Pu Songling
The main thing failed. The side thing didn't
And he never knew
His preface to Strange Tales, and its posthumous publication
What he spent his life trying to do never happened. What he did on the side did. Can that be arranged?
What actually happened?
Pu Songling's real work, as he saw it, was the examination. Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio was a diversion — forty years of writing, circulated in manuscript among friends, and he did not live to see it printed. Of the people who remember him today, essentially none do so for his examination essays. The thing ranked first didn't happen and the thing ranked last did — and he died not knowing it.
You don't get to set the ranking
Where a thing sits in your own ordering and what it eventually grows into are unrelated. The first is decided by today's standards; the second takes decades to show. So 'which is the main thing' is a question that, asked at the time, usually gets the wrong answer.
The thing you push hardest often yields nothing, and the thing done casually is what people remember.
But don't therefore do both casually
Strange Tales wasn't written carelessly — forty years, nearly five hundred pieces, revised repeatedly. It was last in his ranking, not last in his investment. A side thing can only grow into something if it gets real investment; it just doesn't get the status.
The moment 'it's only a side project' reaches the investment, it really does become only a side project.
Don't wait until you approve of it to take it seriously
He never considered it his achievement. If you have to wait until you can admit 'this is my real work' before putting the hours in, a great many things simply never grow. The steadier practice is to work seriously and leave the ranking undecided.
Do it properly for five years and then look back at which one worked, rather than choosing now.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: your day job is flat and the thing you do in the evenings keeps growing, and you don't know whether to swap them.
Ask first: how much have I actually put into the side thing over three years? Talk about swapping after the investment is there, not before.
Where it goes wrong: using him to justify doing several things half-heartedly — he did two things for forty years; or rushing to promote the side thing. Rankings are only accurate looking back.
Lines to keep
The thing ranked first failed. The thing ranked last didn't.
Wait until you approve of it and many things never grow at all.