Some Ideas About Life and Writing - Verlin Darrow - The RV Book Fair 2025

Here are a few concepts that serve me well, both as a person and as a writer. See what resonates. Maybe none of it will. For me, this stuff provides insight into myself and my characters. Above all else, it helps me limit how much I con myself about my writing. Because it was so hard-earned, I value it above what’s come easily.

********

When we're not in the moment, we meet our mind instead of the world. Our mind might be providing interesting commentary on what we encounter. Or perhaps it's busy generating a reductionist analog of our actual experience. But ultimately, it's hard to nurture ourselves from within this limited realm, especially in comparison to the wonders that await us in each unmediated moment out in the world.

When we stay up in our heads, engage in escapist activities, or crave for life to be other than it is, we devalue the reality of whatever moment we're missing. Perhaps a given situation or context feels boring, or painful, or repetitive. These are just the judgments – the excuses – that our minds concoct to protect us from the supposed horror of embedding ourselves in any given moment – letting it tell us what it is. So we end up assigning meaning instead of receiving it.

If we try to look at something – say, a houseplant – how long is it before our attention shifts to judgment/evaluation/interpretation and all that other mind stuff? Perhaps we actually see the plant with our full attention for all of ten seconds, then it's off to the races. What a healthy looking plant, you might think. I wonder how much a plant like that costs? Where can I get one like that? What kind is it? Gee, it reminds me of that one my aunt had. Etc. So we've got 10% plant and 90% mind in the mix.

Whether we find a given slice of reality to be palatable or not, resistance to our own experience is futile. In the long run, we can't fight reality and win. It's a hell of a lot bigger than we are. Sooner or later, we pay a hefty price for adopting this strategy -- increased suffering.

Suppose we could learn to master our attention – directing our metaphorical gaze when and where we chose. Would we really decide to filter so much of our experience through our drunk monkey minds? (No offense to those of you with other troublesome critters up there. That's a fair description of mine, at least.) If the answer is no, then why not start practicing? Focus on becoming more mindful. There are all sorts of resources out there these days; mindfulness has hit the big-time.

The way to thoroughly learn our particular life curriculum is by simply paying attention. I mean this literally. The organic flow of events and circumstances we each encounter in our daily life contains all we need. And remember: mindfulness isn't about inventing what we want to be mindful to. It's about being with whatever's here. And now. And then the next here and now. And then the next.

Another idea: a lot of life is more like the weather than we’d care to admit. Especially other people. Our attempts to control or change others are usually doomed. We fend off the truth of this to maintain the illusion that we can get our needs met in just the way we want. Instead of accepting and working with the way things are, we try to transform other people in unrealistic ways. And until all hope is dashed, we keep trying, since the notion is such an attractive Plan A. Our futile attempts generate a steady life curriculum of frustration, conflict, and unhappiness – all the stuff we were trying to avoid in the first place. As is so often the case, the solution becomes the problem.

Yielding gracefully speaks to the only real choice we have when situations are beyond our ability to control outcome. We can be dragged kicking and screaming into what needs to happen or we can accept reality and go with the flow. The resistant, involuntary version layers extra suffering onto the mandatory suffering that is inherent in the circumstance itself. So we make things harder on us as it all turns out exactly the same as if we cooperated.

Of course, we may need to become more skilled at determining what the serenity prayer asks us to do – identify that which is within our domain and that to which we need to surrender. Our culture fosters various myths concerning our empowerment in the world and these play on our psychological need for stability and security. If we accept the notion that that we can control our fate by working hard, for example, life becomes less scary. But what happens as actual events disconfirm this premise? Then we feel the stress of never-actualized responsibility and the sting of “failure” as events unfold based on the entire constellation of variables inherent in any particular life equation. Are we really failing if we can’t walk through a wall or perform some other impossible action?

In terms of writing, I think all of the above is relevant.

Verlin Darrow is currently a psychotherapist who lives with his psychotherapist wife in the woods near the Monterey Bay in northern California. They diagnose each other as necessary. Verlin is a former professional volleyball player (in Italy), unsuccessful country-western singer/songwriter, import store owner, and assistant guru in a small, benign spiritual organization. Before bowing to the need for higher education, a much younger Verlin ran a punch press in a sheetmetal factory, drove a taxi, worked as a night janitor, shoveled asphalt on a road crew, and installed wood flooring. He missed being blown up by Mt. St. Helens by ten minutes, survived the 1985 Mexico City earthquake (8 on the Richter scale), and (so far) has successfully weathered his own internal disasters.

Find out more at https://www.verlindarrow.com.

Article published in The Relatable Voice Magazine - December 2025 as part of The RV Book Fair 2025. Downolad the full magazine at https://www.relatable-media.com/the-relatable-voice-magazine