Who do you hang out with, and how do you feel afterward?
This is a question I’ve been asking myself after I read a quote attributed to the late great Nipsey Hussle:
“If you look at the people in your circle and you don’t get inspired, you don’t have a circle. You have a cage.”
The people I hang out with are from various stages of my life, almost like a geologic cross-section. Beginning at birth with my siblings and coming right up to the now, relationships are always forming, rarely dissolving. Even those that dissolve leave a trace.
The diagram below represents my actual situation. (Image credit: Carson A. Richardson)
This situation applies to us all, I’m sure. We start in a family system with siblings, maybe a few cousins, and so on. Then there’s friends from grade school or high school. Work friends, neighborhood friends, sports friends, writing friends, jail friends…
In this issue of Pat’s Postcard, I suggest taking a good look at the situation and choosing more time with the people who energize you and people who are into making things themselves.
Let’s say you’re a writer. You might find that it’s good to be around other writers. I’m in a writing group now, led by the amazing Pam Bustin, and it’s inspiring to spend time with other people writing novels, no matter what phase of the process they’re in, what they’re struggling with, and how they feel about it.
The point is that they’re doing it. They’re struggling and they’re feeling. That takes courage.
If you’re hanging around naysayers and don’t-even-tryers, it’s easy to get sucked down into the quicksand of ‘why bother.’
Even those who mean well might believe that if you were a good writer you’d have been successful by now…But publishing doesn’t work that way, and the NYT best-seller list is not the only form of success.
Hanging around with people who are baffled about you and your goals, or who need to see success before they think you’re legitimate–that can be damaging. This is especially heinous for creative types, who can already struggle with the entropy encouraged by a life with multiple screens and fragmented views of “reality.”
For a writer, being around someone who cares about writing or reading or even the arts in general, and who supports and encourages your time-sucking “hobby,” helps normalize the whole pursuit.
Look at the Brontës! Here they are below–a sketch by Emily of Anne and Emily Brontë working at the dining-room table, 26 June 1837. (Image credit: thebrontes.net)
In fact, being around anyone who has their own goals or likes making stuff for the sake of making it can help you through life.
It takes time to learn every craft or art or sport, and people who are doing it recognize that. Even if they don’t write themselves, they know that if you’ve gotta put 1,000 hours into a book, that’s what you’ve gotta do.
That kind of acceptance can make the difference between your spending time with the book (or whatever your project is) and spending it doing easier and more companionable and less challenging things, like watching TV.
***
Sometimes we don’t have enough choice about who we spend most of our time with. You might go through periods where you work a lot in a soul-sucking corporate empire, or live in an unsympathetic milieu, or just have too many real-life responsibilities, maybe with people who take you for granted. If that’s the case, books and the Internet can give you some support. It’s not about striving or positive thinking or brainwashing yourself into productivity. It’s about creating an ecosystem for yourself that helps you do what you want to do.
Which brings us back to Nipsey Hussle. He’s no longer in the world. But thanks to the magic of YouTube, here’s a clip compilation of him talking about doing his thing.
Cheers,
Pat
da dun da dun da dun …..I’m feeling good about my impending book launch! Might as well, amirite?
According to me, there will be a series of events. Expect your personal invitation to the ones I think you’d like. Or the virtual ones, if you’re nowhere near me.
In the meantime, everyone’s invited to this first event! If you’re in the Vancouver area, please come to “Verses and Vignettes” on June 26, 2024, where I’ll be reading along with writers Barbara Black and Kevin Spenst. I have no idea what to expect, but we’ll figure it out. It’s at Book Warehouse Main Street: 4118 Main St., Vancouver, 7:30 pm.
Been working on a podcast called Gifted Underachievers with my friend and fellow writer James Buchanan. Right now we’re recording and editing the audio down to 5-10 minute segments–we’re talking about things like “the stench of privilege,” “sneaking one past the goalie,” and “if them, why not us?”
We are genuinely curious about what moves people from struggling to make a living in the arts to having choices about what they do, and we invite you to help us figure that out.
The podcast is aimed at helping midlevel creatives advance their careers, and we are having a gas.
You can find us on Substack at Gifted Underachievers.
Speaking of my friend James Buchanan, he’s got a new story out in The Nomadic Journal called Hillary and Walt Sachs. I found it gripping. Strange how a domestic tale can feel so tense. The Nomadic Journal is a publication exploring art, architecture, and itinerant ideas. Very cool and well worth a read.
Book Bag
The Man Who Wasn’t Maigret: A Portrait of Georges Simenon, by Patrick Marnham (Mariner Books, 1994)
Fascinating guy, Simenon. Reading this biography reminded me how much I love biographies. Well-written, interesting, and full of conjecture, partly because Maigret’s own ‘life writings’ were full of inconsistencies and holes.