What’s Your Bus Ticket?
My writing practice is a pact I made with myself. I sit down and string words together every day-- not because anyone told me to or expects me to or would be bent out of shape if I didn’t-- but because I decided I would do it. No wages would be withheld if I didn’t (because it’s not a job and I’m not getting paid.) The world wouldn’t come to a screeching halt if I skipped a week (because most people don’t even know “A Weigh of Life” exists and thus wouldn’t miss it if it were gone.) You know what would happen if I didn’t post a blog every Tuesday morning at 10:00 a.m.? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Hardly anyone would even notice—maybe not even family or close friends.
But I would.
The daily habit of writing and the weekly practice of pushing “send” are agreements I made with myself and those mean more than any I could ever make with the world. There’s a sort of magic in those deals we make and keep with ourselves. Not only do they help us stand upright, they give us gumption—the kind we can’t get access to when beholden to somebody else.
I decided to publish a weekly blog because the self-imposed deadline would force me to write. It wouldn’t let me drift off course only to find myself a month or two down the road with nothing but days of good intentions to show for the passage of time. Writing is hard and the only way to get better at it (as is the case with every single thing) is to do more of it. So to improve, I need to practice. And to practice, I need to have something to practice for. That “something” is a weekly ship date. I write every day whether I feel like it or not. And I publish every week even when I find myself nose to the face of a giant ticking clock. Even when Tuesday gets so close I can touch it with my tongue, I produce. I told myself I would, and so I do.
I care deeply about the writing. Wrestling and wrangling the words from my head to the page in “final” publishing form can be exhausting—even harrowing at times. But the expectation never feels like an albatross. What keeps it weightless is that I don’t care if others care that I care about it. That’s the secret sauce of a contract with yourself—all the strings of expectation anchor back inside of you. And they create a cocoon. A place where the work, while seldom easy, never feels completely out of reach. The love/hate relationship I have is with the craft, not the world’s reaction to it.
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Essayist Paul Graham believes that great work is the result of a combination of talent, dedication, and an “obsessive interest in the topic.” He calls his hypothesis the “Bus Ticket Theory of Genius.” Graham says that bus ticket collectors are good at collecting tickets because they care about the tickets in ways the rest of us don’t. As a result, they see things we miss. Most of us don’t see the point in their obsession. We don’t get it. But he says bus collectors don’t care. They don’t collect tickets to impress others or to get rich, they collect tickets because they love collecting tickets. And they’re good at it because they’re not constricted by a contract –tangible or intangible—with the outside world.
In the space between “have to” and “want to” and “need to” lies the holy land.
This blog marks the two-year anniversary of the one-year pact I made with myself. When I look back over the 100 plus pieces of writing published, it’s hard to believe what has amassed. Every piece, though far from perfect, has a beginning, an ending, and a middle—each scrubbed with the kind of elbow grease that only gets applied when the words we string together are going out into the world. Most writers are professional tinkerers. We can pinch and poke forever. But the contract I signed with myself makes me jump off the infinity train and ship. And that’s what keeps me dancing with this thing I love to do.
Thank you for reading. And sharing. And for those of you who subscribe, thank you for subscribing. I hope the writing nudges you to think or feel. I care, I really do. Just not too much.
P.S. Promise Yourself by Christian D. Larsen