The Stars

If you’re an artist, you quickly glean that your livelihood is derived in part from how many people like what you make. For a writer, you can perceive a direct line from your Amazon ranking, or spot on bestseller lists, or the number and quality of reviews you receive, to the zeros in your bank account. The more people who know about you, talk about you, follow you, read you, or recommend you the better. Unless it infringes on your privacy (an extreme rarity for writers), there is absolutely no natural downside to greater popularity.

Except, of course, for the temptation to base your very value on that popularity. After all, a value is often a number, and if I spend a lot of time looking at my numbers, and then at other people’s numbers, and then dreaming about how my numbers should be more like their numbers or maybe noticing how my numbers are better than someone else’s numbers . . . well, at the end of the day I can end up feeling like a number. There’s absolutely no pleasure in this, even if I think that number is “1”. Believe that, care about that, and you’ll want to kill anyone who tries to take it from you.

Which is why artists have to learn to forget about their numbers, forget about the reviews and the rankings, forget how much other people have been paid or how many books they’ve sold, and just do their work. The value is always in the work itself, in the discovery, in the connection to that which allows us to do the work. It’s not always easy to remember this; we’re human, we have egos, and we have eyes and ears that can see and hear what others are saying about us or our neighbors – but remember it we must. To forget it, is to forget ourselves, forget why ever wanted to do the work in the first place.

I think about this when I hear people complaining about social media. Suddenly, the whole world seems obsessed with likes and clicks and follows. How shallow, how trivial, how vain and self-absorbed. Though maybe all that’s happened is suddenly a challenge that was reserved for the few is being experienced by many. Anyone can be a mini-celebrity of a sorts. I believe this is a good thing. Let everyone use the spotlight of popularity to learn where their value lies, let everyone learn they’re a star whether they see their own light shining or not.

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

Fearless Writing: How to Create Boldly and Write With Confidence.
You can find William at: williamkenower.com