The obvious issue with self-help is this: its ultimate goal is to reach a point where you no longer need it.
Think about it: The whole goal of personal growth is to build yourself to be the person you’ve always wanted. The whole point of pursuing happiness is to reach a point where happiness no longer has to be pursued.
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I only ever experienced real writer’s block once in my life.
March 2014 was the worst month of my life. My grandfather died, my girlfriend broke up with me, my father decided to never speak with me again, and I had to struggle with quite a few serious health issues.
Not the end of the world, but the closest thing to my world ending I had ever experienced until then.
When it comes to writing, my mantra is, “Punch the damn keys.” I once wrote that, “if done right, tears turn into gold.”
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This is crazy, in more ways than one.
I started this blog in April 2012 because I wanted people to read my fiction. I wanted to write books, sell books, and then make movies from those books.
That was the goal, and that was my plan ever since I wrote my first story fifteen years ago. Or was it sixteen years?
No matter.
And, even though I never shared this, any project I ever embark on is flavored by a bit of regret. I could spend the time, the money, and the energy writing stories, working on my novels, and so on and so forth.
I do not want to regret not sharing my stories with the world anymore.
That’s why I am launching raconteur.
It’s simple. A story every week. Just like Ray Bradbury used to do.
One story every single week, no matter what.
This is the first story:
You can also find the stories (and a bit of extra stuff, such as eBooks, exclusive behind the scenes, and an opportunity to spend some money and support me) both on patreon and on substack.
For as low as $4 a month you get access to every story I publish, and get to download every novel I ever published.
That’s about it.
I’ve got a few stories to write.
Cheers,
Cristian
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
C.G. Jung
Here’s a fun experiment for you to try: write down every single thing you do during an average day. In half-hour increments. But be honest with yourself. Can’t write down: “from 9 AM to 5 PM — work.”
Be brutally honest.
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There’s this story about Winston Churchill who, after the Japanese bombed Hong Kong and Singapore, forcing Great Britain to declare war, he signed off with the following words, “I have the honour to be, with high consideration, Sir, Your obedient servant.”
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On the 14th of February 1990, just as the Voyager 1 probe was leaving the Solar System, some 3.7 billion miles away from Earth, Carl Sagan asked NASA to turn it around to snap a photograph of our home.
The resulting photograph showed the Earth as a pale blue dot, less than a pixel in size. A speck of dust in a seemingly infinite universe.
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For most of my twenties, there were so many things I didn’t want to be true about myself, yet I somehow thought them to be facts.
I believed I was quite unlovable, which was my excuse for not trying to be worthy of love in any way. I believed I’d always struggle financially, so I made no serious effort to earn more, to save more, or to build multiple streams of income.
I believed that life was harsh, that people didn’t like me for being skinny, kind of ugly, and not nearly as charming as everyone else, so I lived in a state of perpetual fear — I somehow expected the world to decide that I wasn’t worthy of living on this planet anymore and send me off to spend the rest of my life on the dark side of the moon or something.
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I don’t usually write about money, but there’s a trend that I couldn’t help but disagree with.
If you want to save money, you’ve got to spend less.
It makes sense. It’s clever, it’s helpful, and it’s the kind of counterproductive advice that has the potential to make a lot of people miserable.
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In his 2008 release, Outliers, journalist Malcolm Gladwell introduced the notion that one has to spend 10,000 hours working at their craft before they can become a true master.
Now, even though the idea is catchy, and it’s a valid one indeed, there’s a lot to be said about the kind of work one has to put. It’s not just work-work, but it’s working towards mastery, a competitive and aggressive way of working towards bettering yourself day in and day out.
10,000 hours of that, and you’ll become so good they can’t ignore you.
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Some days I spend too much time on social media. It’s addictive, I get it. It’s also probably one of the primary causes of depression and anxiety among Millenials.
It is what it is.
But today I don’t want to talk about us comparing our day to day lives with the highlight reel of the rich and famous.
Today I want to talk about those who pretend to be rich and famous for likes and shares and a bit of money.
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