Ignore Everybody

Though looking on the bright side, it is nice after years of struggling away in obscurity to have a body of work that you’re actually proud of, one that (a) makes you a good living, (b) exceeds your earlier expectations of what you thought you were capable of achieving as a human being, and perhaps most important, (c) has given a lot of other people a lot of joy and value

It’s good to be young and full of dreams. Dreams of one day doing something “insanely great.” Dreams of love, beauty, achievement, and contribution. But understand they have a life of their own, and they’re not very good at following instructions. Love them, revere them, nurture them, respect them, but don’t ever become a slave to them. Otherwise you’ll kill them off prematurely, before they get the chance to come true.

Good luck.

If I had to condense this entire book into a line or two, it would read something like, “Work hard. Keep at it. Live simply and quietly. Remain humble. Stay positive. Create your own luck. Be nice. Be polite.”

Was it worth the cost? Not really. It never is. Van Gogh once told his brother, “No painting ever sells for as much as it cost the artist to make it.” I’ve yet to meet in the flesh any artist who could prove him wrong

And when I say “People don’t scale,” I’m stating the obvious: that no matter how meteoric your rise to the top [or not], you are still as beholden to the day-to-day realities as any living creature.

Birth, sickness, death, falling in love, watching TV, raising families, mowing the lawn, going to the movies, taking your nephew to a ball game, drinking beer, hanging out with your buddies, playing Frisbee on the beach, painting the house, tending the garden. No matter where your adventure takes you, most of what is truly meaningful is still to be found revolving around the mundane stuff you did before you embarked on your adventure. The stuff that’ll still be going on long after you and I are both dead, long after our contribution to the world is forgotten.

But often, one needs to have that big adventure before truly appreciating how utterly wonderful all that simple, mundane stuff actually is. Going full circle

Sure, I was pretty drunk on the Kool-Aid when I wrote that, but I think the main point is still valid. The size of the endeavor doesn’t matter as much as how meaningful it becomes to you

All you can do is admit to yourself that yes, this is an adventure, and to accept it as such, surprises and all. With a little bit of practice you eventually get into the flow of it.

Yes, anything worth doing takes lots of practice. Adventures included.

But as long as you can progress from it eventually, it’s a time to be savored. A time when your work is still new to you, a time when the world doesn’t need to be fed, like a voracious animal

It certainly worked for me. As I said in the preface, this book you’re now reading started life out as a 13,000-word essay on my blog, gapingvoid.com. It was downloaded and read about a million times, then the next thing you know publishers started approaching me. Happy Ending

The funny thing is, when you hear the “rock stars” talk about their climb to the top, the part they invariably speak most fondly of is not the part with all the fame, money, and parties. It’s the part before they made it, back when they were living in a basement without electricity and “eating dog food,” back when they were doing their breakthrough work.

Back when they were young, and inventing a new language to speak to the world with. More important, back when they were young, and inventing a new language other people could also speak to the world with