Walking around Rome felt like the right time to listen to a song about walking around Rome. When I Paint My Masterpiece, by Bob Dylan fits the bill. If you don’t already love Bob Dylan this song won’t change your mind. After observing that the streets of Rome are filled with rubble, Dylan sings:
“Got to hurry on back to my hotel room, where I got me a date with a pretty little girl from Greece,
She promised she'd be there with me, when I paint my masterpiece.”
The rather innocuous last line gets me every time. The promise of when not if, he paints his masterpiece. The gap between those two words is the distance between belief and hope. The possibility that any of us will ever create a masterpiece is so remote that it doesn’t warrant thinking about it. There is no logic to someone believing that we will. Which is why it feels special when people believe it anyway. Even if you are Bob Dylan.
I first met Justin over 20 years ago. We were both cellar hands, working a vintage at the Rosemount winery. Today, Justin is a Master of Wine, working with one of London’s largest fine wine investment companies while I’m wandering around Italy writing a free newsletter. Don’t feel sorry for him, he made his own life choices.
In 2016 I was living in Colombia. I had closed my second failed business venture and I was convinced that I had to start a third business. Justin called me, asked me how I was doing. I rattled off all the things I was working on, all the irons in the fire, letting him know how busy I was getting back on my feet. Justin listened, let me finish and then said “Butta, even a drowning man looks busy from the shore.”
He was right. I was drowning. I returned to Australia.
Back in Australia, I started looking for a job. It didn’t go well. Six months after returning home I was living at my mother’s house, well not even in the house, in the granny flat, convinced that I would never work again.
I called Annabelle, another long-time friend and founder and editor of Galah Press. I complained about my ever-diminishing hope of finding employment. “You should be a writer,” she said. “How do I become a writer?” I asked. “You write,” she said. “Write 800 words on trying to find a job and I will share it with some people.”
So, I did. It wasn’t great, but Annabelle shared it. Nothing came of it, but it did prompt me to start writing other things. I sent the next piece I wrote to Annabelle.
Annabelle’s emailed response: “Love it. It is excellent and I really think you should be an opinion writer.”
I read this response on a break from my new job, pulling beers at the local RSL Club. Not just beers, I also served Bacardi and Diet Pepsi (not too much ice) to the lady who had taught me in primary school.
“How do I become an opinion writer?” I emailed back.
“Write one piece a week for 12 weeks. I will read it and tell everyone I know to read it too.”
That’s Annabelle. She’s a believer: in ideas, in long lunches, in friends.
I never wrote those twelve pieces but six months later I completed the first draft of a manuscript about a private detective trying to extricate himself from Argentina. I sent it to J.P., a friend of my brother’s. I had met him once. J.P. had worked for six years as a copy editor on an English language newspaper in Japan. Would he help me edit the manuscript?
Now, I defy anybody to show me the first draft of a manuscript that is not absolutely awful. They all are. “I’m in!” was J.P.’s reply over the skype call as he lay flat on his back recovering from recent back surgery. Over the next 12 months he went to work banging my manuscript into shape. He would take a few chapters at a time, work on them and send them back with encouragement but also honesty.
“Sorry to end on a bummer but this line is ridiculous,” he wrote in response to another failed attempt at humour.
The manuscript never gained any publisher attention and I ended up publishing it myself. I think J.P. was smart enough to know from the start that it wouldn’t go anywhere but for over 12 months he worked on that manuscript for no other reason than because, like Annabelle, J.P.’s a believer.
Before I publish Out of Office, J.P. and two other friends (nod to Sandra and Matt) look them over and provide feedback. The feedback is frank. This from J.P. recently:
“To close with a quibble: the opening sentence set my teeth on edge. It sounds in an op-ed way, "may I announce my interesting topic". You write in a storytelling style, so its DISGRACEFUL CHEAPNESS jars, at least to a familiar reader. I trust you already, I will follow you into the tale.”
There’s a link between belief and the acceptance of truth. The believer has an obligation to tell the truth, the writer to accept it. I made the changes.
I’ve read about people going through the same process that I am, people quitting jobs to look for something else in life. But I haven’t actually met any of these people in person. Throughout history, immediately after times of great upheaval, there have always been the disaffected that have used the disruption as a point of inflexion in their lives. These groups have coalesced (usually in cafes in Europe) and thought about how to do things better. Well, I’m sitting in a café in Europe and there’s no one here.
I’ve singled out three people who’ve had a profound influence on my decision to pursue a writing career but they’re not the only ones. There have been many people along the way that have provided an encouraging word or an encouraging example as they pursue their own unique paths. If I miss anything about the office, it’s those people; people I believed in and people who believed in me.
The internet permits us to break off into little subgroups of interests where we can meet at any time of the day or night, huddled safely in our own little corners of the world wide web, where we can listen to our own beliefs and ideas repeated back to us and smugly reflect that “yes, we were right after all” and believe that we are more connected than ever.
But somebody agreeing with your views is not the same as someone believing in you. And when someone believes in you, they look out for you. They tell you the truth when you can’t even tell it to yourself. And, most importantly, they promise to be there with you, when, not if, you paint your masterpiece.
If you enjoyed this post please hit the heart button, leave a comment or question or share it with someone you think may enjoy it too. Doing so helps other people find it on Substack. This week I would be interested to hear from anyone who has used the upheaval of the pandemic to make a change in their life. I am interested in the why, when and how. Thank you.
The Distance Between If and When