Along with a huge bunch of new Fidget Pens in a bunch of different materials, The Earthsea pens are now in the shop – Fidgets, Mistrals, and three Bebes. Subscriptions and Patreon pens are already waiting to be shipped, once my unanticipatedly needed nib order gets in.
I ran out of Fine nibs unexpectedly this quarter. Usually it’s Medium, but this quarter Fine was popular. I now have a lot of Extra Fine and Mediums, but no Fine.
The Universe laughs at my attempts to predict what I will need and I, mortal human that I am, scramble in panic to respond before it’s too late and my survival is jeopardized beyond saving. This quarter it was different nibs being popular and a car driving through my workshop, erasing a month’s worth of being ahead in seconds.
I am not a believer in a Just World; I know it is possible to lose everything – and it won’t matter if you deserved it or not. You can, in fact, do everything right and fail, and you can do all the wrong things but be rescued time and time again. At best, we can influence the outcome – but we are never truly in control.
The quest for Perfection is the flower, the manifestation, of the necessary and comforting delusion that we can be in control. We need the security believing that if we do all the right things, we will be safe, we will be supported. That we can make people see we are worthy, and that if we do the all the right things, no one will push back against the moral good we stand for. We will find the right words and be understood. We can make things right and fair and just if we only…
We can’t. No amount of trying to be perfect, striving to make everyone happy, to do all the right things all the right ways, to make ourselves bigger, smaller, smarter, more of anything will give us the control and safety we want and make the world fair and just. We cannot control that. The best we can do is be kind in the moment, to be as kind and honest as possible to the person and in the situation in front of us right now. That is all we can do.
That is enough.
– A. Markov