twenty-year-old book (and now modest modern classic) The Comic Toolbox, and thanks to the test of time that it’s already stood, I can be at least reasonably certain that someone, somewhere will be exposed to my thoughts and words long after I’m dead, buried and gone.
“That’s my bandwidth,” I explained, “my carrier wave. That book, if no others, will beam All Thoughts Vorhausian (or at least Some Thoughts Vorhausian) into the dim and distant future.” With my carrier wave thus established, I can now focus on how to modulate that frequency. Sometimes I have modulated with self-indulgence (Banana Pants Crazy), sometimes with weirdness (A Million Random Words) and sometimes with grandiloquent pretension (How To Live Life). In all cases, I have made my writing choices secure in the knowledge that, thanks to the venerable Toolbox, folks will continue to give my work a look-see.
But that’s just the practical fact of legacy – it tells us that legacy exists. It doesn’t tell us what legacy is, nor why we should care to advance it. To explain this part of the equation to my (now heavy-lidded) nephew, I had to turn to religion – the simple and plain, hand-hewn religion that I follow, which, in a nutshell, “seeks a rational grounding for faith.” According to my understanding of this stuff, I am a steward of my DNA, a custodian of my gift of life. Whether that gift comes from God or from my sneaky, selfish genes is not a question I need to concern myself with. I have received the gift; the question is, what shall I do with it? What sort of steward shall I be?
And here’s where the idea of legacy comes full circle. To be a good and worthy steward of my DNA, I reckon, all I have to do is use my human powers to uplift the human condition. If I do that according to my vision and to the best of my ability, then questions both of ego and money fall away. When I write, I am building my legacy (ephemeral and uncertain though it may be). By building my legacy as vigorously and consciously as I might, I’m manifesting good stewardship. By manifesting good stewardship, I’m serving my DNA. And I am content.
I am content. My words reach hundreds, not thousands or millions. My paychecks have three figures, not four, five or six. But all the words I write – if I choose them with awareness and care – add to my understanding of what life is all about, and add my understanding to the sum of everyone’s. Thanks to The Comic Toolbox, I have my carrier wave, my means of sending my thoughts into tomorrow. Thanks to my notion of good stewardship, I choose thoughts worth sending. I do this for no better reason, and seeking no greater satisfaction, than the creation and evolution of my legacy as I understand it.
Did we close the bar last night? No. My nephew is yet young; he’ll have plenty of time to learn how to close a bar on his own. But we did have a frank and meaningful exchange of views, and guess what? I was advancing my legacy there, too, for I helped this impressionable lad see that there’s more to a career choice than money or ego. There’s legacy. It’s a fuzzy, ephemeral thing, but it’s a light in the darkness for me. Money is a dead end. Ego is a trap. But legacy is worth writing for and striving for. It’s the reason – and reason enough – why I write.
How about you? When impressionable young relatives ask you why you write, what answer do you give? Does it satisfy them? Does it satisfy you?
[coffee]
John Vorhaus has written seven novels, including Lucy in the Sky, The California Roll, The Albuquerque Turkey and The Texas Twist, plus the Killer Poker series and (with Annie Duke) Decide to Play Great Poker. His books on writing include The Comic Toolbox, How to Write Good and Creativity Rules!
I love this, John. You gave your nephew gold. Thanks for sharing.
I think your ideas on why one writes are most interesting. I am particularly convinced by the idea of discovery and communications. Writing is about discovery and when one discover s something new the immediate inclination is to say to someone else – Look, see what I have found. Your ideas on legacy and stewardship are not ones I have contemplated but I will now. Thank you for your insightful and stimulating observations.
What a lovely post, John. I’ve had the good fortune to be with many children, not just my own, and they ask the important questions. Why? In the end, it boils down to GIFT, not just one you give to yourself, but those who read your words. It’s the surest way I know to break the space/time continuum.
I love this letter JPII wrote to artists. He opens with: “To all who are passionately dedicated to the search for new “epiphanies” of beauty so that through their creative work as artists they may offer these as gifts to the world.” And in the section for obligation writes “Those who perceive in themselves… the artistic vocation as poet, writer, sculptor, painter, musician, and actor feel at the same time an obligation not to waste this talent but to develop it, in order to put it to service of their neighbour and the humanity as a whole.”
Really enjoyed this, John!
Me, too, John. Read your words. Smiled. Nodded. :)
Hi John. Thanks for your heartfelt, personal reflection on what lies behind what is for most of us a very impractical occupation, or preoccupation. Your nephew is a lucky guy to have you in his corner.
You think in terms of legacy, and connect it with the work you are (I think) most proud of. I believe I understand you on this perfectly.
For me, though, the driving force is different. From early childhood to the present, there’s been one characteristic, or attribute, or kink that stood out: a preoccupation with words and how to use them.
And that’s really about it. I can’t dance, I can’t fix things (or, according to my wife, summon up the will to learn); can’t ski, can’t hit a golf ball anywhere near the fairway, etc.
But I have a modest ability to string words together. And when I sense myself doing this well, it’s a source of great pleasure, even of a sense of mastery.
It’s gratifying to share what I write with others. In fact, that’s perhaps the single most important reason I’m so glad to have found a welcome forum for writers called Writer Unboxed.
But in terms of envisioning a legacy based on my work, if I ever held such a notion, I don’t anymore. Too many factors unrelated to what I write are part of the equation. But the words themselves, and doing my best to make them work together–that remains as solid as ever.
It’s why I self-publish books that have little or no chance of commercial success. Not to publish would be, somehow, cowardly. Only by publishing what I’ve written can I take responsibility for the one thing I like to think I’m good at.
Thanks again for your post.
“But I have a modest ability to string words together. And when I sense myself doing this well, it’s a source of great pleasure, even of a sense of mastery. It’s gratifying to share what I write with others.”
Indeed. And the pleasure mutual.
What Vijaya said.
Thanks, I enjoyed it too. I sometimes read rather obscure 19th-century novels, and I often think about how strange it is that this particular unknown book found its way to me. That’s a hopeful thing.
Legacy has been driving me since word one. I know it, and don’t say much about it because, well, one doesn’t blow one’s own horn.
It is better is someone else does it. Like John Kennedy Toole’s mother (A Confederacy of Dunces). Or, it used to be, the blessing of traditional publishing plus a few awards.
But Legacy, and having a story you want to tell, and tell well, is what keeps you writing when it is very hard, when there is so much to learn, and when you despair of doing it.
“…to build, and build upon, my legacy as a person having a meaningful life experience and, through communication of my discoveries, contributing to the meaningful life experience of others.”
So much yes. Thanks.
Legacy is something that drives me that I rarely admit to myself. Writers in general don’t admit this to themselves.
But I’ve been questioning myself a lot lately. Since the moment I took up pen and paper (and then keyboard) I’ve been focused on fiction. But the fact is, of all the books I personally read, probably half of one percent are fiction, the rest are non-fiction.
And there are some things going on around me that bother me a lot–& I’m wondering if I can leave a legacy by writing about those things and trying to change the complacency that is so rampant in those situations.
But then that makes me think of the other aspect I don’t feel you can really separate from legacy–ego. Is it just ego to think you can try and impact the world for better through the written word (or otherwise)?
It doesn’t help that in society you will by turns be vilified for having the nerve to write about a touchy subject or alternately praised depending on the fickleness of the moment.
But in the end I don’t want to spend tens of thousands of hours of writing just to look at it on my virtual shelf. Sure, I want to have extra income, no matter how small that might be. But I want people to be better off than they were before they read the book.
Maybe I’m just full of gall for thinking so. Or maybe I just need to do it.
Hi John,
I loved this post and can completely relate to the things you said. I especially liked, ” I do this for no better reason, and seeking no greater satisfaction, than the creation and evolution of my legacy as I understand it.” In fact, I wrote about this very thing on my blog. If you want you can check it out here, https://cowpasturechronicles.com/2015/07/27/why-i-write/.
Thanks so much for sharing this post with us.
@sheilamgood at Cow Pasture Chronicles
Legacy, yes. You say it so well. According to my understanding of this stuff, I am a steward of my DNA, a custodian of my gift of life. Whether that gift comes from God or from my sneaky, selfish genes is not a question I need to concern myself with. I have received the gift; the question is, what shall I do with it? What sort of steward shall I be?
We should all ask this question and let it guide us every day.
As Steinbeck is quoted to have said, I write to give the voiceless a voice.
But to build a legacy sounds like a darn good reason to me.
I’ve joked that I write because it’s a socially acceptable way to make myself the center of attention. But you’re right, it comes down to legacy. For me that can simply be that I made one person laugh or cry, not necessarily that my words will be read in 20 years (much as I would love that.) I know I’ve made people both laugh and cry because they’ve done it in front of me. If I can do that again, it’s all worthwhile.
Ha-ha, I’m late to the post but I was wandering on Writer Unboxed reading old threads and started reading this without looking at the author.
When I got to your name I laughed because sitting directly to my left, a mere two inches away from my hand is The Comic Toolbox.
Great Book. Thanks!