I’m sitting alone inside my head and wondering best how to utilise the free time that I have. A voice at the farthest corner keeps whispering that I’m doing it all wrong. I hear the dying whispers and ignore it. I know it speaks the truth and the truth is what I fear.
As little as an hour ago I read a little something on my Facebook page. I’m certain that it’s just a parable that’s going around since forever, but it was new, and interesting, for me.
It was a story about an art professor talking to his class about his grading methodology. He gives the kids a choice: be graded on quality or quantity. The rules were such that if the kids picked one, they couldn’t retract and change their choice later. Quantity Students needed to turn in a given weight, say 20 pounds, worth of “art” for an A, and any submissions below that would result in a lower grade. Whereas, the Quality Students had to simply turn in ONE item of their best work.
As the year end approached, a curious phenomenon was noticed. The Quantity Students turning on pounds and pounds of art had distinct attributes of near perfection, while the Quality Students turning their 1 item of pièce de résistance had only grandiose theories and excess material proclaiming their path to ‘perfection’.
Apparently, the Quantity Students, in their efforts to churn out multiple pieces, of their art, absorbed and learnt from their mistakes, while the Quality Students barfed at their incomplete effort, swore to do better in their next attempt and discarded their incomplete piece.
Now, I am well aware of what the author of this very interesting aphorism is trying to convey and I agree with it, largely. I understand and respect the discipline and workmanship required to simply ‘do’ without worrying about attaining the near impossibility of attaining perfection. What I had trouble with was processing how the Quality Students can go through without learning. I mean, it has to be extremely myopic to go through something over and over again without learning anything.
To get to their ‘perfect piece of art’, they probably went through multiple iterations and combinations, and probably went through the same number of art work as the Quantity Students had, if not more.
I don’t understand the demonstration.
Anyway, the author in the piece used the word ‘dead clay’ along with the phrase ‘grandiose theories’. The only way the Quality Students made a boo-boo out of their art was if they discarded their attempt as soon as they met resistance instead of actually completing their piece. I suppose that the aphorism nests within itself.
It demonstrates that the Quality Students left things incomplete, at sight of their first hiccup, and had their eyes only on the end result. And the author reinstates the point that the Quality Students, living by their ‘grandiose theories’, do not learn even while the opportunity is right there upon the very paths that their counterparts will travel and do what they missed.
Learn. Inculcate. Absorb.
One after another, one incomplete piece after another, dead clay after dead clay! All they have are grandiose theories to supplicate their incompetence.
So, needless to say, this is far too close for comforts. I have been working on my so called ‘art’ for the past 16 years or so. I began at a waiting room at Allahabad Railway Station on a hot summer afternoon in 2007. It was a glorious day and I still have the notebook which began it all.
In 16 years I have enough word count to beat The Great Gatsby, The Chamber of Secrets and Carrie by sheer volume of words. I have ‘almost’ as many words as The Hobbit.
I have a fairly simple and straightforward way to calculate.
7 words per line;
18 lines per page;
70 pages per notebook and
10 notebooks.
These are the averages I live by.
When I speak of these numbers to a person who doesn’t write, that person is in awe. But, I am afraid and embarrassed to speak of such numbers with a fellow writer. I use the word writer with enough leeway to make me feel like one. I am embarrassed because I know it, and my fellow writers know it, that if I have been writing for so long then my writing is probably full of shit.
If I have been writing for so long and I have nothing worth a while to show for it, I am either (a) lying, or (b) faking.
I can’t decide which one is worse.
I can swear on my pinky that I am not faking being a lover of the ‘art’. I hyperventilate when I get a chance to discuss reading or writing. But, I don’t know what elusive dream I am living in. I don’t know where it is going. I have killed a few characters just to know how I’d feel and I am sorry to say I felt NOTHING! I am not attached to any of my characters it seems (apart from Ayesha and Rehan, I love them and they’re not dying anytime soon) but I don’t have that sort of relationship.
Anyway, I know I am digressing.
I begin things with a great big whoop and it ends lifeless like a silent fart in an empty room. I used to run a book review blog with a friend. I have given up since she left. I thought I’d be able to maintain the momentum, but it seems I can’t. My own personal blog is almost dead. Yes, I am trying to revive them both and we’ll see how I do with that.
I keep telling myself I’m in it for the journey, while I keep my finger crossed behind my back. I love the journey, but I’d also love to have something in hand to prove to myself the work I’ve put in for 16 years!
Falling squarely under the Quality Students, I have my hearts set on becoming a Quantities guy.
Here’s to nothing!
Siddiqui F.
(11.04.2021)
PS: Take note of the date. I actually wrote this 2 years ago. That time my work was 14, now it’s 16.
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Photo by Motoki Tonn on Unsplash
Ho-Hum 
As someone who writes, that’s a lot of writing and commitment to the art from where I’m seeing. No one keeps doing something for over 15 years and dismisses it by the wayside. The quantity students were doing things over and over and nearing perfection. That’s how they get better — by doing things. If you’re gonna keep doing it, why not have fun along the way?