“A sense of obligation”
How I’ve learned to work for who I want to be
One of My Favorite Poems
Whenever people (including myself) feel very indignant about something, this poem always seems to float into my head:
A man said to the universe:
“Sir, I exist!”
“However,” replied the universe,
“The fact has not created in me
A sense of obligation.”
- Stephen Crane
I think the meaning of this poem is relatively clear: just being there doesn’t merit anything.
Sitting in my room, hiding from the world, playing games (or writing this article? hmmmmm) doesn’t mean the universe gives a sh*t.
The first time I came upon this poem as a kid, I just thought the answer was clear: nothing matters, no one cares (hey, emo was very in).
Well, that’s certainly one way of looking at it.
But reading it again through more experienced eyes, I realize that obligation, the universe owing you something, or at a smaller scope, your family/community owing you something, is not a guarantee.
You must work.
Stephen King’s Writing
When I first encountered Stephen King, I was at a homestay family’s home and they had 3 Dark Tower books. I had nothing notable to read with me, so I picked up what I assumed was the first (it turned out to be the last in the series) and started churning through it.
By the time I was 1/3 of the way in, and realized that (1) it was very good and (2) I had just spoiled a 7 book series for myself, but I was invested and finished it.
I then went back and read 1–5. (For some reason, I cannot bring myself to read the 6th one, maybe because then I will have to re-read 7 and get stuck in an infinite loop?) Stephen King is a solid author, and when I started his On Writing book recently, something struck me.
As a kid, Stephen King started writing from a very young age (6–8 years old), copying stories and adding his own spin on them. His mom lit up upon reading them, but then said: make your own. And so he did, and sold his first $1 worth of stories to his mother.
Later, there’s a wall of rejection notices tacked onto his wall, and Stevie is now a teenager who still writes. He learns how to edit by writing for the local paper, and has a few successes with submitting writing pieces to various magazines.
But I glossed over that “wall of rejection”, did I not? An important detail: many of his very early pieces were rejected (he was still learning to write, after all). But he kept at it; his expertise grew and with 400 million copies sold, he must be doing something right.
What I know so far from his biography is, he built his base. He learned how to write well early on (unabashed by rejection), so he could spend years and years pumping out quality work.
As a kid, I did write, but it was sporadic, and I never took any criticism well. I didn’t realize (and maybe still don’t) that to write well, you have to write badly for a time.
Writing isn’t easy for me. Most often when I sit down to write I feel compelled. “Now is the time: please produce.” And then my focus wavers, my brain screams “this is hard and you’re bad at it.”
And lo and behold, no writing comes.
This was me for years and years. I didn’t start putting any writing on Medium until 2022, and have been much more consistent since then. I even self published something in 2023 (as proof to myself that I could).
But I bear the scars of my younger self; afraid to write and incapable of putting in the time necessary. Partly because it is hard, and partly because I can just numb myself with many other forms of entertainment.
But it’s mainly because I didn’t produce a sense of obligation. I was just some kid. I wasn’t a writer. Writers write, kids just screw around.
I don’t pretend to have oodles more discipline than I did as a kid. All I have now that I didn’t have back then is less time to screw around. If I want to write something worth reading, it’s not going to happen if I don’t pay obeisance to the instrument: the written word.
What Stephen Crane’s poem (side note: do I just like writers named Stephen?) says is that I have to move beyond existence, beyond consumption. I have to produce something, anything, that way I can earn some sense of obligation from the universe.
To earn this obligation, I am the one who is obliged. I must perfect a craft.
I must work.
The Track
I’m not a fast runner; by any measure I’m at best, an average runner. But running is not one of my “hobbies” at this point. It’s part of my identity.
It was 40F outside and the sun was setting. I could have sat inside my house and stared at my phone, but instead, I had my gear on, and when my wife walked in the door I left our kid with her to go plunk around the track for 50 minutes.
I didn’t do this because I’m a great runner, or because I have to lose 5 pounds to meet some goal.
I did this because I. Am. A. Runner.
I ran a half marathon last year and I’m running a marathon this year. As long as my joints, knees, ankles and muscles will carry me, I’ll keep plodding around the track and race course.
The track represents a holy place in running. This is where runners prove they are better: better than other runners by being faster in a race, and by being fitter than folks who simply walk (or drive) by the track.
It’s the bedrock of any runner’s temple, or at least symbolically so.
I glanced at my watch while running and tried to keep in “Zone 2.” If you’ve ever heard Peter Attia rant about it, it’s the “base” of a person’s cardio. It’s the zone where you can run “forever,” and carry a light conversation, but maybe don’t want to.
The track has no sense of obligation to me. It will still be there even if I were sitting at home.
I am beholden to it.
It is the curve that my body must follow if I don’t want to run out into the street or into a fence. It says “this is how long 400 meters is, in an oval.”
It’s my instrument. I play it with the tired shuffle of my feet.
I go to it because it’s softer than running on the pavement, and because of this feeling of being part of something I get when running on it.
As a kid, I wrestled one season, and remember being told “you are the worst one here” by another kid when it came to cardio (he was completely right). And that was because I didn’t put in the work. I hadn’t run for hours and hours, miles and miles. My heart was working twice as hard as the other boys who had been putting the work in before.
I was running on this same track months ago, and two boys were running. One was keeping pace/ as quick as me, and the other was completely gassed. I saw myself in that gassed kid. No clue how much he had run before that day at the track, but the answer was not enough.
The track is a physical reminder that runners have very specific goals: to move between these lines faster than other people can. To do it without killing ourselves. It’s a reminder that:
We must work.
My Sense of Obligation
To mirror Crane’s poem, as an adult, who seeks to run and to write, I offer this closing thought: obligation is towards an idea.
You are obligated when you envision yourself as that person.
I am obligated to write (and hopefully, write well) because I am a writer.
I am obligated to run (and hopefully, not pass out) because I am a runner.
I didn’t use to be either of those. I used to be someone who dreamed of writing and running, but instead got dopamine hits from a screen.
Fortunately, I understand that the universe’s lack of obligation means I need to create my own.
This fact has created within me a sense of obligation.
