Louis XIV was obsessed with his gloire. The pursuit of gloire was basically his raison d’être, and certainly the primary motivation behind many if not most of his political acts as an absolute monarch. The French word “gloire” is more nuanced that its English counterpart, glory; it encompasses “reputation”* as well as “prestige”. Louis XIV wanted to be admired. That word, too, carries a variety of connotations: approval, respect, reverence, adulation, envy, even intimidation. It’s only perhaps a small exaggeration to say that Louis XIV built Versailles as a pedestal upon which he could stand and be admired.
Why am I talking about a French king who lived more than 300 hundred years ago? Because, friends, la gloire is a very modern preoccupation too. I might go so far as to argue that it is the defining obsession of our social media-dominated age. Louis XIV would have looooved Instagram and TikTok, I’m telling you. Wait, did I just say that? Sacré bleu!
Speaking of Instagram, I came across this idea there recently that I haven’t been able to get out of my head. To paraphrase:
To crave the result but not the process is to guarantee failure.
This came up in the context of writing, specifically, but I think it applies broadly to pretty much any endeavour, creative or otherwise. What it’s getting at is this: unless one values and invests in the process required to get the desired result as much as one values and invests in the result itself, one is setting oneself up for failure. Result follows process; you get what you put in.
In fact, and not to be a downer here, when it comes to creative pursuits, sometimes you get less than what you put in, because capitalism is not actually set up to reward creativity. The notion that you can get more than you put in — aka phenomenal result with minimal effort — is a thing people tell you when they’re trying to sell you some get-rich-quick scheme.
Since I’ve started hanging out in writerly spaces (mostly on Reddit), I’ve seen countless posts from people who crave being successful writers. Who dream of la gloire of being a writer that others admire. And, listen, I’d be lying to you if I said that I don’t indulge in that dream myself, from time to time. But what stands out to me in a lot of these posts — more of them than you might think — is the notable lack of interest in the process of being a writer, period. It’s less about “how do I become a writer” and more about “how do I write a successful novel”. I always want to respond to these posts by pointing out that they’re focusing on the wrong thing, but I don’t because I know there’s very little chance the OPs will listen … and, also, who needs strangers on the internet getting mad at them for being quote-unquote negative? Not me.
Here’s what I learned about being a writer so far: the only thing you can control is your practice and your process. And, by extension, the work that comes out of that process. But as for what happens to that work — the result of the process, as it were? You don’t control sh*t.
Ok, fine. Maybe you have a non-zero amount of control over the result.
But the amount of control you have is so infinitesimal that we might as well zero it out altogether. A well-written book (i.e. the outcome of your process) does not equate to a “successful” book, by any external metric you want to measure success. Externally-validated success is largely determined by external factors — aka other people. And we can’t control what other people do, or think, or like. Sadly, we are not absolute monarchs like old Louis was.
I think this is true of most human endeavours and certainly of creative ones of any kind. Getting deeply attached to a result (particularly one predicated on external validation) is a pretty surefire way to court disappointment. But if the result is the thing that puts fire in one’s belly, then I think the best way to improve the chance of avoiding disappointment is to take that fire and channel it into the process. Learn to crave the process; it might end up getting you the result you want, but even if not, you’ll have had a bunch of fun along the way.
Here’s another thing I recently heard and can’t get out of my head: we don’t get what we want, we get what we are. Isn’t that quite a devastating statement? Simple, to the point, and true.
This is how I’ve come to understand it: what we achieve reflects what we practice. One cannot think oneself a writer (much less a successful writer). One must act to be a writer, which is to say, one must have a practice of writing. Again, the same goes for everything. We cannot want and wish and think ourselves confident. We act and practice confidence, and in time we become confident. Practice dictates outcome, shapes reality.
So, yes, be wary of la gloire. It is shiny and tempting, but it can lead one astray. Just ask historians: Louix XIV did a bunch of (objectively) dumb things chasing la gloire … and he came as close to being an omnipotent human as ever walked upon this green earth. Whether or not he was even satisfied, on balance, with his achievements is a WHOLE other story. [Some, indeed, have speculated that he ended up feeling trapped by the lifestyle he created for himself in pursuit of la gloire. Which begs the question: if a mega-rich autocrat doesn’t enjoy his life, what is even the point of being a mega-rich autocrat? But I digress.]
Anyway … here’s to chasing the high (and lows) of the process — glory be damned!
*See, e.g., Anne Somerset’s book The Affair of the Poisons: Murder, Infanticide and Satanism at the Court of Louix XIV for discussion. Many other writers and historians have examined this facet of Louis XIV’s personality and its impact on his reign.