This week, I had the chance to meet with a student who was looking for a hobby. God bless her, she settled on writing and came to me for advice on how to begin. I think that most all teachers are thrilled when students come to their offices to chat. Even more so when the chats are not expressly about assignments. Humans growing with humans. That’s kind of what it’s all about.
The student is a very high achiever and has begun to realize that she has been stressing herself out about grades and that the pace is not sustainable. A friend told her that he talks such things through with me frequently and that she should reach out about her desire to pursue writing as a creative outlet for herself.
Of course I was enthusiastic about her new calling and we talked some strategy and I lent her Bird By Bird.
Something about this conversation was clarifying for me, personally, and I’ve been thinking about our discussion all day.
Some Dire Conclusions, Some Hopeful Remedies
At some fundamental level, I fear that the system of education we’ve designed has been an abject moral disaster.
Even our brightest students tend to lose the confidence to be creative, because the system we’ve invented has prioritized being right. This has done more than “sap the fun out of learning.” It has created generations of people who are afraid to try new things because they don’t want to do something wrong. My student wanted to know, more than anything, how to start writing. As it, “what is the correct formula for me to apply?” I was paralyzed by the question, because it made no sense to me. Writing (and most things, in fact) does not follow formulas. Writing is a relief from formulas. You just need to do it and being “right” isn’t even a concept when you’re writing. If you want to show it to other people later, well that’s where some experience and advice and craft will come in. But how does one begin to write except just doing it?
In our conversation, she shared that she wakes up early every day to work out. “Well,” I said. “Then this is easy.” I told her that she already understands the methodical grind of discipline, so just add 30 minutes to that routine and write. And (magic!) she will have begun writing. I challenged her to spend the rest of Winter Break doing this every day and promised to look at anything she’d like me to look at in the Spring.
New Year, New You
But what a terrible indictment of the systems we’ve designed to help people learn. How dependent we are on the systems of evaluation and professional correctness. How much of our self-worth is tied up to pleasing people ahead of us in such Satanic systems.
First, let me just say that this is why I resist “evaluation” when I engage with art here. I don’t care what degree a person has or what professional experience they accumulated: engaging with creative works primarily on the basis of quality is every bit as flimsy as this horrid system that (in effect) locates personal value in the grades one earns. (Italics added for snarky emphasis).
But second, since this is my last post of the calendar year, let me use it to encourage you to be a rebel. Find ways to stop locating your value in other people’s opinions of you and your so-called “quality.”
Think about dopamine.
The reason social media is so wretched is that it has moved the goalposts of our self-worth. It’s trained us to look for our dopamine hit in the act of someone “liking” our posts or in the number of shares the things we’ve written get or whatever is your version of this monstrous scam.
Let’s all try (and it’s a terribly hard process) to squeeze our dopamine fixes from the work we’ve done instead. When I write something I like, let that satisfaction suffice. I would like it if others like what I do (and I appreciate whatever support I get), but let the reception of me and my work not become more important than the doing of the work.
In the race to our ends, let us not forget our means.
I took a beginners writing class recently for a credit (I seemed to miss I needed 9 credits of Bachelors of Arts courses for a history major) and had a similar experience where a class of Freshmen students asked what their thesis should be for a short fiction piece they were assigned to write. Another asked where the rubric was. To their dismay, our writing professor told them to be creative, and write as they please. Great stuff here, loved "Bird by Bird."
I am struck by your comment, "When I write something I like, let that satisfaction suffice." Does this extend beyond overcoming likes addiction and to not caring whether a piece is published or not? I think I have some similarities with your student (aside from being much older ;)) in that I assume there must be some formula I have missed. Many deny it is so (& I want to), but then the structure, style and topics of pieces that editors seem to accept is very similar, defying that denial. Curious.