Thursday 1 December 2011

Writing and Office cannot be combined...

"Writing and office cannot be reconciled, since writing has its center of gravity in depth, whereas the office is on the surface of life," - Kafka
So following my post the other day linking up to an article on Theatlantic .com I found an interesting article on When is a writer called a writer. Yes there was that same discussion about how anyone can be a writer these days with the birth of the e-book but there were two quotes that stood out at me. One was from Kafka- I still haven’t read any of his works yet I am ashamed to admit! But I have read Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami – I suppose it doesn’t count. Anyway I digress- back to the article. The first point as I ponder whether to start a career in life coaching is the following:
Kafka came to feel bogged down by the daily grind. "Writing and office cannot be reconciled, since writing has its center of gravity in depth, whereas the office is on the surface of life," he wrote to his fiancée in 1913. "So it goes up and down, and one is bound to be torn asunder in the process."
Very true. It is difficult to do both. Interesting never the less. Anotehr comment made by Charlotte Bronte
Charlotte Brontë was working as a governess, miserable, and wrote in a letter, "I shall soon be 30 and I have done nothing yet." That was two years before Jane Eyre was published. Brontë was 31—she had Jenni beat by 17 years (or 164, depending on your count).  And in spite of the anxious determination of those who work to write, or the casual persistence of the Sunday writers, there is something "very liberating" in having yet to be discovered, Von Arbin Ahlander remarked. "Okay, you haven't gotten recognition. But at the same time, you don't have expectations."  
Both quotes quite relevant to my life at the moment and found on a day when I don’t know which way to go. Someone I know suggested that I just write as a hobby and then do the life coaching on the side. To work is a must… I have to continue with that.

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