“all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”
“I’ll get it! It’s so far though…” Photo by Marc-Olivier Jodoin on Unsplash
It Will Work for 99% Of You! Not a Scam: The genuine hack to become a bestseller writer.
But first I wan’t to share a piece of my story. It has something to do with it. I promise.
The Hip Hop Lesson
When I was a child, I used to listen to American Hip Hop music and became familiar with the expression “wannabe”.
I understood immediately that I was one, because I was enjoying picturing my success and disliking even the idea of any effort. Therefore, I wasn’t capable of making it happen and was living in deep delusion.
Even though I was aware of my mistakes and my delusions, I hadn’t the power and knowledge to change it. The pleasure that I got by exploring my fantasies was too powerful. I was addicted to it. I try to fight it so many times in so many ways.
But this peculiar mindset was very strong in me, and at first, I lost almost every battle.
It has been a big drama in my life. It has created a lot of frustrations within me and with others because I just wasn’t able to recognize and accept my place in the world nor the constraints and frustrations that come along with the simple fact of being alive.
Only now, I feel that I have won some battles against my delusional mindset. I know it’s still there, the war continues. I’m still delusional. Trying to stop my delusional mind, its power to produce instant gratification with a few thoughts, is like asking an alcoholic to be sober with a bottle of Gin in her pocket 24/7.
But now, I have learned. I know how to do it. And I know how to be a bestseller writer.
The Genuine Hack to Be a Bestseller Writer
The verb of our time is to hack.
To hack: to gain illegal access to. (Webster Dictionary)
To take a place that is not ours. The legitimate hubris of our modern time. Legitimate, because technology and scientific method let us genuinely hope that we can get more.
The promise of the scientific method is to let us understand reality ; while technology allows us to reorganize it according to our dreams and desires.
Deep in us, we think that we can be anything that we want with the right hack, with the right knowledge and technique. With this in mind, we browse the web looking for ways to make our dreams come true.
This is our belief: knowledge of reality x process of reality = desired outcome.
This formula, even if it’s rooted in modern beliefs derived from the scientific thinking, is still some delusional thinking especially if you try to apply it to be a bestseller writer.
Our hope to find a method to be a bestseller writer is our disease. Here might be a way to cure ourselves.
1st: Acknowledge That Such a Method Cannot Possibly Exist
Let say that to be a bestseller writer we have to be in the top 1% of the writer. If so, it’s impossible that such a method exists.
This is a math problem.
If our desire + hacking method was sufficient to be in the top 1%. 50% (probably even 100%) of the writers will use it and would be in the top 1%. So the top 1% will have to be called the top 50% or more. So, who will be in the top 1%?
The top 1% is a competitive place. There might be a hack for all of us to live longer because we do not compete for health, we can live longer together. But we cannot be all bestseller writers.
It’s not that the method does not exist, it’s that it cannot exist. You need other conditions to succeed as a bestseller writer. And you do not control them. You cannot apply a hack to succeed in this.
There is no method to be exceptional. We are all exceptionally normal. At least on the average.
2nd: Recognize That Your Desire Is the Problem
Ask yourself: why do I want to be a bestseller writer? Why do I want to be better than the others? Why do I compare myself?
I’ll tell you my answer: because I’m narcissistic. In my infamous dream titled “the top 1%’s nirvana’: I’m cherished, I have money, and sexual intercourse with movie stars. Everyone that had turned me down in the past is ashamed. In this dream, I’m in security both physically and emotionally.
And I ask myself: why don’t I want to just get along with the simple reality of my life? Why do I want more? Why am I so narcissistic and insecure? After all, those dreams are killing me! Well, it’s a drug. I used it to manage insecurity, frustration and loneliness and now I’m hooked. I have to let go my day dreams, I have to let go my ambitions, I have to let go my addiction.
3nd: Let Go Your Ambitions
The probability is high, about 99% high (and because you’re binge-reading articles that are selling you that you can be in the top 1%, maybe even higher) that you’ll not be in the top 1% writers.
Why is that? Because you’re focusing on the outcome. Because you’re obsessed with it. And it’s not natural for you to think otherwise: you even don’t know how to do it. You’re losing so much energy at picturing you as a bestseller writer that you don’t have energy left to become one.
I know that. I suffer from the same disease as you.
I have met true artists and successful people. They are not obsessed by becoming the best at something, they are obsessed, energize, by what they do, by their art, by the doing, not the dreaming. Sure they dream of success, but not like me and you. It’s not a disease for them (or sometimes they are just so talented and lucky that they can be narcissic’s assholes and successful… But not you, not me).
A lot of self-improvement articles and the Bhagavad Gita are just saying this: love the process, love the way, not the outcome. I believe that they are right.
But because you’re reading this articles, I can tell that you’re not obsessed by the process.
I’m sure you have already read some articles that are saying the same thing that you have to change on what you focus. But what is magical about our minds is that we can read as many life lessons as we can, we always transform them in our neuroses, we have to cure them first to be able to absorb new life lessons. In this case, we say to ourselves: I’ll work so hard and fell in love so much with the process that I’ll become successful, just as they say on Medium! But we’re just deceiving ourselves again with new fresh words that make us believe that we are going to make it this time. Still, we’re focus on the outcome, on the fantasy. Whatever the words we use, our mind is still the same.
You’re not going to be a bestseller writer, in fact you are not a writer at all. The proof: you have clicked here because of the title. You don’t really want to be a writer or you would be reading articles about how to improve your style. This is what somebody who genuinely want to write would be doing.
You want to be successful. You want to be loved, to be rich, to have sex. Maybe that is what you should genuinely pursue. So stop wasting your time in the fantasy that your ambition is to be a great writer. Let it go. Beyond what you think let go is. Beyond your tears, beyond your self-pity, beyond the pleasure you find in suffering and beyond those words. You don’t need more words to let go, you need more self-awareness and maybe a shrink.
4th: Back to Your Normal Life
What is beyond when you let go?
You guessed it: normal dull life (aka human non-neurotic reality)! I have never seen it, but I know people who are living in it. We go to the same clubs, read the same books, but we don’t experience them the same way. Not at all.
So now you can go back to your normal life, abandoning your dreams, and do what you’re really like to do (besides dreaming!).
But really, stop day dreaming as a way to produce pleasure! Each time it comes to you, you have to acknowledge it and to let it go. I know it’s so hard! you’ve played too much with your dream like a child with his poop. And now you can’t even tell the difference between dreams and reality! keep trying.
What To Do In Normal Life?
Normal things.
If it happens that what you genuinely like is to write, then write, but don’t try to be a bestseller writer. Just write, and let go each time your bestselling writing dream comes back. Just do some normal writing, don’t try to write with your blood. It hurts. Write with a computer. It works.
Forget about dreams and fantasy. Get real about your life and your desires. If you do it, I’m sure, you’ll have a happy life!
You’ll maybe not fuck Billionare Dinosaures, meet Vanilla Ice or do a threesome with Eminem and Steve Buscemy. But you’ll do something, and you will like it or dislike it for what it is.
I’ll try to do the same for me. Even if it’s not easy to give up my fantasy and the pleasure that I get from it.
I’m still a top fantasyzer who do not accept true life lessons, who do not accept to give up her narcissic’s pleasures for the doing. I know I’m fucked.
I try to be a bit better each day by being as aware as I can. I believe that I’m better now at differentiating reality from fantasy than I was yesterday. I hope so!
Cause I don’t want to become this:
So that’s all. You really don’t need to thank me. Or maybe you can, I’ll try not to refresh too often ‘Medium’ in my browser to check for the claps. I know that it’ll be hard though.
Kisses!
Sybille