Windfall

[dreamer_easy]

I had an epiphany in the middle of the night, thanks to the Zen nun I left murmuring on my iPod. I've been feeling frustrated and unworthy because I haven't yet got an original SF novel published, let alone won the Hugo, Nebula, Tiptree, Ditmar, despairing love of all humanity, etc. This is doing things backwards. An apple tree isn't trying to make apples, or thinking 'Why haven't I made apples yet, all my mates are making fantastic apples, I'm never gonna make these freakin' apples'. It just makes a bunch of apples, because that's a hoot, and also because it's an apple tree. Like everything in nature, then, I shall be goalless.

Comments

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Two quotes for you that I find helpful when getting stressed about things.


There is really nothing you must be.
And there is nothing you must do.
There is really nothing you must have.
And there is nothing you must know.
There is really nothing you must become.

However, it helps to understand that fire burns,
and when it rains, the earth gets wet.
Japanese Zen scroll

This is what enlightenment is all about: a deep
understanding that there is no problem. Then, with no
problem to solve, what will you do? Immediately you
start living. You will eat, you will sleep, you will
love, you will work, you will have a chit-chat, you
will sing, you will dance. What else is there to do?
Osho

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

"The old man must die, and the new man will discover to his inexpressible joy that he has never existed."
- Planet of the Spiders