Preference Considered

All of our lives, we suffer folks who tell us what we ought to be doing. Some of this is good advice, and we are glad to have taken wise instruction. The problem is that many folks speak with great authority when they are dead wrong.

You  may be thinking that this is obvious. What is she talking about? Any idiot knows this. But what do you do when the orthodontist tells you that unless you have major work done on your jaw, you will eventually lose all of your teeth? Of course, that work will cost you thousands of dollars and put you in severe pain for months. Do you get a second opinion, or do you comply? After all, this orthodontist is reputed to be the best, and he speaks with great authority.

Staying with the mouth as a metaphor, as by its virtue, it is a good one, there was the dentist who discovered that I needed a new crown or two each time he looked in my mouth. The dentist prior had never found so many crowns, but unfortunately, he retired. I thought, perhaps since I’m getting older, my teeth just need more work. But then I saw that he was redecorating his office, buying all kinds of fancy new dental equipment , equipment that might reveal that I needed even more dental work, and my suspicions grew. Did I really need all of  this dental work, or was I financing the growth of his practice? My new dentist found two crowns in six years. I still have all my teeth.

But as I am a writer, let me find another metaphor, lest I seem biased against dentistry, which I am not. Although I have been a writer all my life, I only crossed the line to professional writing in 2013. As a fluke, I joined a writing critique group. I do admit that when I dive, I go deep. I started karate as a fluke and ended up a second-degree black belt. I did some light counseling and ended up a psychoanalyst. The next thing I knew in my writing happenchance, I had published a short story and was turning another one into a novel. That was what my new critique group decided I should do. They also thought I needed to complete the family memoir I’d be working on half my life. I took their advice, plunged even deeper, and I have published three books. I’m glad to have followed their advice. It was all good. But in truth, I didn’t have to do any of it. I made these choices because I wanted to do them.

Ahh, but then comes marketing, selling the stuff, the most painful side of writing for me, far worse than the slings and arrows of martial arts. The internet and social media raise their unattractive heads in my direction. Suddenly, it is important for me to have a presence, to blog, to produce photographs, relevant or not to anything I’m writing, just whatever comes to mind. This is sounding a lot like therapy to me, except that there is no expert to make any reasonable interpretations as to what I am blathering on about.

There are truly days when I envy my dog. What a life he has. He never has to come up with new ideas, one-liners, attention catchers. All he has to do is lie there, and he captures it all. Perhaps I can learn from him. When I call “come,” he doesn’t always come. I am now past the age of retirement, so must I always come when called? I think not. I will look to Monk (for Thelonious) when I am asked to do something that just doesn’t feel right, or that I just don’t wish to do. Monk can be my new guru. Or perhaps Herman Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener, who merely states it all so well with, “I prefer not to.”