After the MFA

Signal vs. Noise, one of the blogs I read on technology, productivity, and creativity, posted an article recently about being motivated in a constructive and positive way by jealousy. “Productive jealousy,” is an interesting theory, but I wonder if it’s really that common in practice.

Like the article’s author, I have always been plagued with a close relationship with the little green monster. I find it stifles me. I become overly obsessed with the details of the other person’s success, trying to find the place in their timeline where they just got lucky, sniffing out the aspect of their art that is more calculated commercialism than creative vision. Overall, I find jealousy is a serious waste of my time and energy.

No, I think what motivates me in a constructive and positive way is the notion of opportunity. If I feel like something I’m writing offers an opportunity to do something I’ve never done before, I am full of energy, ideas, and commitment. Being jealous over someone else’s work or career makes me focus too much of my precious* effort on someone else. Opportunity makes me focus on me. When it comes to writing, I think that’s probably more worthwhile. Luckily, I believe that sense of opportunity is around me right now.

It will also help if I stop succumbing to buzz about hot writing wunderkinds. That’s a work in progress, for which I’ll need to quit paying attention to much of what flows through the New York Observer, New York Magazine, and Gawker.

* I say “precious” not out of a sense of luxurious value, but “precious” in the sense of rarity.