Let me be very clear: I am no George Bernard Shaw. That Nobel Prize and Academy Award winning writer, known best for his plays such as "Man and Superman," "Candida" and "Pygmalion" was a literary giant whose work is still studied closely more than half a century after his death. His discourses, literary wit and prodigious output marked him by many as second only to Shakespeare among English writers. That brilliance is somewhat tempered by his controversial views on a number of topics, raging from his admiration for Mussolini and Stalin, and his opposition to vaccination and organized religion.
None of that is me. About the only place where a Venn diagram of the two us might cross is in an earlier period of his life wherein he was a weekly columnist for The Spectator in London. He wrote music and theatre reviews, eventually giving it up to focus on playwriting. Asked why he stopped, he talked about the stress and commitment that was required. He likened writing a weekly column to standing under a windmill: you no sooner dodged one blade and straightened up, proud of yourself for the accomplishment, than another was angling directly for your head. You and me both, George, you and me both.
This all comes to mind as I note that the column you are now reading clocks in at number 1200. It also is just 3 removed from the start my 24th year in this effort. No, they aren't Shakespeare nor Shaw nor anything even close. But like the works of those giants, I recognize that it's a privilege to put one's thoughts together, and know that others are taking their precious time to digest it. It was the playwright Tom Stoppard who noted that words are innocent, neutral and precise, but "If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little." I'm not so self-assured to think I can move the entire planet, but if something I write gives a gentle prod to a reader or two, I'll allow myself a small smile.
People often ask me how I can pen a new essay every week, and indeed, I often wonder myself if I'm approaching the end of the line. After all, the easy and obvious ones were written long ago. Still, it's gotten so the effort to write each one is more or less like brushing your teeth: nothing will happen if I don't do it, and yet if I don't I feel as if I have forgotten to do something important. Added to that is that fact that the number of things that attract my attention is never ending. The trick is figuring out how to make it of interest to you. If there is an overarching goal to any of this, it is that: to share what interests me with you in a way that makes you want to pass it on.
Like many I've always wanted to be the master of something. In his 2008 book "Outliers" Malcolm Gladwell wrote that "ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness." By that he meant that, based on his studies of the best of the best in a variety of fields, "you need to have practiced, to have apprenticed, for 10,000 hours before you get good." With 1200 of these efforts under my belt, and an average of a couple of hours each, the math says that I am about halfway to Gladwell's elusive marker. That puts me firmly in the journeyman classification. All it will take is another 1200 columns and another 24 years to become a master of the craft. So I guess now is not the time to quit, being halfway there and all that.
On a shelf in my office I keep a series of notebooks with clippings of each of these efforts. Each time one appears, I scissor it out and slip it into a plastic sleeve. Each book is about an inch across, and holds about 26 double sided pages, which conveniently works out to 52 clippings, a year's worth of output. Today I am headed to the store to buy a new one, marking the 24th black blinder in that series. It's worth noting that when Shaw died, his collected works spanned 36 volumes.
George, I'm coming for you.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford will keep writing if you'll keep reading. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
None of that is me. About the only place where a Venn diagram of the two us might cross is in an earlier period of his life wherein he was a weekly columnist for The Spectator in London. He wrote music and theatre reviews, eventually giving it up to focus on playwriting. Asked why he stopped, he talked about the stress and commitment that was required. He likened writing a weekly column to standing under a windmill: you no sooner dodged one blade and straightened up, proud of yourself for the accomplishment, than another was angling directly for your head. You and me both, George, you and me both.
This all comes to mind as I note that the column you are now reading clocks in at number 1200. It also is just 3 removed from the start my 24th year in this effort. No, they aren't Shakespeare nor Shaw nor anything even close. But like the works of those giants, I recognize that it's a privilege to put one's thoughts together, and know that others are taking their precious time to digest it. It was the playwright Tom Stoppard who noted that words are innocent, neutral and precise, but "If you get the right ones in the right order, you can nudge the world a little." I'm not so self-assured to think I can move the entire planet, but if something I write gives a gentle prod to a reader or two, I'll allow myself a small smile.
People often ask me how I can pen a new essay every week, and indeed, I often wonder myself if I'm approaching the end of the line. After all, the easy and obvious ones were written long ago. Still, it's gotten so the effort to write each one is more or less like brushing your teeth: nothing will happen if I don't do it, and yet if I don't I feel as if I have forgotten to do something important. Added to that is that fact that the number of things that attract my attention is never ending. The trick is figuring out how to make it of interest to you. If there is an overarching goal to any of this, it is that: to share what interests me with you in a way that makes you want to pass it on.
Like many I've always wanted to be the master of something. In his 2008 book "Outliers" Malcolm Gladwell wrote that "ten thousand hours is the magic number of greatness." By that he meant that, based on his studies of the best of the best in a variety of fields, "you need to have practiced, to have apprenticed, for 10,000 hours before you get good." With 1200 of these efforts under my belt, and an average of a couple of hours each, the math says that I am about halfway to Gladwell's elusive marker. That puts me firmly in the journeyman classification. All it will take is another 1200 columns and another 24 years to become a master of the craft. So I guess now is not the time to quit, being halfway there and all that.
On a shelf in my office I keep a series of notebooks with clippings of each of these efforts. Each time one appears, I scissor it out and slip it into a plastic sleeve. Each book is about an inch across, and holds about 26 double sided pages, which conveniently works out to 52 clippings, a year's worth of output. Today I am headed to the store to buy a new one, marking the 24th black blinder in that series. It's worth noting that when Shaw died, his collected works spanned 36 volumes.
George, I'm coming for you.
-END-
Marc Wollin of Bedford will keep writing if you'll keep reading. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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