Do I care that the universe doesn't care?

Stupid universe.

Last week I wrote about having made a deal with the universe not to bother composing any music that the universe had not specifically requested, i.e., with a guaranteed performance, and how that has turned into my not composing anything of note for six years.

I wondered how Vincent van Gogh did it, keep creating masterful paintings that no one bought, that no one wanted at all. How does one continue MAKING THE THING THAT IS NOT when the universe is not asking you to. In fact, the universe is stone cold ignoring you and your work. Is it folly to keep working?

There are two answers to this question, I think.

The first answer is that of course it isn’t folly to keep working. Not to get all hippie-woo on you, but our creation, our MAKING THE THING THAT IS NOT, is a reflection of the universe itself: chaos that is constantly combining and recombining, mostly to no effect, but occasionally you’ll get stars — and humans. And our creations are a window for the universe to see itself.

So yes, keep creating. Your work may be negligible. It may be completely awful. The universe does not care, and neither should you. Be like the universe: Throw it all out there, and if it works, keep doing it. A frog with three legs might not be an improvement, for example, and won’t survive, but a frog with bigger hind legs might be just what the universe needed — and so it makes more. Do the same.

The other answer is that it’s perfectly okay not to MAKE THE THING THAT IS NOT. You can stop at any time, and — as we’ve said repeatedly — the universe does not care. It will not punish you for not finishing that short story or opera. And you don’t have to punish yourself either.

A helpful point from our Precepts is the question of AUDIENCE: For whom are you making this THING? In my case, I didn’t feel that there was an AUDIENCE for the music I was slaving over, and (believe it or not) my ego is not big enough to allow me to believe that I was writing for future AUDIENCES. And so if I don’t get back to composing, I don’t feel as if anyone is being cheated of my work.

Except the universe, of course. Stupid universe.