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Thoughts on Making Stuff and Staying Happy Sort of
🕑 Added 2017-08-02 13:29:34 +0000 UTC Hello my little turtlets. It's that time again. How are you? Wow, have you lost weight? Is that a Rolex? Your ears are looking tip-top, I must say.
Writing this on a rickety bus somewhere in the middle of Bulgaria, heading to the coast to finish editing the new book properly. It has just become apparent that the fifth coffee was not a wise decision. My body has taken a lot of rubbish over the years. I can feel it beginning to rebel now though, a bit like The Empire Strikes Back but with less lasers and more trembling hands and paranoia. If you'll permit me, I think I might use this post to have a rant. I hope in some small way it'll prove helpful if you're in a similar position.
Whenever I see stuff I like by people I like I assume it just came out like that. It's tempting to think they just put pen to paper and it emerged perfect. In the next week I'll be putting something out I've been working on for a little while now and it got me thinking about how weird 'making stuff' is. You have this tiny germ of an idea and it grows out of control, and you have to make all these weird stylistic decisions and try to see it from the outside. But you can't see it from the outside. In fact you never will.
Sometimes you want to say fuck this, I can't do it, it isn't working, I don't have the energy, everyone will hate it, etc etc etc. But 9 times out of 10 if you get through that, if you stick with it, if you say no, you obstinate little twot, I will make you real, come hell or high water, then it turns out okay. Or at least you have the satisfaction of finishing. And when it's done it looks (even to you) like it was just made like that. But all the blood, sweat, tears, and various other bodily fluids weren't included in the end product. Whoever consumes your stuff doesn't see all the quietly frustrating evenings and misery that went into it.
So I've been watching lots of documentaries and reading lots of books about just that recently - labours of love that existed against all odds: Apocalypse Now, The Apollo moon missions, solving Fermat's last theorem, blah blah. Some absolute favourites that you'll probably enjoy too: The Making of Alien, Jodorowsky's Dune, Lost in La Mancha, Moon Machines (all 4 are fucking amazing), and In the Shadow of the Moon. The last one is my all time favourite. We totally went to the moon. You can also now order pizza over the internet. This is the time to be alive.
Anyway, this doesn't get brought up enough: that producing anything that you want to be original brings with it buckets of self-doubt and confusion and self-doubt and angst and self-doubt. No one mentions that at school. Instead there are a bunch of lectures about determination, how we should be more steadfast in our resolve etc. That's true, but if you don't believe in what you're working on, you won't be able to muster any determination. Unless you're totally depraved.
I made a video a while ago called Making Stuff. I don't often make videos with a message in mind, mainly because I'm still relatively young and wouldn't try lecturing the internet on shit it probably knows far more about. But this video was supposed to have a message, and watching it back for the first time in a long while, I can see I didn't get it out properly. And it was this:
If something really burns in you, something you want to make, something you can see clearly, or feel clearly, then sacrifice (reasonably) everything to make it actual. Forego sleep, forego comfort, forego social visiting hours - because the feeling of finishing a project, especially a big one, especially something you never thought would make it out into the world, is about as good as the best sex it is possible to have without getting the gods involved.
Some people don't want to make stuff and I get it. That's cool. But if you do, if that's how you're wired, then I'll hazard a guess that ignoring the above suggestion will make you a sad panda. It makes me a sad panda when I ignore it anyway. To live beyond your lifetime through your work. That seems like a cool goal.
As I'm sure you have, I've worked a bunch of sensible jobs with a designated work load and a clear objective, in air-conditioned offices with everyone wearing ties and posh blouses, making conversation by the coffee machine, returning to desks that have only minimal clutter and little harmless memes pinned up on the cork board. Lots of those people seemed to enjoy their work, seemed to enjoy the structure and security and social element. It made me want to eat my own legs and jump out the window. Every day was a fucking chore and you became convinced you would be doing this for the rest of your life, purposeless and unfulfilled and going out of your mind, and you almost managed to accept it and all you really dreamed of was getting home in the evening and working on your own stuff. And when you got home you were too tired to do much of anything, so that was that, but you would use the weekend to work on your project. And then the weekend came and you hadn't seen the sun in 5 days, or your mates, so you went out instead and got shitfaced and completely wasted the remaining time and went back to work on Monday and repeated the same cycle over again – uncomfortable, but just satiated enough to keep doing it.
Well maybe you're like that too, allergic to certainty and security but stuck in a bind right now. I was for a very, very long time. And if so then I recommend (if you're not already) launching yourself at whatever it is you really want to create, and making that the main objective on your minimap. I promise it'll be worth it.
Incidentally, I take every Saturday morning out to reply to emails and check out whatever you lot have sent me. Sometimes they're short stories or movies or documentaries, and I read and watch all of them, even that freakish film about the evil spoons one of you weirdos sent me a few months ago. Finish your stuff and send it over and I'd be only too happy to give it a watch or a read.
There's that pyramid, maybe you've seen it – Maslow's hierarchy of needs. I'm sure everyone's basic needs are the same, food, water, shelter, regular sexytimes, socialisation, etc. But I'm also quite sure that the higher you get on the pyramid, the more our real needs diverge from other folk. Some people just want to have a good time at the weekend and that's enough to keep them happy through their twenties and thirties. Others want a stable marriage and some babies and a cute spot of their own in suburbia. (I prefer the exurbs.) Nothing wrong with that. Others want to code or build something brilliant. And others still, us nutters, are only happy when we're trying to make artsy-fartsy stuff. I reckon if you can be truly honest with yourself about what's at the top of your pyramid, what your abstract Big Objective is, you're onto a winning strategy, and this is where true contentment is hiding. Those are the dragons you really want to fight.
It might be hard to achieve, hell, it might be near on impossible, but what would be the point if it was easy? So I sincerely hope you're working on what you enjoy, and if you're in a pinch, you at least have faith that you'll work through it. Because you will. Anyone with such lovely ears is bound for greatness. They really are looking tip-top, did I mention that? Wow, have you lost weight?
Rant over. Playful silliness will now resume.
Oh. The new book is finished, the first part anyway. So that's exciting. It's called Logic Beach and it's hard to tell if it's shit. I hope it isn't, and I hope you'll like it. It's a bit sad in places but there are some funnies too, and a large sprinkle of theoretical physics, so frankly I don't know what you're complaining about. Editing and proofing will take a few months, then it's all yours if you want it. I will of course be sending it out to you lot for free. Because as I may've mentioned, you're lovely. Once again – as always – I couldn't do this without you. I've started putting quite a bit more money in decent footage and I think this'll improve things a bit. Next I'll learn to actually write and edit and wear matching socks and then the sky is the fucking limit.
Nope but seriously: just a massive thank you. Apologies if I haven't written back to your email or message, I'm trying my damndest to work through them, but as I said in the last post, I'd rather write proper replies than shitty cardboard-cutout cheers bye notes. Plus, I go on Skype quite a bit these days, I'm almost always up for a chat.
I hope you're doing ace, I hope you're getting regular sun and occasional storms, I hope if you have pets that they're content and not keeping you up and night, and I hope you're making stuff.
All the best as ever,
Ex.
Comments
Insightful as always mate. Here's to fighting dragons and finding matching socks.
Currently struggling with the "job + late night projects" situation you mention, so yeah. Spot on. Also, I'm pretty curious what brought you to Bulgaria (and is keeping you here).
