‘To be a screenwriter is to deal with an ongoing tug of war between breathtaking megalomania and insecurity so deep it takes years of therapy just to be able to say “I’m a writer” out loud.’ – Blake Snyder

In Blake Snyder’s ‘Save the Cat’, you get a strong sense of what a writing life is or should be like. But the screenwriter’s dilemma he mentions above truly reveals what it feels like to be a writer, regardless of whether you are an established or a beginning one. In fact, it makes you wonder, without this very conflict would one be compelled to write in the first place.

Stephen Cope in ‘The Great Work of Your Life’ names the problem of doubt as the central affliction to realizing one’s dharma, aka true calling, sacred duty, vocation. Unless you live and work aligned with your dharma, there is only self-destruction. Only when you find, name, celebrate and nourish your path, your Gift, your dharma, Cope says, you will be truly happy and fulfilled in your life.

And guess what, ‘[Dharma] is only born out of our wrestling matches with doubt, with conflict, and with despair.’ As it turns out, all the torment involved in writing or simply having a desire to write is for a reason. And that reason is at the heart of humanity’s eternal pursuit of happiness. This makes it all a bit more bearable, doesn’t it?

As I wrestle with the particulars of my own dharma, I realized a few weeks ago why I consider Milos Forman’s ‘Amadeus’ one of my favourite movies of all time. Because, to me, ‘Amadeus’ is about dharma and how life can be a long soul destroying suffering if you are not living your dharma.

You may remember Salieri’s meaningful outcry, paralyzed by doubt: ‘All I wanted was to sing to God. He gave me that longing… and then made me mute. Why? Tell me that. If He didn’t want me to praise him with music, why implant the desire? Like a lust in my body! And then deny me the talent?’ The ingenious screenplay by Peter Shaffer gives us the answer: because music was never meant to be Salieri’s dharma. It’s only his confusion that’s causing him all this agony.

Salieri’s true passion and dharma is hidden in the story. Do you remember those few short moments in the movie where Salieri talks about desserts? The most touching and dramatic thing about ‘Amadeus’ is Salieri’s passion for dessert! He is not only a man with a sweet tooth, he knows dessert and in a sense lives for it! These are the only moments in the movie where Salieri lights up and shines with joy and delight. Salieri’s character, as written by Shaffer, is a poignant portrait of dharma, or I should say, dharma-gone-wrong.

There is so much doubt and despair in store especially for people following artistic vocations. But, if writing is in ‘the subtle interior blueprint of your soul,’ then, Cope quotes Krishna’s lesson to Arjuna from the ancient story on dharma – Bhagavad Gita: ‘It is better to fail at your own dharma than to succeed at the dharma of someone else.’

I wish for all of us courage and perseverance in ‘looking more and more deeply into our doubts’ as a way to get to the certitude we need to take a leap of faith into our personal and unique dharma.