{"id":1857,"date":"2018-07-13T07:30:24","date_gmt":"2018-07-13T07:30:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/?p=1857"},"modified":"2018-07-13T06:14:59","modified_gmt":"2018-07-13T06:14:59","slug":"something-comes-from-something","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/2018\/07\/13\/something-comes-from-something\/","title":{"rendered":"Something comes from Something"},"content":{"rendered":"

Previously on Self Distract… I am just after saying to you that nothing comes from nothing<\/a>. If you don\u2019t do anything then nothing happens and if you don\u2019t show up, you don\u2019t matter. You can call this many things ranging from harsh to obvious but it is also specific and practical. Yet there\u2019s a vague and impractical companion argument which goes thisaway:<\/p>\n

If you do anything, something happens.<\/p>\n

Now, I may need to underline the vagueness there as I think \u2013 possibly I\u2019m fooling myself but give me this – that it looks vague in a kind of all-encompassing way. That it\u2019s vague but actually deep.<\/p>\n

The vagueness I\u2019m striving for, though, isn\u2019t even that good and doesn\u2019t even make that much sense.<\/p>\n

So yes, if I say that when you write nothing, bugger-all happens, it follows that when you write something, at least perhaps something-all will happen. I\u2019m still sounding as I mean you write X and X is a success. You show up at Y, that very well known networking party, and You are a success.<\/p>\n

But what I really mean is this. If you do things, if you write things, if you help other people out, it\u2019s like you stir up something in the air. <\/p>\n

If you have no work on, if everything has been rejected and you slump into a paralysis, that\u2019s where you stay. But if you manage to start something new, if you phone someone new or just do anything, then routinely other things start to come in, start to come along. This week, for instance, I took a punt and spent a day pursuing a piece of work I\u2019d really like to do and that evening I got offered a completely unrelated commission.<\/p>\n

Only, we\u2019re in territory here that makes me uncomfortable. Saying that if you\u2019re nice and if you keep busy, happiness will follow feels like astrology.<\/p>\n

Quick story? I don\u2019t mean to do this quite so automatically but if someone asks what star sign I am, I find I tell them that I am New Romantic. It used to be funny.<\/p>\n

Then a friend told me she\u2019s gay and it was clearly a difficult thing for her to say. She wasn\u2019t out yet and I wanted her to know that I was conscious of the trust she was showing me, that I recognise the enormity of coming out but mostly that she needn\u2019t be nervous, that she needn\u2019t think it would change our friendship, that in the best meaning of the phrase, it didn\u2019t matter. So she told me she\u2019s lesbian and I replied that I\u2019m Sagittarius.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re no longer such close friends because she\u2019s convinced I\u2019m into astrology.<\/p>\n

Anyway.<\/p>\n

If you do something and if you help other people, good things happen. I don\u2019t do these somethings and I don\u2019t this helping people in order to cause a karmic domino effect, I do somethings because I can\u2019t resist and I help writers if I can because it\u2019s brilliant to see people achieving what they strive for. And if even one pixel of that is in any way down to you, how can that be anything but fantastic?<\/p>\n

This is another time when I\u2019m telling you this because I\u2019m trying to understand it. Talking to you always helps me focus, even if, okay, stop that, it may not seem like I\u2019m terribly coherent. You always seem so nice and then you go giving me that look.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t believe in fate, I don\u2019t believe in karmic dominos, but I do believe that it\u2019s better to do something and that it is always best to go to things. And when you do, I think that phrase about something stirring in the air is right. <\/p>\n

Besides, the alternative is to just sit there, stewing in a paralysis, and I\u2019m a freelance writer, I\u2019ve done enough of that for a lifetime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Previously on Self Distract… I am just after saying to you that nothing comes from nothing. If you don\u2019t do … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[178],"tags":[1364,1366,1368,1360,1362,1359,1358,1365,1361,1363,1367,198,180],"class_list":["post-1857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-selfdistract","tag-activity","tag-ambition","tag-aspiring","tag-dominos","tag-effect","tag-karma","tag-karmic","tag-mental-health","tag-nice","tag-paralysis","tag-striving","tag-writer","tag-writing"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4chyI-tX","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1859,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1857\/revisions\/1859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/williamgallagher.com\/selfdistract\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}