I think I already mentioned that I recently finished a rewrite of my memoir, Nested Scrolls: The Memoir of a Cyberpunk Philsopher. Here’s a bit from the very end of the book, and some photos I took recently around the SF Bay Area.
[A back entrance to Three Mile Beach north of Santa Cruz.]
When my father was on his last legs, he said, “What was I so worried about all those years? What difference did any of it make?”
Like many writers, I spend an inordinate amount of time fretting about the relative success of my works. But I also work at being grateful for what I have. After all, the vast majority of people don’t get published at all. My books are printed and find a substantial audience; I get money and respect in return. I’m lucky to have the ability to write.
[Guy riding on a cart pulled by a kite, Ocean Beach, San Francisco]
And, thanks to the chapter I wrote about society as a kind of computation in The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul, I’ve finally came to accept that writers’ sales obey a scaling law that’s technically known as an inverse power law distribution. You’re not getting lackluster book advances because someone is actively screwing you. It’s the scaling law.
The scaling law applies across the board—to the populations of cities, the number of hits on websites, the heights of mountains, the number of friends that people have, the areas of lakes, and the sales of books. There’s no getting around it. Thus, if you’re the hundredth-most popular writer, you earn a hundredth as much as the most popular one. Instead of a million dollars, you get ten thousand bucks. That’s how nature is. It’s not anyone’s fault.
[Pumpkin crop on Wilder Ranch farmland, north of Cruz.]
Even if the financial rewards are modest, I revel in the craft of writing. I like being able to control these little realities where things work out the way I want. It’s no accident that so many of my heroes leave the ordinary world for adventures in fabulous other lands. In just the same way, I move my mind from the day-to-day world into the fantastic worlds of my books. I make art because it feels good to do so.
Writing is hard, and after each book is finished, I wonder if I’ll be able to write another. But I keep coming back And I’ve got painting as well—another path to creative bliss.
It’s been deep and intense, here inside this cosmic novel.
[With Jon Pearce by a yonic rock formation, near Strawberry Beach, north of Cruz at this Google Earth location.]
When I started writing my memoir, Nested Scrolls, I was wondering what my life has meant. But now I see that’s not a question I’m in a position to analyze. I’m inside my story, not outside of it. What does a flower mean? A waterfall?
This said, as a writer, I can think about my life’s structure, about the story arc. I see a few obvious themes.
I searched for ultimate reality, and I found contentment in creativity. I tried to scale the heights of science, and I found my calling in philosophy and in science fiction. I was a loner, I found love, I became a family man. I was a rebel and I became a helpful professor. And I never stopped seeing the world in my own special way.
It’s been a wonderful trip.
September 19th, 2009 at 8:24 pm
The trip has long way yet to run, Rudy, so keep us informed.
September 19th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Wonderful, vital and inspirational. You have a way with words. And this is as an understatement at the quantum level…
September 20th, 2009 at 10:51 am
The last paragraph in this post is an inspiration for rebel loners in their lifelong journey in search of the ultimate reality.
Scott (a loner, in search of….)
September 28th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
“I never stopped seeing the world in my own special way.” Better than that; you managed to let the rest of us in on the way you see the world. Your books are a window into fabulous unknown places, full of things we never imagined. Trains of thought you set off may still be on track a century from now, and you’ve published so many hard copies and uploaded enough texts that your work will be jumping off shelves or unpacking from archives for millennia, ready to surprise new readers. You’ve influenced dozens of younger writers who will be carrying some of these ideas forward, and also influenced plenty of writers your own age who are also influencing the younger writers, and that’s without mentioning the more-or-less ordinary people who walk around with these ideas fluttering in their heads. Best of all, you seem to have reproduced successfully, so that if entropy gets you there will still be a Rudy Rucker walking the earth for many decades. And heck, there’s always the Singularity coming; maybe we’ll all be digitized. In that case, it might be you yourself unpacking from some forgotten archive to astound some future generation. If so, tell ’em us pheezers said hello.
October 4th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Lovely stuff!