Everyday Meaning

I was talking to a friend about the Meaning Of It All, as I am wont to do, when the subject of pleasure came up. She realized she had spent much of her life seeking her own safety, which brought her no pleasure at all. “What about you?” she asked. “All pleasure,” I answered. This is true, though that search often led me astray, sometimes through the usual addictions, but also through the misguided belief that it could be found in achievement’s glittery spotlight. Nonetheless, I stand by my guiding principle for the simple reason that there is not one moment in my life when I don’t want to feel good.

There’s a book to be written about how this principle is in constant and unerring operation across the entire breadth of human experience, from politics to science to war to religion to the arts, but I’m not going to write it, at least not just yet. For the time being it serves as the law by which I live. Whenever I make a choice that leaves me feeling a little better than before I made it, I am discovering yet another small facet of life’s meaning. I don’t usually think that at the time, but it’s true just the same.

It's worth remembering if you’re a writer. I know you don’t see yourself as solving life’s great mysteries as you pen your latest YA paranormal romance, but you are. You like writing it. The only way you know if your story is heading in the right direction is how it feels when you lay down the next and the next and the next sentence. It’s all a feeling, and the better the feeling the better the writing. That’s the secret.

What’s more, you may dream of the monetary reward your work will bring you, and that is fine. Getting paid for what we love to do is fabulous. But the real reward will be largely unseen by you: namely, the enjoyment your readers receive as they sink into the story you’ve shared. It’s such an everyday transaction that, while nice, can seem as unremarkable as breathing. Yet literally none of us can live without the latter, and if you know nothing else, it’s that you wouldn’t want to live if there were no pleasure to be found tomorrow, whether in books, conversations, gardens, or simply asking yourself what you’d like to do next.

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

Everyone Has What It Takes: A Writer’s Guide to the End of Self-Doubt
You can find William at: williamkenower.com