Re:‘Find Your Passion’ Is Awful Advice
by Theodores on Friday July 13, 2018 @08:09PM
(#17527877)
To make it easier, go back in time, choose different parents and become the 'first coder that be became POTUS', then write your novel.
Or go up to the top of a mountaintop at just the right time for the sky god to make an appearance and hand you the third testament.
Or, go back in time again, choose different parents and become a record scoring footballer. By adopting this strategy you would have the slight challenge of creating a time machine but you will also not have to write those 90000 words, a ghostwriter would be able to just magic out of thin air whatever you bark out loud. They would sort out the plot holes and the movie deal too.
Or you could go back to startupsville again and scratch this itch. It should be possible to crowd-source decent novels in a way that is not so humiliating and nigh on impossible. I know this has been attempted before but the nearest we have to it at the moment it self publishing on Amazon where people do reviews and people buy on the basis of those reviews. There have been success stories with this. But we know those reviews are bought and everything is corrupt.
Joking aside I do think that there is another way of getting published - write the book that needs to be written. Not a rehash of ideas, something new. A new story that does not fit into the existing pantheon of beginnings/middles and endings. Something that people must read and must get their friends to read, no publicity needed. You could make this free and entirely web based, no ISBN number or dead trees. Much like how musicians do stuff for free on YouTube and then a publisher courts them to do something for money. However, even this is not strictly easy and the stories you hear of this often involve a musician who happens to have chosen the right parents, e.g. Lily Allen and how she started on Youtube, only later do we learn of the famous and well connected dad.
Writing a book that has to be written might not be passion though. If you discovered some unjustice going on and were compelled to write then that would not be passion, more of a moral question of not staying silent.
Anyway, regarding the original article, why is it that 87% of people in the workplace are clock watchers, as if serving an eight hour school detention on a daily basis? Clearly they are not following their passion. But, of the 13% that don't clock watch and do have some passion for what they do, these people can be in any department, office or factory. They are not necessarily writing novels, making music, teaching yoga or directing films. Passion is more of a transferable skill that should be taught.
Or go up to the top of a mountaintop at just the right time for the sky god to make an appearance and hand you the third testament.
Or, go back in time again, choose different parents and become a record scoring footballer. By adopting this strategy you would have the slight challenge of creating a time machine but you will also not have to write those 90000 words, a ghostwriter would be able to just magic out of thin air whatever you bark out loud. They would sort out the plot holes and the movie deal too.
Or you could go back to startupsville again and scratch this itch. It should be possible to crowd-source decent novels in a way that is not so humiliating and nigh on impossible. I know this has been attempted before but the nearest we have to it at the moment it self publishing on Amazon where people do reviews and people buy on the basis of those reviews. There have been success stories with this. But we know those reviews are bought and everything is corrupt.
Joking aside I do think that there is another way of getting published - write the book that needs to be written. Not a rehash of ideas, something new. A new story that does not fit into the existing pantheon of beginnings/middles and endings. Something that people must read and must get their friends to read, no publicity needed. You could make this free and entirely web based, no ISBN number or dead trees. Much like how musicians do stuff for free on YouTube and then a publisher courts them to do something for money. However, even this is not strictly easy and the stories you hear of this often involve a musician who happens to have chosen the right parents, e.g. Lily Allen and how she started on Youtube, only later do we learn of the famous and well connected dad.
Writing a book that has to be written might not be passion though. If you discovered some unjustice going on and were compelled to write then that would not be passion, more of a moral question of not staying silent.
Anyway, regarding the original article, why is it that 87% of people in the workplace are clock watchers, as if serving an eight hour school detention on a daily basis? Clearly they are not following their passion. But, of the 13% that don't clock watch and do have some passion for what they do, these people can be in any department, office or factory. They are not necessarily writing novels, making music, teaching yoga or directing films. Passion is more of a transferable skill that should be taught.