Your Work Is Not Insignificant

I’m thinking about it more and more; the end of my life and what I am going to leave behind. I am in constant fear of getting some terminal disease or dying at some soon point in the future, but why? Why do I believe that this world and life will be taken so easily, so quickly from me? I spent years of my life writing a book that only has three chapters completed, I spent years working on my style and rhythm of poetry to publish a 53-page collection of it that no one will ever read. Do you feel it, authors? Do you feel the aching in your bones as I do, the pain of wanting to get something onto paper but you get distracted, fearful, and lazy so you cannot finish your life’s passion, the one thing that you can actually find meaning within this life?

I suppose that is what we are meant to be, failed artists in a world that is over-saturated with content and creating art in a form that no one appreciates anymore. Oh sure, some of us get lucky and our hard work and dedication are recognized by millions and we toast champagne to the success of our bestseller, but that is but a fantasy. No more real for the common artist than Tolkein’s Middle earth or King’s Pennywise. Our entire life’s work lies in the realm of fiction! We try to make ourselves the hero of our stories and yet so many of us die without the accomplishment we expected out of our writing careers. We fade away into the background noise of a million other pieces that get out there and get read.

Even now as I write this piece I am feeling so unmotivated to work on it because I know at best it will get twenty or thirty views and that will be that; I said what I needed to say and no more than the numbers of a football team have read my work. But we can’t write with that mentality. We can’t write with the expectation of failure, we can’t write thinking our art will go nowhere. WE MUST KEEP LIVING THE FANTASY. We must do it so that we keep our sanity, or at least some sense of normalcy, and keep our minds from convincing us that we just wasted the past however many years dedicated to the craft. As I said, I am a case in point; I have published a book and have only sold a few copies of it. But herein lies the folly of giving in to despair: you rob people, even just one person, the chance to be touched by your work.

I remember shortly after publishing my poetry collection “Deep Thoughts of a Scorned Man” (pen name Zenith Star) that I read a poem from that book to my sister’s 16-year-old friend. It was a poem about being alone, and that feeling of not having anyone around you, to love, to be loved by you, to create a home with. And this teen girl who could not bring herself to like poetry, or read poetry, told me that she would buy my book because that poem impacted her that much. Can you understand the significance of that? My poems have connected with people from all age ranges, but to have touched the life of one young girl because of my writing, to see such an incredible response to what I consider to not be my best poem… was priceless. It was then that I realized I am not truly writing to have a huge audience, I am not writing to make the best seller’s list, I am not writing to even have ten people read my work. I am writing because if I do not write then I could be robbing one person of a life-changing experience. I could be taking away one seemingly insignificant moment from a person that will end up changing their life and get them to appreciate a new kind of art.

So, authors, I beg you as we go into 2022 to not give up your passion, not to give up your flame. Keep on posting your stories on Vocal. It does not matter if just one person reads your story, just keep on writing, and keep on getting your work out there. Because I know that you will touch the lives of at least one person, and though it may seem to be insignificant at the moment, that one ripple could spread even further than you ever imagined it could. Don’t give up on yourself, keep creating because it is what you like to do and it is what you are passionate about. Thank you for your time, and I hope you have a lovely rest of your day and year.