Authoring Something Beautiful
The whole plan laid itself smoothly out before me, and I slept no more that night, but worked on it as busily as if mind and body had nothing to do with one another. Up early, and began to write it all over again. The fit was on strong, and for a fortnight I hardly ate, slept, or stirred, but wrote, wrote, like a thinking machine in full operation. When it was all rewritten without copying, I found it much improved, though I’d taken out ten chapters, and sacrificed many of my favorite things; but being resolved to make it simple, strong, and short, I let everything else go, and hoped the book would be better for it.
Louisa May Alcott — Life, Letters, and Journals (1889)
In Norman Maclean’s novella, A River Runs Through It, there is a passage that captures today’s reading well — “One of life’s quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful even if it is only a floating ash.”
That is perhaps the truest description of the magic trick you must perform in order to become self-reliant. To stand somewhat apart from yourself and let go in hopes that whatever it is you are engaged in would be better for it.
Most never learn how to pull this off but a pathway to unlocking this skill lies in simplicity.
In the movie adaptation of Maclean’s classic, there is a scene where a character describes how his father taught that the art of writing lay in simplicity. . . the son would present an essay and the father would approve and instruct his son to make it half as long. After several revisions along these lines, he approved again and said, good, now throw it away.
Challenge Question: What can you remove from your journey right now in order to make it better?
