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Learning Abundance
What makes me jealous? Well, everything that is scarce. If there is a risk of there not being enough, my heart tightens up with fear that I will not get my share.
This has impacted my writing — my confidence in my writing, my willingness to even sit down and try. There are only twenty-six letters in the alphabet. I still have trouble understanding how all the combinations of them cannot have been used up already. And if they haven’t, isn’t it just a matter of time? Maybe if I understood more about numbers and probability it would make sense. There are an infinite number of combinations, right? Are they sure about that?
This same thought that has always worried me was beautifully expressed by Lisa Brennan-Jobs in her book Small Fry. She writes about her relationship with her aunt, author Mona Simpson. I’ve been a fan of Simpson since Anywhere But Here came out in 1987. I still have my hardback edition that was brand new that year. I even have clippings of two reviews — one from Glamour and one from People — scotch taped inside the paper cover.
I read each of her books as they came out, including A Regular Guy in 1996. I had no idea who Steve Jobs was at that point — it wasn’t 1998 yet when my husband and I got our Bondi blue iMac, the first computer I ever loved. It was only then and in the years after that that I became an “iPerson.” Eventually I became more…
