Writers, Dismantle Your Scarcity Mindset!
Now that I know to be on the lookout within writing circles, I see the destructive consequences of capitalism everywhere. We imagine we’ve pulled ourselves up by our own bootstraps: I wrote this! We presume ownership: This is MY creation! We believe product is all and process is only valuable inasmuch as it ends in product. We assume attention and money validate creativity. Scarcity rules; grants, residencies, and publication opportunities are limited, and therefore we must scramble to compete with other writers. She who garners the most “likes” wins. He who succeeds is a “writer”; the rest of us are schmucks.
Long before we put pen to page, these competitive, consumeristic values infiltrate our being. We feel scorching self-doubt in direct proportion to how deeply we’ve absorbed these cultural messages.
How can we dismantle the transactional economy that’s taken up residence in our psyches? By learning to appreciate the economy of gifts, from which all creativity arises, within which originality flourishes, and through which our endeavors find their true agency. Understanding the writing and publishing process as part of a vast gift exchange, abundant with generosity, repositions our writing as a spiritual practice. Process is valuable in its own right. Gratitude replaces competition. Humility allows us to see inspiration streaming into our work from all directions. Generosity motivates our desire to share. Other writers become the village helping to raise our literary children.
When we writers actively deconstruct their inner market economy and intentionally grow in its place an inner gift economy, we move from an orientation of scarcity into abundance. As a result, we find creative freedom. What could possibly be better for our writing and our souls?!
—Elizabeth
PS: Want to practice writing in the gift economy? Join the Eye of the Heart writing community for a quick taste and ongoing support. I'm also offering an in-person retreat this September: The Release: How writing in an economy of gifts liberates writers.
