Nothing to Lose
33. There Are No Time Machines, so Fix It Next Time
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Outro
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
Also by Humble the Poet
About the Publisher
In 1998 Snoop Dogg released his third album, Da Game Is to Be Sold, Not to Be Told, and I remember seeing the ridiculously blinged-out album cover and thinking to myself, “What does that mean? Why can’t you just tell me Da Game? Why do I have to buy it?”
I’ve always loved hip hop, and as a youngster, I soaked in as much of it as I could, reading the lyrics and jumping on internet forums to share my thoughts and immerse myself in those of other aficionados. Those early years made me realize how amazing writers and hip hop artists were. I knew then if I wanted to explore my talents as a writer, it needed to be through rap.
So I spent the first years of adulthood writing my own hip hop songs, giving myself the name Poet to make me sound smarter, classier, and more acceptable. As the journey of sharing my work with the world began, my written words began to connect much more than any song I recorded. That’s when I began to flirt with the idea of becoming a writer, well, a REAL writer.
I dreamed of the day I’d become a full-fledged real writer. You know, the type of writer who was published with a major publisher. The type of writer who spent most of his time traveling the world, having promiscuous sex, finding inspiration in cloud formations, and somehow interpreting all those experiences into words[1] that would be celebrated beyond my life.
How romantic it would be to live the life of a real writer. Early morning writing sessions with a typewriter by a lake and perfectly developed ideas floating from my head onto the page. I would see a leaf fall from a tree and convert that moment into an epic chapter about change, expectations, and the circle of life.
I told myself that if I ever got the opportunity to become a real writer, I would take the money the publishers gave me and find a quiet apartment in a quiet city in a quiet corner of the planet and write my epic first, and last, novel. Then I’d go into hiding like J. D. Salinger, live off the royalties, and once in a while reply to letters from high school students who were forced to study my book for their English independent study projects.
Instead, when I signed my contract with HarperCollins, I wrote the bulk of this book on my mother’s dining table at home in Toronto. I walked around the same neighborhood I grew up in, taking familiar routes where the nostalgia fades and gentrification continues to thrive. I politely avoided my wonderful editors’ recommendations to write an outline[2] and spent an entire summer free writing. I then spent the rest of the fall and winter rewriting from scratch, after failing to find a thread that joined all my summer jumbles together.[3]
Being a full-time creative came with other unglamorous challenges. Poor posture and neglecting to do the most basic stretches flared up a preexisting lower back injury, so sitting for more than an hour, whether at my dining room table, in a movie theater, or on a private jet, resulted in pain for the rest of the day. Irony never loses its sense of humor. Sitting down to write became more taxing on my body than my previous life as an elementary school teacher, when I stood all day in front of a class.
I experienced profound creative moments during the writing process late at night, only to forget them in the morning. I began to keep a notebook to flesh out ideas when they struck, but I couldn’t understand my own chicken scratch when it was time to revisit.
Yeah, the glorious life of “real writer” continues to elude me, or maybe I just overly romanticized it in my head. When those romantic ideas didn’t match the life I had in front of me, I began feeling disappointed, betrayed, and generally crappy. In order to feel better, I had to let go of the expectations I had and open myself up to finding, discovering, and creating beauty in the circumstances in front of me and not the fantasies between my ears. And that’s what this book is about.
That’s probably what the story of all of our lives is about.
We all know that great moments fade quickly and bad moments seem to last forever. We promise ourselves that hitting that next milestone will make us feel better, but after a few days, we’re off chasing the next high.
We’re always waiting for that day when everything we’ve struggled with, everything we’ve suffered for, everything that’s ever left us feeling empty is finally magically fixed and we can live happily ever after. We forget that this sparkly moment in our fantasies always has a day after, which presents us with new challenges and problems all over again. It’s a cycle we don’t want to acknowledge, and one that leaves us feeling either lost and hopeless or numb and unmotivated.
We look to others to help “fix” these problems and feelings—maybe a wellness guru who combines common sense with encouraging words on how we can use our personal power to make it all better. The guru’s words feel good as we’re reading them, but they don’t last long enough to keep us away from the bookstore, where we chase a new fix of hollow hope.
There’s a reason we keep finding ourselves in these patterns. When we continue to expect our problems, our mindsets, and our situations to get solved by something, or someone, other than ourselves, we are always going to be disappointed. The truth is, we are responsible for ourselves, and that includes the way we see things. This sounds like tough love, and maybe it is, but it’s also hopeful.
You are the only person capable of creating real change in your life. And you can feel that real change only when you can feel it within you.
I’m not a real writer because I have a book published by a major publisher, or even because you’re reading my stuff, or even because I’m good at it. I’m a real writer because I shifted my perspective about that definition. It’s not about the quiet writing corner or the fancy publishing contract or the stereotypical promiscuous lifestyle of a tortured genius. It’s about the fact that I sat down and, despite my insecurities, lethargy, and short attention span, I wrote. That’s what real writers do: they write.[4] But I realized this only once I recognized my ability to see things differently. And here’s the important part: I had to figure that out myself. No one else could do it for me, and no amount of advice or number of wellness gurus and motivational quotes could have taught me.
I had to explore, experience, and face the things no one else could teach me.
The beauty of changing the way we see things is that we find ourselves in a position to discover and create the beauty we seek, no matter what’s happening in our lives, no matter how dark those moments feel.
In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.
—Albert Camus, “Return to Tipasa”
So let’s talk about those dark moments—the heartbreaks, the losses, the embarrassments, the contradictions, and the moments when everything blew up in our faces. Let’s treat them like that leaf falling from a tree and see whether we can find moments of magic, silver linings, lessons, and beauty in them.
Let’s talk about the things no one else can teach us, particularly the big one that it’s possible
