I just read something that angered me. What I read is not important, because what pissed me off was the phrase within an email that seems ubiquitous-indeed, I’ve said it myself. But I’m tired of it. I’m going to stop using it, and I implore you, I BEG of you to erase this phrase from your mind. Or at least erase the connotations you have with it.
Ready?
The phrase is “real life.”
“I can’t write/podcast/draw/compose because real life gets in the way.”
We’ve equated “real” to mean “mundane” and “boring” and “necessary.”
People. This is your real life. This creative outlet is what your soul is screaming for, and probably has been for years. I remember high school, I remember grade school, accepting that writing will always be a part of me, and I could either nurture it and write, or not write and feel hollow. And that indeed came true: when I stopped writing after college, I felt hollow. I always felt like “writer” was a part of me, something internal, ingrained, as encoded into my DNA as gender or race. It’s what I was, I just wasn’t doing it. I dreamed. I fretted. I identified falsely with this concept of being something without doing the thing that something involved. I wasn’t keeping up my end of the bargain. I wasn’t allowed to have the title if I didn’t do the work, no matter how deep I felt it.
It was not a real life I was leading. It was missing something vastly important.
Sure, I was happy and responsible. I had a husband, a daughter, a house. I had, for a while, a job that was tons of fun. I paid bills, played computer games, was a geek deeply invested in the brilliance and the mistakes of Babylon 5. But there was still a rather large hole in my life. I wasn’t writing, and therefore my real life wasn’t complete.
Yes, I understand that family responsibilities, job requirements, health issues, they all get in the way of the creative process. It happens to everyone.
But by all the gods who visit Thor for tea, don’t you call that your real life, as if writing is a pipe dream, because it’s not. That kind of thinking, that writing is something you’ll do when all the “real” stuff is taken care of, is bull paddies.*
Writing is as real as anything in your life, and probably more real than most things.** So stop calling that other stuff “real life.” Yeah, things get in the way, but dangit, if you never think of your writing as real, how are you going to actually make it real?
*(sometimes I wish I didn’t have a clean blog. I’m mad enough to swear here. Ah well. I can swear on my other blog.)
**(Look for an upcoming post on media, that will be very tough for me to write.)
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28 Responses to Welcome to “real life.”
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Amen, Mur. As I read your words, I couldn’t help thinking of Colin Hay’s song “Waiting for My Real Life to Begin”.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HZjC_7CeW4
I spent my first four decades in that kind of holding pattern, just marking time. And when my real life DID begin, seven years ago, it had NOTHING to do with paying the bills or mowing the lawn. It was the discovery of something that means as much to me as writing does to you.
Exactly what that is doesn’t matter; what matters is that it’s what I care most about, what gives me a reason to get out of bed in the morning. And that’s more important than whether I’ll ever earn a living doing it.
Hell, yeah, sista! I love my real life, with all it’s nuisancesome flaws and distractions, because I consider my art/ writing/ creativity PART of my real life — as necessary as paying bills, getting to work on time, scooping cat boxes…
Hallelujah.
Absolutely right. I am guilty of using the phrase myself, but over the last couple years, my use has become increasingly ironic and jokey. (like, does it still count as ‘drinking alone’ if you are talking to someone over Skype?) Now I’m realizing that it’s not really a joke, it’s just plain inaccurate.
Talk about “Just what the doctor ordered.” For several years since grade school, I’ve been standing on the edge. Oh sure, this eagle thought of flying; the 42 plus poems written and the countless rp story arcs still showed that the talent was still there. It is posts like this one that remind me that all one can do is simply fly. So here’s to the upcoming audio drama scripts and my short story regarding a lighthouse.
Thank you for posting this much appreciated kick in the pants.
I couldn’t agree more! In fact I’ve recently caught myself at the day job referring to my writing and podcasting as my ‘real life’. My coworkers don’t quite know what to make of it, but they at least understand that in most regards I consider those things more important than office politics. This is a shift in reality that makes me happy and feel I’ve needed for years.
Will I ever replace the day job with a writing career? It’s unlikely, but I’ve managed to make writing and podcasting stand out enough in my personal reality that I feel satisfied at the end of the ‘day’. Not 5pm when I leave the day job, but 7:30am when I close the MacBook on my precious hour of writing and 11pm when I put away the audio editing for the night.
Right on Mur! What you’re saying resonates so deeply. Being a writer is part of one’s identity (just as I’m sure painting and music is such for others) and denying that part of your soul is like living in the closet which doesn’t do youself or anyone else any good. Yes, daily responsibilities can be burdensome but part of the reason fulfilling those responsibilities is so that one can nurture the more important parts of ourselves. That’s the reason we’re alive, not to make car payments. If you know deep down that you’re a writer, then f-ing prove it. I tell myself that whenever I feel like sleeping in and not hitting the keyboard. I acknowledge the fight, the struggle, and the pull that life can exert away from writing. But you have to choose to fight for it because god only knows that it’s one of the few things worth really really fighting for.
You said it, Mur!
This requires a w00tw00t!
Thank you for this.
Well said!
Brava!
I only use it to distinguish the actual world from Second Life or other online chat venues. “Gotta go: real life calls.”
Agreed (of course). It’s all about passion. Unless you are doing that thing–whatever it is–that makes you sweat and struggle you are not really living.
Writing hasn’t always been that for me. Mostly I’ve found that burst of life in activism, and I still struggle to balance the two. But that’s a good problem to have–two things that you love so much, that hurl you out of bed in the morning eager for another shot at it all.
Not to exhibit “me too” syndrome, but I must say I totally agree. As a gamer I use the “real life” phrase to refer to “that which is not in a game,” but noticed that my friends’ use of the same phrase made it very easy for them to slip into using “real life” the way you’ve described. I’ve caught myself about to do it from time to time, but thankfully thus far every time my brain has presented “real life” to me as a way to describe things I have had to do to get by economically I’ve been able to resist and insert something else before the damage was done (and then subsequently take my brain into the back alley and beat it about the neocortex with a baseball bat until it got the message). The fact that the mundane requirements for physical survival do NOT make up the entirety of Real Life is something I always try to remember. It’s also something that desperately needed to be said to people, so I’m VERY glad you said it!
[...] overall population of the Earth. Both are considered by many as a good idea though unattainable “in real life.” Both have lofty, noble, peaceful [...]
Nailed it!
This applies to just about anything that one wants to do. I’m a student in a professional medical program, and I’ve been having a lot of trouble keeping up with the schoolwork due to the other “stuff”. Since medicine is where I *belong*, I need to give it more of myself than I do- not go running from it when it gets difficult, or accept getting pulled along with the current of the other things in my life. Everything in my life has to learn to play nice together, and what doesn’t is getting shoved off of the plate to the dogs! (They’ll like that, anyway).
“I write for the same reason I breathe – because if I didn’t, I would die.” ~ Isaac Asimov
Says it all really.
Two words. One rhymes with duck, the other is “yes.”
Thank you, Mur! I so needed that.
What I want to know is, how did that thing we do to pay the bills (assuming you don’t get to pay the bills with whatever your vocation is) become a way of defining ourselves? It’s just exchanging labour for capital, for pity’s sakes. Okay, there are people who get to make a living from what they love, but there are a lot more people who make a living from something they think is pretty okay, but they do what they love simply for the love of it.
Not *everything* should be reduced to payables and receivables.
[...] Welcome to Real Life [...]
Real Life or RL is sort of gamer’s fault. When playing rpgs RL lets fellow players know you’re talking about out of game items. Like so many things it got picked up and morphed into what we see today. I avoid using this phrase out of game because as you say I live my life and the only faux part is in game.
Excellent post, and excellent point.
[...] Be Writing’s Mur Lafferty makes an excellent point about writing and your real life. Click here to get the goodness. This entry was posted on Saturday, August 15th, 2009 at 5:00 pm and is filed [...]
Amen, sister!
In my heart of hearts, I feel that the opposite is true. When I’m writing, or playing music, or playing an rpg, or visiting Origins, or even just playing Frizbee with my dog, I feel like *that* is my real life. The time-clock drudgery of what I do for pay has been, for most of my lifetime, an undifferentiated dreary slog.
On the other hand, I’ve always heard what all of these commenters hear – that your “real life” is the sum total of mundane necessities. As if there was some way for a life without expression, without beauty, to be worth living! As if punching a clock and mindlessly consuming until you finally die of old age was a life!
Whatever you dream of, that is your life. If you deny those dreams, what you are missing is *you*.
I get excited when I see the word “writer”.
I get very curious when I read something profound or creative.
When I was younger, I always dream of changing the world through my words and actions in some way.
I still yearn for that. But I am from an art school, majored in Graphic Design. I was an intern at ELLE Singapore once, but that isn’t enough.
Every time I browse through a job search portal, I read through the requirements for a writer’s position, but it never fails to mention “Degree in Journalism/Mass Communication” or “Experience in publications/writing”.
Publications – yes, I have designed pages/layouts before. Writing – yes, one page in ELLE.
But that isn’t experience in Singapore. Just because I am not from the Journalism/Mass Communication background, I have failed to obtain an interview every single time I apply for the position.
Once, I was offered another position in a company when I applied as a writer.
What is enough? The “real life” is the lack of opportunities. Too much focus on qualifications and experience that probably 50% of people do not get to pursue their dreams just because of a piece of paper.
I strive for my goals but 99.9% of the time, I face rejection – and it has led to a giving up phase and blaming it all on life.
What a beautiful post!
For me writing is purpose. Writing is life.
Without writing I would have no purpose and I would live, like you say, a hollow life. In fact, I did for far too many years, wrongly convinced that I should try to separate it from ‘real life’. But hey, you know what it’s part of me! I can’t separate it! I can’t simply cut it out. Now I’ve embraced that part of myself (but it still terrifies me at times – or rather it scares me that I may fail)I am much happier. I feel authentic and I feel alive.