Risk: "Work it out."

Dialogue from Bukowski’s Post Office… Caps are his.

“JESUS CHRIST!” he said, “I CAN’T GO TO NEW YORK AND SHAKE HANDS WITH THE PUBLISHERS!”
    “Look kid, why don’t you quit this job? Go to a small room and write. Work it out.”
    “A GUY LIKE YOU CAN DO THAT,” he said, “BECAUSE YOU LOOK LIKE A WINO. PEOPLE WILL HIRE YOU BECAUSE THEY FIGURE YOU CAN’T WORK ANYWHERE ELSE AND YOU’LL STAY. THEY WON’T HIRE ME BECAUSE THEY LOOK AT ME AND THEY SEE HOW INTELLIGENT I AM AND THEY THINK, AN INTELLIGENT MAN LIKE HIM WON’T STAY WITH US, SO THERE’S NO USE HIRING HIM.
    “I still say, go to a small room and write.”
    “BUT I NEED ASSURANCE!”
    “It is a good thing a few others didn’t think that way. It is a good thing Van Gogh didn’t think that way.”
    “VAN GOGH’S BROTHER GAVE HIM FREE PAINTS!” the kid said to me.”
POST OFFICE, p. 130-131
Charles Bukowski

&
Excuses… the job… the money… the helping hand… all the reasons success evaded me in the past. I have taken the risks and I have stepped out into the shaky world of the arts. Acceptance tells me that this is part of the risk. If there was no chance for failure it wouldn’t be called a risk… so quit bitching about it, George, and get to work. That is the lesson here. I love the lonely artists who can’t afford paints but paint with what they have on hand. I have worked with artists who have used crumpled-up news-paper to draw on and coffee as ink. The drive to create doesn’t accept excuses, though most but the rare reclusive artists would like some fortune… at least enough to keep working... perhaps even some fame to fall their way… recognition enough to afford an extra jug of turpentine or ink for the printer. But driven to write in a small room is what keeps me going and being driven to write is what sharpens the pencil… hones the skill… as the craft begins to make sense of it. What if I never learn to write well enough to allow my inner voice free reign on the page? That is the risk. It is no mystery… writers write… painters paint… sculptors sculpt… musician play… composers compose… whether or not any of it comes to anything. Accept failure for failure but never accept it as defeat. Nothing of any value was ever created without risk.
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