Life After Writing 30 Books
On the other side of success lies emptiness.
I once thought that after writing 30 books with my brother, I would be imbued with a profound sense of fulfillment, a distinct notion of accomplishment that would be coupled with achievement. Initially, this was the case, and then after my brain adjusted to the new number and normalized my everyday experiences in a balanced equilibrium, profound unhappiness began to set in like an unshakable cloud. I tried mediation and affirmations and attempted to train myself to only and ever explicitly think and practice positive thinking, but the underlying and subtle feeling of stagnation held.
How do I be happy?
That thought has plagued me for the last month. I don’t know where to turn in this newfound emptiness. It is a feeling akin to having completed a long, hard video game and then arrived triumphant at the end. The world has been saved, and you, the hero, must now return home to… relax. But this is real life, and the only end is in death. I do not live in a TV that turns off at the press of the power button; I must rise again and again in this new reality—plagued by an unfathomable feeling of loss and confusion. The world feels bleak. All challenges seem empty. I am haunted by a cloudy depression that is much like a perpetual overcast. I can feel the tinge of light shining through, but the sun seems to never appear, and similar to my mood, my happiness has yet to return.
I am trailed by what feels like an eternal question: what now?
What, indeed, will I do now? I have proved myself to myself. I have proved myself to others, to society, to college… to the world perhaps twice over. I am in my mid-twenties with over 30 books, 31 to be exact, with another one meandering along the way. I move through my classes like a zombie. I feel like a ball of negativity rolling around. A pile of frustration that, like gum, is difficult to dislodge and sweep away. I intend to enter finance as a career and am presently learning little by little, day by day, about the markets, interest rates, and general industry. I am finding subtle pleasure in reading about something new, but nothing can replace the ten-year passion and desire that my books imbued me with. Yet that decade’s long sense of passion has withered as though it died away. In its place is an unspeakable void, a deep and internal sense of unfulfillment.
It is absolutely unmistakable that I am a failed artist, even though I attend Princeton University as an undergraduate. I am preparing to shove myself into the cubicle of finance, which I suppose any author would find akin to a morgue. All authors except the very lucky ones work jobs, and I have no doubt that the vast majority of the ones who do are depressed on some deep intrinsic level. We all ask ourselves: why does no one read our books? Why does what I write not matter to society? Where did all the readers go?
Away we trod. Away, we prepare in the darkness of our hearts to eventually work a job. And I ask myself: is this all that I’ve amounted to? Thirty books before thirty, and yet I am about to meander into a 9 to 5 existence? All that for nothing. All that for the temporary satisfaction of writing books, getting into a top school… just to prepare myself for a career that has nothing to do with what I’ve written or what I like to do. It feels as though ten years of my life have all but crumbled into dust.
Not a waste of time by any measure, but more like a life lost. A life and dream that may only truly materialize into fame long after my death. It is a tragic revelation for any artist to produce so much and receive the barest sales in return for such hard work and dedication. Thirty books and none sell. Barely any sell, even after a decade. This is my truest and eternal failure, my dream, which, like a rude awakening, has finally met its end with a final gasp before the job market.
I realize that the height of my frustration comes from the unspoken understanding that I am slowly dying inside. And again, I will trek to class on a beautiful campus, knowing that the overcast clouds above my head reflect the depression in my heart. Yes, there is so much to be grateful for, and yet I can hardly flex a smile.
Is the price of success to receive everything except what you really want?
Hello! We’re D.J. Hoskins
We are Davena and Jason Hoskins, co-authors of 30+ books and siblings who write under the pseudonym D.J. Hoskins. Three years apart and in our twenties, we have been fascinated by stories from a young age. Davena is a student attending Princeton University, and Jason attends Georgetown University.
