Thursday, August 14, 2014

A Good Mood

More from facebook:

Another sunny day. I have exercise and an hour+ of dental work today. However, when the work is done, I will be free of dentistry for half a year, except for flossing and paying the bill. I have decided to try gratitude practice again. Three things that make me happy: 1) The weather, which is bright and not too hot. 2) Toasted muffins, marmalade and coffee. 3) Being a writer, which is not a bad thing to be. Bonus cause for happiness: The Riverdell group is discussing the Moomin books on Saturday. I am reading them for the first time. They are gentle fun.

I knew I wanted to be a writer in junior high, and I actually did it. I've never been able to make a living at writing, which has meant I've had a lot of low-prestige jobs, most of them low-paying. I liked many of them. (I stayed away from food and retail.) But I actually did manage to do the writing and get it published and get some good reviews, though wealth and have eluded me. Well, I never made a serious try at wealth and fame. Mostly I wanted to write and be published and have some people like what I wrote. I told John Douglas 30 years ago that I wanted to be respected by the people in the field I respected. He made a polite, dubious, Canadian noise. Ha, ha, John. I did it.

Boy, I wrote something that is triumphant. That makes me nervous. We don't do triumph here in Minnesota. Let me rephrase the above. "It could be worse."

This ties in with Nick Mamatas's essay on success and failure. You are more likely to succeed if you set goals you can achieve. Most of us set huge goals when we are young. I wanted to be a writer, a space cadet and someone who changed the world and helped create a better society. As I have aged, I have moved the goals in. Now, I am relatively happy to write science fiction, to critique the old society and create images of a better world. But I am in a really good mood this morning, in spite of the impending dentistry. Later this afternoon, my mouth sore and my face numb, I may have a darker vision.

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