STOP PERFORMING. START PLAYING.
Before the likes, before the clients, before society infected you with its idea of "good," you were already making magic.
When I was seven, I had a notebook filled with little monsters plucked from my imagination.
Some had angel wings. Some wielded katanas. One wore medieval armor and carried a laser gun — a total genre disaster that made no sense. I loved him.
I'd sit with my friend for hours, drawing these freakish characters, naming and numbering them, whipping up origin stories and sketching their next victim.
Around that same time, I fell in love with collage. I'd cut images from newspapers and turn the pages of my notebook into worlds that existed nowhere but in the endless playground that was my mind.
No goal. No audience. No algorithm. Just pure, unfiltered play.
That little boy wasn't waiting for permission. He didn't need it.
And neither did you.
But then, we "grew up."
Somewhere along the way, the joy got scrutinized. Your creativity got grades. Your wonder was replaced with strategy; and you lost your curiosity to comparison.
Now you don't make anything unless you know exactly how it'll be received. You've traded making things that feel like you for making things that will perform and won't embarrass you.
You forgot the one person who always deserves a front-row seat to your work:
Your inner child.
Not your boss. Not the client. Not the feed. Not the strangers that may never understand what you're trying to say.
The one who made up worlds and drew ridiculous monsters and danced off beat and sang out of tune because creating made them feel alive.
That kid's still in there. Waiting. Praying for the pen, the brush, the scissors, the camera, the mess.
They're the one member of your audience who'll never ask you to water down your work. They don't care about metrics or trends or whatever the fuck the gurus say.
They only care if what you make is honest.
When you're stuck, and the work feels forced or hollow or performative, ask yourself: Would 7-year-old me be into this?
If the answer is no, you're probably creating for the wrong crowd.
Your homework:
Dig up something you made before you knew what "good" meant — a drawing, a poem, a project that made sense to no one but you.
Make something for that version of yourself. Not for your audience. Not for engagement. For your inner child.
Don't explain it. Don't refine it. Don't post it. Just make it — and remember what it felt like when creating was enough.
The world might not be ready for your work.
But that kid? They've been waiting your whole life to see it.
P.S. If you liked this post, you'll love what I have for you at the end of today's issue.
P.P.S. If you liked this post, share it with a friend. If you hated it, send it to an enemy.
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SNATCHED FROM THE DOPEST PLAYLIST
This week: Tunes that inspired a younger me and continue to inspire me today.
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Kurt Vonnegut on Living a Creative Life
In 2006, Ms. Lockwood, an English Teacher at Xavier High School in NYC, asked her freshman class to write a persuasive letter asking their favorite authors for a class visit.
Five students wrote to Kurt Vonnegut. He was the only writer who replied, and even though the author couldn’t pay them a visit, his response was brilliant. It changed my life. And who knows? Maybe it’ll change yours…
This is Vonnegut Typing
November 5, 2006
Dear Xavier High School, and Ms. Lockwood, and Messrs Perin, McFeely, Batten, Maurer and Congiusta:
I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances any more because I now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.
What I had to say to you, moreover, would not take long, to wit: Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting, poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside you, to make your soul grow.
Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives. Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.
Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you don’t do it: Write a six line poem, about anything, but rhymed. No fair tennis without a net. Make it as good as you possibly can. But don’t tell anybody what you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?
Tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces, and discard them into widely separated trash recepticals. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside you, and you have made your soul grow.
God bless you all!
Love,