THE WORLD GOT WIDER

By Clay Stafford

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For a long time, I believed that anything worth pursuing should come with a clear signal, some sign, momentum, or external confirmation that I was moving in the right direction. I think I was waiting for the circus to come to town. Looking for that exterior confirmation, though, quietly narrowed my world without me even noticing.

I didn’t really understand this belief, this idea that I was essentially performing for others. I didn’t think about it. It wasn’t something I put into words. It just showed up, thoughtlessly, like the morning sun. Unlike the mark of a new day, however, this subconscious belief or need for validation manifested as hesitation, maybe doubt. When no one clapped, no one replied to my desperate phone calls, letters, or emails, or no one offered a word of encouragement or support, I found I slowed down. I started to wait. “Give me a sign,” my needy heart exclaimed. I started second-guessing my map. I equated uncertainty with fear, that I was about to make a mistake.

I don’t know when this thinking began; it may have started in childhood, perhaps reflecting a need for parental approval in a conditionally loved world. The shame is that it shaped my life more than I realized. It made me cautious, even timid, in moments that required courage. Wherever it began and however it grew, this subconscious belief that I needed that validation trained me to seek approval from others rather than to seek direction from within. I couldn’t help but think that when progress was slow, and especially when it stalled, it was proof that I was off track. When I felt something mattered, but yet it demanded so much unapplauded effort, I wondered if I wasn’t forcing something that should not be rather than earning something that should not have to be affirmed.

Somewhere along the way, it hit me. Why? Maturity? God-given insight? Not sure. I know nothing external changed. There were no circus clowns. No breakthrough arrived. But inside me, the moment that my life began to change, the moment that I began to change, was a shift in the limiting belief itself.

Somewhere in my Los Angeles days, I began to notice that the work that mattered most, not only to me, but to others, oddly rarely announced itself. In its inception, in its call to adventure, it made no promises. I didn’t have to wait for the green light to proceed. I didn’t need any person in power to give me some grand confirmation that I had finally found the path. Instead, my life and work began to show up, not with fireworks, but in small, unglamorous ways.

I found I was passionately involved in my work and life when previously I would have told myself to quit. Problems or roadblocks? Instead of avoiding or dismissing them and walking away, I found I started returning to them day after day, living and loving life regardless of who, if anyone, ever noticed. The silence, the fact that no one was even noticing, stopped coming across to me as a warning. The silence became the mental space where my life and work began to live and grow. And from the silence, to my surprise, others began to notice.

“Reassurance” is the key word. I no longer needed it. And when I began to accept this, to believe and live it, subtly, my attention changed. Without needing approval, I began to notice the quiet pull toward specific ideas or desires that were intrinsically my own, not someone else’s to validate. Life started at that moment to be an adventure, even if it was nothing more than showing up, even when nothing was resolved. It didn’t matter. I was living me. I accepted that sometimes understanding comes only after effort, not before. Looking back, I realized that my strongest decisions, the ones that actually changed and transformed my life, were rarely made in moments of confidence. They were made in moments of scared commitment.

With regret, but also with thankfulness for the experience, I realized how much life-energy and opportunity I had wasted, misreading what were, in fact, neutral conditions and neutral exterior feedback. No response didn’t mean that anyone was rejecting me. Resistance didn’t mean I was going in the wrong direction. Slow progress didn’t mean I was a failure or ill-equipped.

Letting go of the belief that I didn’t need external validation for how I wanted to live my life didn’t erase doubt. Don’t get the wrong impression. But what it did was to strip doubt of its authority. Uncertainty stopped being a verdict and became something I could walk alongside. I could live in the present, not the past or the future, and though it might feel uncomfortable to take risks others dared not, doubt was no longer in charge. Living the life I wanted to live became the mantra.

Letting go of that belief, that need for affirmation, didn’t suddenly make my progress in the world easier, but it did make it wider. Possibilities that had always been there came into view, and I was able to accept them without any need for anyone else’s approval. These possibilities that I dared not dream of didn’t change. They were there all the time. I simply stopped requiring permission to see them. Or honor them. Or rather, I realized the only permission I needed to live the life of my dreams on my own terms was mine.

I realized the world doesn’t widen because circumstances change. It widened when I stopped asking permission to dream big dreams. I wasn’t walking with the consent or acceptance of others anymore. I was walking with uncertainty, and noticing I still belonged, not to the whims of others, but to myself. I began writing my life, telling the story I knew should be told, even when I walked alone.

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Clay Stafford is a bestselling writer, filmmaker, and founder of the Killer Nashville International Writers’ Conference, Killer Nashville Magazine, and the Killer Nashville University streaming service. Subscribe to his newsletter at https://claystafford.com/.

Between Pen and Paper: Flaneuring Through a Writer’s Mind – Why the Inescapable Laws of Nature Matter to Storytellers

By Andi Kopek

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This month, we’ll experience the shortest day of the year—a cosmic reminder that no matter how aggressively we caffeinate our mornings, how many apps we invent, or how many wars we start or can’t end, Earth continues tilting its stubborn 23.5 degrees and throwing snow in our faces.

We may adapt the environment to our needs—insulate it, refrigerate it, pave it, terraform it (fictionally, for now)—but as a species we remain lashed, quite firmly, to the cosmos and its unamused laws of physics.

It’s a humbling thought: even our wildest science-fiction flights depend on what the universe permits. You can bend physics only so far, stretch it only so thin—try to wink at it, and it raises an eyebrow (or the reader lowers their lips in disappointment). Even the fictional worlds we create must ultimately rest on the four fundamental laws of nature:

1. General Relativity

2. The Standard Model of Particle Physics

3. Quantum Mechanics

4. The Laws of Thermodynamics

These aren’t optional. They are the pillars holding up our worlds, real or imaginary—four immense supports of a suspension bridge stretching into the unknown on both ends. We stand upon it, preoccupied with our current state of affairs, trying to unravel the past or imagine futures, while quarks and entropy play on the cables like Einstein bowing a violin.

Creatives who like to play in a sandbox built by these laws are called sci-fi writers. I became a devoted fan of the genre growing up in Poland in the ’70s, when it offered a rare loophole—a way to smuggle big, dangerous, philosophical ideas past the watchful gaze of the Big Communist Brother. Perhaps some of you, concerned with our own modern flavors of censorship, will take the hint. Maybe your next detective story or mystery will unfold not in Nashville as we know it, but on a distant world; maybe the serial killer you’re chasing isn’t hiding in East Nashville but on PSR B1620−26b (the ancient Methuselah Planet) located in the southern arm of the Milky Way, y’all.

The best sci-fi stories I’ve read use scientific principles not as shackles but as springboards for imagination. Here are a few worth keeping in mind:

Gravity. Gravity determines body size, structure, mobility, and evolution; it influences circulation, muscle mass, bone density, and even how tall a creature dares to grow. A world with twice Earth’s gravity won’t give you graceful gazelles—it’ll give you grumpy, compact, low-slung creatures muttering at an early age about knee pain.

Atmospheric Composition. Life requires a medium for energy exchange. For us, that medium is oxygen, but other molecules could take its place: nitrogen, carbon dioxide, methane, even sulfur compounds. Change the atmosphere, and you change the biochemistry—and the smell of everything.

Radiation. Cosmic rays (which are mostly high-speed protons) and various types of electromagnetic radiation—infrared, ultraviolet, and microwave—constantly pepper planets. This radiation might nurture life, mutate it (which could mean more diseases but also faster evolution), or erase it.

Temperature. Most Earth life functions within a narrow temperature window (from about –20°C to +70°C), the range ideal for our enzymes and our chemistry. Below 0°C, life largely halts; by – 20°C, most biochemical reactions have effectively stopped. In the opposite direction, proteins denature above +50°C, and DNA strands come apart above +70°C. That’s the limit of our chemistry.

The Universal Solvent. These temperature limits mostly reflect our reliance on water as a solvent. Water freezes at 0°C and boils at 100°C. Swap water for something else—say, methane, which freezes at –183°C—and life would look radically different. Imagine fish made of wax moving through liquid natural gas.

Magnetic Field. Charged cosmic particles—again, mostly high-energy protons—are deflected by Earth’s magnetic field, which acts as a planetary shield. Without that shield, life on Earth’s surface would be devastated… though not entirely erased. Some extremophiles would endure: certain bacteria (including the famous Conan the Bacterium), fungi (including even more famous Black Mold of Chernobyl), their spores, lichens (a fungus–cyanobacterium partnership), and the legendary indestructible animals—the water bears.

Planet’s Orbit & Tilt. Our planet’s tilt gives us the four seasons; an eccentric orbit would deliver wilder temperature swings. Too much tilt and you get seasonal mayhem; too little, and every day feels like Nashville in March.

Type of Planet’s Star. A star sets a planet’s energy budget as well as day–night rhythm. Remember: the amount of energy a planet receives from its star is inversely proportional to the square of its distance. Double the distance, and the light drops to a quarter. This simple math already creates a universe of possibilities for a writer.

Plate Tectonics / Geologic Activity. This feature is important for creating continents, mountains, mineral deposits, as well as tsunamis and nice views. It also maintains an atmosphere and recycles carbon.

Chemistry & Availability of Essential Elements. Life (as we know it) requires six main elements: carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, and sulfur. But don’t forget the trace metals: iron, magnesium, molybdenum, copper, and nickel. Without them, enzymes don’t work, cells don’t breathe, and metabolism collapses.

So as you sit through this shortest of days, muttering at the early sunset and your cold coffee, remember: the universe with its laws is not your enemy. The cosmos is your co-author. As writers, we should honor the laws that shape our worlds, knowing that imagination deepens—not shrinks—when it leans on truth. If sci-fi authors could sneak philosophy past censors in 1970s Poland, you can certainly sneak a detective onto a distant exoplanet. The shortest day of the year is a great opportunity to recall that we’re temporary passengers on a tilted, spinning, pale blue dot rushing through mostly empty space at 1,300,000 mph*. We are nobody. Let’s respect the laws of nature and enjoy the ride and creativity.

Andi

*1,300,000 mph is the speed of the Earth moving through the cosmos as a part of the Milky Way galaxy’s journey relative to the Cosmic Microwave Background.

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Andi Kopek is a multidisciplinary artist based in Nashville, TN. With a background in medicine, molecular neuroscience, and behavioral change, he has recently devoted himself entirely to the creative arts. His debut poetry collection, Shmehara, has garnered accolades in both literary and independent film circles for its innovative storytelling.

When you’re in Nashville, you can join Andi at his monthly poetry workshop, participate in the Libri Prohibiti book club (both held monthly at the Spine bookstore, Smyrna, TN), or catch one of his live performances. When not engaging with the community, he's hard at work on his next creative project or preparing for his monthly art-focused podcast, The Samovar(t) Lounge: Steeping Conversations with Creative Minds, where in a relaxed space, invited artists share tea and the never-told intricacies of their creative journeys.

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