Pursue Your Art

It's Saturday, and I haven't yet locked in on a topic that I want to explore, but I have some time to sit around today and write, so I am going to sit down and write.

This week, I went on a walk and listened to Beautiful Stories from Anonymous People, a podcast that I have loved for the past 10 years! I am massively behind because of my move and change of time allotted to focus on a podcast, but I am finally trying to work my way through the backlog of content. I recently got to February of 2025! Almost only a year behind!

For some background before I continue with my story, Beautiful/Anonymous is hosted by a man named Chris Gethard. He is a comedian and really a Jack of all Trades. He knows a little bit about a lot, which is one of the reasons this podcast has been successful. Each week, a random person calls a number and talks anonymously with Chris about anything. There are calls about niche careers, specific life experiences, and small talk. You literally never know what is going to happen, and it always brings joy because it's a glimpse into someone else's life for one hour. (I recommend the podcast if you are into podcasts and empathy.)

Anyways, the episode I listened to this week was a follow up call from a past caller. This man's name is Matt Farley, who has released more than 26,000 songs. In the episode, he talked about how he makes music and puts it out into the world without overthinking the content. He said that we are often terrible judges of our work and what we think is good doesn't land at times while things that we don't feel great about get a huge reaction. Continuing on, he said that often people start writing the book or creating the thing, but it sits in their closet to never be seen by others. Through his determination to put his music into the world, he is combatting that nature to hide our ideas and play it safe. [Or at least this is my summary of his perspective.]

I was thinking about his ideas as I was walking and how my determination to post these weekly posts is semi-reflective of his ideas. There are some of these posts that I write in a time crunch without editing and mulling over the ideas as much as I would like, so I post something that feels incomplete. There are other times where I rewrite and rework the ideas over and over until I feel good about the story I put together. Both posts are valuable.

Sometimes I start writing something and then the idea morphs and changes into some new idea that has a stronger narrative or idea behind it, and I find that the original idea can be saved for another time or should be scrapped completely. For example, this post was originally going to be about adult hobbies and then it was going to be about things that make me happy and then it went back to hobbies and is now whatever topic I am writing in this moment.

As I type, I am thinking about the quote "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." It's okay to change your mind and start down a path and recalibrate that it's not actually the right path. It's okay to half-bake an idea and release it into the world before it's ready because there's learning within that process. The more often I write, the easier it is for ideas to form because I am learning my own process for crafting a story. It is also helping me to collect ideas that I might want to consider writing about.

There's value in putting ideas into the world, and I see how my craft continues to strengthen with each of these. I swear that there's a future published story living inside my brain, waiting to find its way to the surface, and by practicing these skills and getting familiar with sharing my work in this small scale way, I am building the confidence to share on a larger scale.

This one is short, but I think the message is this: don't hide the project from the world. You don't have to write 26,000 songs and publish them all. You don't have to write a blog or a story or a social media post every single day or week. However, you shouldn't hide your talents from others. Don't keep it hidden in the closet. Trust in the value of what you create because it doesn't matter if people get it. It doesn't matter that people will deter you or question you. Just because they don't have the confidence or ability to believe in themselves should not deter you from having audacity.

Humility is a way to keep us small, and it is not actually an admiral trait. It's even worse when it's false humility due to the fear that other people will knock you down a peg. It's not hubris to be confident or to believe in yourself. It's not vanity to see your skill, talent, and value. It's not arrogance to choose to believe you deserve recognition.

I will end with some questions for you to ponder. What do you want to create? What steps are you taking to make it a reality? What is holding you back or keeping you small?

Not everyone needs to understand you. Pursue it anyways. There's still value in the process and the idea, even when you're the only one who sees it. Pursue it anyways!