FEAR IS THE MIND-KILLER. FEAR IS THE LITTLE-DEATH THAT
BRINGS TOTAL OBLITERATION. I WILL FACE MY FEAR.
I WILL PERMIT IT TO PASS OVER ME
AND THROUGH ME. AND WHEN IT HAS
GONE PAST I WILL TURN THE INNER EYE
TO ITS PATH. WHERE THE FEAR HAS GONE
THERE WILL BE NOTHING. ONLY I WILL REMAIN.
The hard part
Exchanging our pain
Every time I invite people to apply
to a seminar or offer an internship,
I’m surprised to discover that many
of the applicants have no hard
skills to brag about. They’re happy
to check off boxes like, “business
development,” and “making a
ruckus,” but they rarely say that they
know how to design code, or to
use CSS or even InDesign. They’ve
spent so many years following
instructions, fitting in and getting
good grades that they failed to
learn to do anything independent.
The pain of not reaching our
potential, the pain of being
overlooked, the pain of not being
heard.
The side effect of a lack of hard
skills is that these very same people
almost never have much to show for
themselves in the way of a project
portfolio, online or off. They can’t
point to something and say, “I
made that.”
More people make a living from
non-manual labor today than ever
before. Sometimes, though, we
forget that the only to successfully
move forward is to do emotional
labor, to put in the effort and
emotion to make something
that matters and something that
might not work. Today, we have
the chance to do work that’s far
more pleasant and involves far
more freedom. And the only one
stopping us from this work - is us.
The pain of being a cog, of not
fitting in enough, never enough.
The pain of having to measure up in
a world that keeps telling us that we
don’t.
So many live with that pain because
the alternative is hard to consider.
The alternative is to experience
the pain of being free. The pain of
saying, “here, I made this.”. The
pain of living with the opportunity
to make a difference.
There’s no pain-free path. But at
least you can do something that
matters.
Yertle
In New York, it’s the top of the real
estate market that keeps booming.
Specifically, penthouses, the very
top floor, with the high ceilings and
the great views.
I watched as a building was going
up the other day, and wasn’t
surprised to see that the top floor
was significantly taller than the
floors below. Penthouses have
bigger windows too.
Here’s the thing: When you’re in the
penthouse, enjoying the windows
and the view and the high ceilings,
you have no idea whether there’s
an apartment above yours. In fact,
it probably shouldn’t matter, should
it?
But it does.
Like Yertle the Turtle, who not only
needed to be high up but also
needed to be on top of everyone,
the penthouse dweller is paying
for supremacy, for being the
unqualified winner on top.
The need to be recognized as the
winner destroys your ability to take
your turn, because taking your turn
requires you to be willing to not win.
My argument is the only long-term
way to make it as an artist is to do
it from a position of generosity,
of seeking to connect and
change people for the better. But
generosity, while it sometimes leads
to it-feels-like-winning can never be
based on winning, because winning
requires other people lose.
Yertle-style.