The Good in the World

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I had just finished teaching a class at a writer’s conference in Pasadena two years ago, and was enjoying the post-workshop huddle were students gather round to ask the questions they hadn’t had the chance to ask during the class. I had been teaching about the three narrative arcs in every story, but I was really teaching about writing fearlessly, about believing in the value of the story you’re telling before anyone else has told you it’s valuable. I can’t teach this often enough because I myself can’t be reminded of it often enough.

A woman appeared in this friendly, curious scrum. She was eyeing me seriously and patiently, waiting for the fellow in front of her to finish his question. When he was done, she stepped forward and extended her hand. “I just wanted to thank you for Fearless Writing,” she said, referencing the book I had published that spring. “It was just what I needed.”

“Oh! You’re most welcome.”

“No,” she said, with that same serious expression. “You have to understand. I really needed.”

“I see,” I said. “Well, I’m glad I wrote it then.”

That was the end of our exchange. I never learned exactly why it had been so helpful to her, but I didn’t need to. I wrote it fully aware of the frightful, abysmally dark holes writers can hurl themselves into, having been down there often enough myself. I never tire of hearing that something I wrote or said helped someone climb their way back to the light.

Though it struck me how rare it was to hear from a reader in this way, let alone meet one in person. Until I started interviewing writers for Author and for my podcast, I had never met sent a letter to a single writer, no matter how much their work meant to me. Such is the nature of being an author. Whatever effect our work has on our readers, whatever good our books bring to the world will remain almost entirely unknown to us, flowering as it does in the distant and private recesses of another person’s heart. Yet that good is done just the same, whether we are ever thanked for our part in it or not.

I think of that woman sometimes when I hear people talking about wanting to change the world. Everyone wants to live in a better world, a kinder and more peaceful world, though we are not in agreement about how best to achieve that. Some people will march, some will write letters to their congressman, some will start non-profits, some will join think tanks, and some will just sit home and gripe about how nothing ever gets better.

I am convinced that most of the good we do, most of the change we help bring about, grows from seeds we forgot we ever planted – the advice we offered to a cashier, the time we reacted without anger to a fender-bender, forgiving a contractor for being late one day. Advice and patience and forgiveness gets passed on, just as our stories are read and recommended. Meanwhile all we know of that good is how we felt when we were patient or forgave, when we told the story our heart was wanting to hear.

If you like the ideas and perspectives expressed here, feel free to contact me about individual coaching and group workshops.

William KenowerWilliam Kenower, Writing, SpiritualityComment