Hi.
I have attempted to write a variety of books, on various topics, though I essentially end up failing or losing interest or being dissatisfied with how it turns out.
(Consequently, I have submitted a variety of query letters to maybe a hundred agents and have always recieved rejections).
Generally, the result is that they will send a form letter. However, a few of them wrote personal notes that said that I need to build some credentials for myself in order to have a platform to sell the book off of.
After giving the matter some contemplationg, I realized that I need to redirect my writing to reflect the natural credentials I have, which is, most strongly and recognizably: being a young person.
I am thus looking for comments and critique on what I am working on now, which I am titling (as of this moment)
If We Were An Octopus: A Critical Assessment of the World
(I really do need help. No matter to what extent I force myself to realize my faults, my writing has a strong tendency to be boring, unfocused, sickeningly "inspirational", or lacking a real factor of attraction. I have a lot of ideas but need help rendering them into book format.)
Ay, here.
1. Introduction
We are capable of astounding potential if we open attentively to be aware of what’s around us. There’s a lot going on. Though whether we’re too busy becoming caught up in our social plans, or we’ve just never exposed to an appealing incentive to fuel our mental processes, the conclusion is undeniable. We are running around on the surface of a sphere somewhere in a vast amount of space, and all people seem to notice is the new cultural trend or some temporary condition or state. There’s a lot that people aren’t noticing, and our lack of realizing our faults is causing them to occur. There’s a lot to think about that most people won’t ever come to ponder over if we continue in this way. We are the cause of every problem that effects us.
Every person is capable of simple changes that will better ourselves with tremendous impact. It’s as easy as asking a question, demanding a reason, or realizing when something’s curiously unnecessary and obscure in our life. Existence is amazing and intriguing; it is filled with a cascade of subtleties and quirks to be uncovered. Unfortunately, people become drowned in that which we have created around ourselves.
People invented time, yet it dominates our lives. People constructed language, yet we apply it to everything, human or not, and assume that it is a universal, all-encompassing tool to explain all that is. Really, these are only partially practical systems that resulted as the products of boredom. Our entire lives become clouded by self-created concepts and imagined ideas. We let it all hold us back. We go along without ever stopping to look at it all, and ask: Why?
We need to take the time to think. It’s a difficult behavior to acquire, yet it is the most effective way of giving aid to make life better, to understand more, and to help humanity as a whole. Be curious. Wonder. Ask yourself why you have a job or go to school. Ask yourself what you’re being taught, and what you’re contributing to the world. Inquire as to why you live, and what purpose you might serve. Take it further, and ponder over the reality that purpose is a human created concept. Learn to figure things out for yourself. You only need to be taught that observation is infinitely important. If you understand this, you will grow with your realizations.
With so many people here on our planet, it's difficult to have a substantial impact or positive effect on others. Even further, when we realize the vastness of our entire galaxy or universe, we may become even further discouraged and unprepared to cope with the actuality of everything that is being newly opened to us. Yet we must direct ourselves to enlighten others, and wake them up from the dull slumber of culture and society. A world with conscious individuals, with admirable desires and a drive to progress, grow, and discover will develop at an incomprehensibly faster rate than one such as we have now, where we are simply allowing ourselves to be pushed and pulled by the tides of unstable politics, economics, and invented systems.
It's a wonder that so few people have any passionate urge to change that which is around them. It seems as though people become entirely absorbed into their surrounding environment, to a point where they can longer have reasonable observations, but can only move around the information they've already acquired, in the places they already know. Our culture, too, reveres only those who are deemed credible with degrees and supposed accomplishments, all while what we really need is observational common sense, which can be acquired by anyone, despite age or experience.
There are a lot of harmful, yet easily resolved problems in our world. Most people will never come to think over the majority of them. Listen to that which encompasses you. Learn from the insight you can provide yourself through analyzing life. Reassess your views on everything you believe, and everything you’ve been told. Take what you can from the following, and use it to shape yourself into a fully aware, inquisitive person who is a benefit to everything around you.
Our current position may indeed be quite easily viewed. If one is to take a step back from their life, they may begin to see the whole of humanity as a now in-operating machine. Each individual person is a separate, though interconnected part of the whole device. Throughout the history of humanity as we know it, people have strived to set our entire order into motion. Now knowing to view the entirety, we can see that if each part begins to work towards bringing out the potential to function in every other part, we may begin to operate as a whole.
Once every person is aware, truly living, and playing their role in the device which we all compose, we will be able to see just what it is that this machine produces; we will be able to view our purpose for existing, or if we have a reason to be here at all. By beginning to understand ourselves, the greatest truths may come upon us. So will you continue to live the way you do now, as just another pointless being creating an obstruction to reaching a pure fullness? Or, will you play your role, and open your mind to see the potential to develop which we can so simply grasp through uncovering those aspects of life which already lay before us?
The faults in our current position bleed through into countless aspects of everyday life. Easily solved problems create difficulties which grow upon each other to form insensible and useless things in our way of being. Public education addresses only the temporary and factual information that has been accumulated throughout our history. Leaders in government pay little or no attention to the general direction that we’re all heading towards. Perhaps what is worst of all is that few people care, and most have not even begun to notice. By opening ourselves to our situation, we can aid ourselves by discovering this less strenuous path in life, and help others by not adding the negative aspects that ignorant behavior creates onto them.
Our attentions have been diverted by less significant concerns. If we may so easily take it upon ourselves to just open our minds to our surroundings and question where we are, and know that we need to strive towards the common goal of understanding what role our whole of humanity may play in the entire scope of what exists, we will come into a new light of general positivity.
We are a mere fragment of entirety. By casting aside the troubles of our small, individual dramas, we can start to be purer people, and aid in the development of our race, instead of inhibiting progress and making skew the potential of beauty and prosperity through ignorance.
Please be honest and mean, if necessary. I need to better myself and won't feel too poorly if the reality of my situation is dire.
Thank you, with hope.
If We Were An Octopus (1. Introduction)
