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Transcript

So the other day in his newsletter, Adam Mastoianni kind of went off and he wrote 28 slightly rude notes on writing. So it's this list of things and there's one that really cracked me up and I wanted to talk about it. So he said The internet is full of smart people writing beautiful prose about how bad everything is, how it all sucks, how it's embarrassing to like anything, how anything that appears good is in fact secretly bad.

I find this confusing and tragic, like watching Olympic high jumpers catapult themselves into a pit of tarantulas, which is funny because he's a pretty cynical guy himself, you know? So to hear him say like, it's such a shame, he's basically saying, what a shame I exist. You know it, and it's a funny quote, but also it just, it brings to mind something that I think about sometimes about this.

Intense pressure that one might feel to make things in their story go poorly for people. Because if it's, if things go poorly, then that's real and that's honest and that's true. And for anything to go well is of course false

and pandering and delusional. Right

now, there's some celebration of things that end happily, you know, when you have a happy ending to your story or when th happy things happen in your story. But somehow those all always get categorized as a beach read or a nice escape or a safe place. And I am just wondering why is this, why do we have this disdain or this compartmentalization of stories that contain joy?

Why is that the case? I don't know. There's this other, okay, so I think it was Friedrich Mont. Who said this, I might be wrong. He said that the artist portrays the world as either the chicken or the egg. So the chicken, the world as it has become, or the egg the world in its potential.

And there does seem to be this pervasive feeling that the chicken stories, the world as it has become are valid, and the egg stories, the potential of the world are not favorable, right? You are not actually an artist. If you are making the egg stories, the world in its potential stories, right? You're not an art, you're, you'll probably be real rich, but you're not an artist, right?

You can't be taken seriously 'cause you're not being honest with your audience, right? Because honesty, of course, is death and grief and sorrow and murder and dishonesty is. Something working out, something being happy, a good thing happening, a celebration, right? How dare you? How dare you tell that story.

Get out of here. We're all hanging out at the cafe. We're dark artists. How dare you? How dare you brighten our day.

I've certainly felt this in the past. You know, I've, I've felt this pressure to be real and have hard choices in the story. And, you know, if you have a commitment, if you have a true commitment to your story, you will not hesitate to just off everybody in your story instantly. George, our, our Martin style.

So we assume that happiness and joy in a story that we're telling is dishonest or not real.

But I don't think all the writers out there who are writing stories that contain joy and that have happiness, are somehow unaware of the world that's around them. I think Nora Ephron read the paper just like everybody else did. The thing about happiness and joy and happy endings is that they're not a denial of reality.

In my humble opinion, they're like a prayer. A prayer for a better world. Seeing the world in its potential, because the world as dark as it may seem, is always brimming with potential.

I do look around and I see the problems of the world. But I do believe that there is a solution for every single one of these problems.

Potential is ever present. The potential for joy is always there, so why can't we write about that potential? Or at least, why can't we write about that potential and be considered serious artists? I'm not sure.

Maybe because it's so hard to tell stories of death and grief and sorrow and murder, that the only thing you can really clinging to is the fact that you're being honest and that you're being true and you are. The problem is, so is everybody else. But they're being true to the potential and others are being true to the world.

They see in front of them. It's just two commitments to two different things. One to the chicken, one to the egg.

 But really these days, what's the bold choice? If you reside in a world that's full of darkness.

It's very difficult to look and see what could be, and it's very difficult to write about that

because you're afraid to have that hope. You are afraid to believe in a better world.

Unfortunately, the only way that better world comes to be is by seeing it, by envisioning it. If we don't take the time and make the choice to envision a better world, Well then all we're left with is the chicken.