King Spider contemplating the spotlight. Art by me.
After a good five-year run, one of my favorite newsletters A-mail sent its final letter last week. In honor of it, I want to make a public discussion parroting one of my favorite discussion questions posed by its writer. How's your ambition doing?
I'm late to the party! But, hmm... These days, I definitely find myself a bit unrecognizable, in terms of ambition. My teen/college self was extremely ambitious. She thrived off setting and achieving goals. They didn't even need to be goals that I really wanted to achieve for myself, they tended to be whatever I felt would earn me the most clout. So when the world slowed down two years ago, I feel like my hardcore ambition went with it. (It kinda had to, as a coping mechanism, right? For me it did, at least.) And I'm not sure I ever got it back. I feel like my career calls for me to move to another city soon, but I don't feel as enthusiastic about a cross-country move as my younger self was. I'm puzzled, because where's the balance between being patient and being complacent? Which one am I? :/
I'll say I've had a complicated relationship with ambition and similar concepts. In college when I more bought into America's sole cultural value of "hard work," I got so tired of reflecting on ambition in my journals that I renamed the concept of ambition and drive to "optimus prime." So when I journalled, I could write stuff like "my relationship with optimus prime is pretty good today."
When I left political public speaking behind, and the vanity a that comes with it, I eschewed a lot of my personality. Now, in the throes of my writing career, I have struggled to remember which parts of my ambition are worth preserving. Freelancing is very much a business of self-promotion. And I'm fine with that, or rather I've made my peace with it. But as I explore all the crevices of making a creative career in this country, I try to balance getting traditional institutional recognition with prestige publications and keeping pulse on internet trends and growing a personal audience. I really do like prioritizing people, instead of some abstract and ultimately meaningless ideal of success. I don't really have grand designs outside of being comfortable somehow, somewhere and being good to people. But capitalism doesn't love that for folks, and depending on the day, I'll toil a little bit or a lot, on what to do with that conflict. I'm getting carried away, but basically, the tension that has defined my writing career is always asking what level of social climbing/career advancement within various writing industries that I am okay with.
I'll leave this comment without a definitive conclusion because I don't have one myself. But yeah, would love to hear where people are at with what they value.
I'm late to the party! But, hmm... These days, I definitely find myself a bit unrecognizable, in terms of ambition. My teen/college self was extremely ambitious. She thrived off setting and achieving goals. They didn't even need to be goals that I really wanted to achieve for myself, they tended to be whatever I felt would earn me the most clout. So when the world slowed down two years ago, I feel like my hardcore ambition went with it. (It kinda had to, as a coping mechanism, right? For me it did, at least.) And I'm not sure I ever got it back. I feel like my career calls for me to move to another city soon, but I don't feel as enthusiastic about a cross-country move as my younger self was. I'm puzzled, because where's the balance between being patient and being complacent? Which one am I? :/
All time low, i gotta say
I'll say I've had a complicated relationship with ambition and similar concepts. In college when I more bought into America's sole cultural value of "hard work," I got so tired of reflecting on ambition in my journals that I renamed the concept of ambition and drive to "optimus prime." So when I journalled, I could write stuff like "my relationship with optimus prime is pretty good today."
When I left political public speaking behind, and the vanity a that comes with it, I eschewed a lot of my personality. Now, in the throes of my writing career, I have struggled to remember which parts of my ambition are worth preserving. Freelancing is very much a business of self-promotion. And I'm fine with that, or rather I've made my peace with it. But as I explore all the crevices of making a creative career in this country, I try to balance getting traditional institutional recognition with prestige publications and keeping pulse on internet trends and growing a personal audience. I really do like prioritizing people, instead of some abstract and ultimately meaningless ideal of success. I don't really have grand designs outside of being comfortable somehow, somewhere and being good to people. But capitalism doesn't love that for folks, and depending on the day, I'll toil a little bit or a lot, on what to do with that conflict. I'm getting carried away, but basically, the tension that has defined my writing career is always asking what level of social climbing/career advancement within various writing industries that I am okay with.
I'll leave this comment without a definitive conclusion because I don't have one myself. But yeah, would love to hear where people are at with what they value.