Every Worthwhile Projects Starts Off With Simultanesous Streaks of Arrogance and Selfishness

I believe in the title of this entry as if it is a mantra. I should note that the "streak of arrogance" part comes directly from what Richard Hugo has to say about the act of writing in Triggering Town. I'm paraphrasing here, but Hugo says that it takes a streak of arrogance to write a poem because you are anticipating a reader who will read and value what you have written. Hugo goes on in the following sentence to say that this streak of arrogance should be limited to your writing because being arrogant in your personal life and in your dealings with others will cause unnecessary, emotional frustration. Further, Hugo implores that if you are nice to people, then you afford yourself not only less personal frustration, but, ultimately, more time to write because you aren't investing any energy into damaged relationships. He's spot on.

I've added this idea of "project-selfishness" because I'm pretty sure it is necessary. At the outset of any project whether it be as large as finishing a novel or collection of poems or story collection or even something as small as a single, declarative sentence of what you hope is memorable speech, a sense of selfishness is required, a sense that you are writing something or conducting a project necessary to ultimately understanding more about yourself is required, understanding yourself as the first audience is necessary. I like to think that if the person writing a piece doesn't think of him or herself as the first audience then two mistakes have been made before the first sentence reaches its first punctuation: 1.) there's no personal investment in the piece, which means there's hardly a chance for any reader to find an emotion to invest in that affirms his or her own emotion reality; 2.) if the writer of a piece isn't an audience of his or her work, then that writer will never be able to understand that audience is an element of writing never neglected by a piece that extends past being merely a competent arrangment of words.

The most effective example of an historical figure who exuded streaks of arrogance and selfishness in the name of his own project is Albert Einstein. Before Einstein's face became the cliche posterchild of genius and before Einstein became an unforgettable icon of physics, mathematics, and imagination, he became a man so invested in the belief that he could prove his theory of special relativity that, unfortunately, he became somewhat tragic. Still a young man in Berlin, Einstein worked tirelessly on mathematical proofs to such a degree that his personal life and his relationship with his wife was failing miserably. Every day that his proofs got closer was the same day he and his wife became more distant. When his wife finally gave up on any chace that love between them was salvagable, the two agreed on divorce, which meant Einstein's wife would go back to Zurich, Swizterland with their two sons. Before she and their sons got on the train to finally separate forever, Albert to his wife he would pay her the child support and allamony (sp?) with the money he would recieve upon being awarded the Nobel Prize.

At this point in time, Einstein was a far cry from a Nobel, but a notable scientist regarded as a rising star despite political tension between Germany, Great Britian, and, soon to come, the United States. Einstein's claim that he would repay his wife with the Nobel money is what I consider a fine example of simultaneous arrogance and selfishness. His personal life was in shambles. His life as a scientist was on the up-swing. Most of all, he so deeply believed in himself as the first audience of his project and his project's importance to himself that the success of this project, special relativity, could offer an emotional scab between himself and his wife while creating a powerfuld thrust in scientific discovery, which would disprove the day's main-stay understanding of physics established by Sir Isaac Newton, understandings that Einstein felt were misguided and unacknowleging of the cosmic functions of outter space.

Word of Einstein's mathematical proofs and theory of Specail Relativity spread throughout the world of scientists easily despite the onslaught of the first World War. Despite machine guns, tear gas, and a war slugged out in trenches, every scientist of the world wanted to know more about what this young pacifist who disagreed with Germany pronouncing an iron-fisted military might had to say about the bending of light, about Special Relativity.

Einstein was invited to give a lecture to debute his proofs at a school in, I believe, Prague. The great mathematical minds of the day would sit the lecture hall's desks as if students capable of checking the work of their teacher. Days before the lecture, Einstein discovered an obvious, mathematical flaw in his proof, a flaw he knew someone would pick-up on, a flaw that someone could figure out then steal his proof and claim the proof, which would negate the possiblity of winning the Nobel. Einstein labored and labored over the proofs he created up to the moment before delivering the lecture with no avail, with no new solution to the flaw, with the fear that his finest idea would be stolen and claimed by a greater mathematician sitting silently in the audience thinking "I know how to fix the proof."

Which is exactly what happened.

Einstein gave his lecture with passion and confidence. Almost everyone was convinced that all Einstein needed was scientific proof of what his mathematical proofs claimed except for one scientist who saw the flaw and knew how to fix the math because he was a better mathematician. I cannot remember his name and will look it up later, but he was the only one to ask about the error, which, to Einstein, mean that if he could find the error, then he could think up the solution.

A mathematical race started in that very moment between the two, and Einstein couldn't let himself lose though he deeply feared it a very certain possibility.

Weeks passed as both hammered out potential solutions on blackboards. Night and day, Einstein toiled and toiled operating with the conviction that he could not lose this theory because he felt he had to prove the math; he needed to be the one to find the flaw; he needed to be the one to correct this one failure of his life that he could fix; he'd already lost enough.

Historical data shows that both figured out the solution around the same time, maybe within the same week, but Einstein published first, gaining the kudos first.

Scientists around the world agreed with the math for the most part, but disagreed whole-heartily with the math's plausibility due to lack of empirical data. What Einstein needed was a clear photograph of an eclipse to show how light bent around the moon to show that his mathematical proofs of Special Relativity were simply mathematical proofs.

Due to cloud-cover and limited means of photography, scientists were not able to retrieve proper eclipse data to back-up the mathematical proofs for about seven years. Scientist around the world were mostly on board with nominating Einstein the Nobel upon the data. Einstein waited as paitently as he could; he waited confidently, knowing in his gut that he couldn't be wrong, that there was no way the proofs were eroneous anymore.

Fifteen years after Einstein promised his ex-wife the Nobel money, a batch of eclipse photos came in to be verified against the mathematical proofs of Specail Relativity. Einstein's math became proven by empirical data and Newton's laws about physics were disproven. Einstein immediately became a viable contestant for the Nobel Prize. He won.

Einstein didn't win the Nobel for Specail Relativity though. He won for previous work which opened the doors and created a field of science that dominates today, Quantum Mechanics. He did hand over that money to his ex-wife. She bought two apartment building which ultimately failed in the same lifetime that Albert became a famous genuis who refused to comb his hair.

I was born twenty-eight years after Einstein died. Tennesse Williams died the year I was born. Both of these men considered themselves the first (not primary) audiences of their work. Risks were made and personal lives fell into ruin. It is important not to over-value our own stakes when it comes to the completion of any project or affirmation that we too, like any organism, require oxygen. That's always the first cinder block of the house that holds human emotion, oxygen, the fact of breath.

Four years ago I started my own project, a project that, at the out-set and to this day, is both arrogant and selfish. I started asking authors and poets questions that Steve Almond termed "kind of big and scary." I started with Ursula K. LeGuin. My recent interview was conducted with Michael Martone.

Thought I totally suck at math and science, I'll think of myself arrogant enough to say, for just a moment, that maybe I have something in common with Einstein, an undying passion to discover a proof. The proof I seek is not mathematical. The proof I seek is based off of wanting to know the inner concerns of writers and poets who have someway changed my life by clearly expressing the concerns of their own lives. I never disclose the method by which I contact these important people and I never share the questions I ask. The project is too important to me. The friendships I have built with these icons of American literature whether these people be rising stars or cosmological residents in the universe of literary importance are irreplacable. Some of them read this blog and to that I say, Thank You. To those who do and don't read this blog (the minds of those who have let ask questions of them) I say Thank You for positively responding to an act of my own temporary arrogance that asked to interview you; Thank You for my selfish want to understand the act of writing by asking about the motives of your own concerns as a breathing human. This act of my asking will become more than my asking because all of your answers are important. May we all sit down at the same five-card-stud table in the afterlife.