In the Rider-Waite Tarot, The Fool card is the first in the deck and is numbered 0. Clearly, the Tarot was designed by a software engineer. The Fool lives up on the mountaintops, bathed in sunlight. Dressed like a dandy, he appears to not have a care in the world. And yet, there he is, with a small round hobo's bag attached to the end of a pole. With the pole carried in his right hand and resting over his right shoulder, he is walking headlong towards a cliff. The Fool, you see, is not content with living in comfort up in the mountains. Instead, he must descend into the world below. Why would he do such a thing, when he lives like a God up on the mountain? The card does not tell us why, because that is not important. What is important is that, despite his life of luxury and comfort, he is compelled to descend to the depths below, disregarding the fact that he must fall precipitously without any means of support. What he expects to find down below is also not important and unknown to us, but, whatever it is, it is certainly important to HIM. The jump off the cliff is so contrary, from our outside point-of-view, to what seems to be any reasonable and safe course of action, that it can only be called a Leap of Faith.
I have been writing fiction, off and on—mostly off—since I was 16, which was 25 years ago. (Now we see how quickly you can add!). At first, I thought I was good, but, in reality, I was horrible. Joe Haldeman, the award-winning science fiction writer, taught a class in science fiction writing at MIT. And when I took it, he made it very clear that I was irredeemably bad. Looking back, he did me a favor. I suppose someone else would have told me eventually--most likely Heidi, my future wife. But even if I was good, the expected mean income of an engineer is much higher than a fiction writer. Being an engineer was much more prudent.
At the time, I was contemplating a career either in fiction writing, chemical engineering or software engineering. When I realized I was not going to be a good author, I became a hybrid chemical and software engineer, and then finally a pure software engineer. Now that was a field which I was good at and made me happy.
For the last 11 years, I'm been writing a story that's been rattling in my wife's brain, and then started to rattle into mine. The story has undergone significant revisions since then, and then two years ago I decided to get serious and start writing it regularly. Stephen King says to write 1000 or 2000 words a day, every day. So I did. And something very wonderful happened.
It was good. It was very good. I was good. And I was passionate about it. This was a story that had to be told, and I had to tell it.
Heidi, my wife of 19 years, has been needling me to spend more time on it, but the demands of my career were simply too much. I tried to balance the two, but there was no balance in the mind of the A student that I am. And also there was the problem that I had the most fun and lucrative job than I have ever had. I very much enjoy being a software engineer working for my employer. But Heidi encouraged me to do what was already on my mind--devote full time to the writing. So I am switching careers, and Heidi is willing to support me while I get my new career off the ground (probably a few years). How wonderful is that?
I'm giving up so much to pursue my passion, and there is a lot to be fearful of. What if Heidi loses her job? What if we run out of money? What if we have to sell our house? But these things are all things that the body wants, and, quite frankly, my body is spoiled. For 41 years (did you add correctly?), I have been pampering of my body but doing little for my spirit, who is begging me to make this change. My spirit asks for so little. How could I turn my back on him?
And so I'm walking over the cliff. I see it coming, and I fear I will crash and die on the rocks below. But I know that's not going to happen. It's all very simple, really. At the end of the day, there is only one thing I can do, that, like The Fool, I MUST do. I must make a Leap of Faith.
-Dan Fox
danfox@danielcfox.com
http://danielcfox.blogspot.com/
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1625342545
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