2019.07.14
Somerset Maugham once wrote that in each shave lies a philosophy.
I'm struck by how, except when you're young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don't get that sort of system set by a certain age, you'll lack focus and your life will be out of balance.
In every interview I'm asked what's the most important quality a novelist has to have. It's pretty obvious: talent. No matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist. This is more of a prerequisite than a necessary quality. If you don't have any fuel, even the best car won't run.
I don't care about the time I run. I can try all I want, but I doubt I'll ever be able to run the way I used to. I'm ready to accept that. It's not one of your happier realities, but that's what happens when you get older. Just as I have my own role to play, so does time. And time does its job much more faithfully, much more accurately, than I ever do. Ever since time began (when was that, I wonder?), it's been moving ever forward without a moment's rest. And one of the privileges given to those who've avoided dying young is the blessed right to grow old. The honor of physical decline is waiting, and you have to get used to that reality.
On the body of the bike is written "18 Til I Die," the name of a Bryan Adams hit. It's a joke, of course. Being eighteen until you die means you die when you're eighteen.Emphasis mine on the bit on aging.
I was most struck by the bit about talent as an intrinsic property... sometimes my employer talks so much about "we have a growth mindset" that I feel a bit called-out, or like as a person with fixed mindset I should be able to file some kind of discrimination suit...
Not really of course, and they probably are using a looser term of "growth mindset" than I am - but yet, I'm aware I have fixed mindset, it protects me in some ways, throws up roadblocks in others, and I try to act to mitigate its disadvantages while enjoying some of the psychological reassurances it offers.
It does strike me that there's an amusing meta-issue here; someone with a "growth mindset" is OF COURSE more likely to believe that switching mindset is possible than someone starting with a "fixed mindset"...
ENGLISH GAME: PLACE THE WORD "ONLY" ANYWHERE ON THE SENTENCE:I wonder what other languages that works with...She told him that she loved him.