Your Art Owes You Nothing
Most things you create won't matter — and that's OK
In 2021, I published a book entitled, “No Pressure,” aiming to ease the pressure people put on themselves by discussing how nothing matters (with a positive spin).
The irony of this is that my book doesn’t matter, either.
Neither does the first book I wrote. They will make a minimal impact at best.
Knowing that little of what we do matters, it’s easy to see why people become nihilistic about life. Spending months or years on a project, like a book, only to see little tangible impact would be crushing if you expect great things.
But there are still reasons — albeit selfish — as to why we should pursue these types of ventures.
The battle I fought in 2020 was with a girl, not a virus. And actually, it was with myself.
I caught feelings for a girl I worked with. And those feelings were strong. My whole world revolved around this girl for about five months.
It didn’t make a lot of sense to anybody but myself. I didn’t know this girl that well. She didn’t give me the attention I was hoping for. But I needed somebody to latch onto and she was it.
The true source of my problems was a lack of identity. Once I figured that out, I was able to approach women and relationships with a better grasp of who I was and what I wanted. I also felt accomplished enough to write two books.
Did my story matter? Probably not. Does it matter today — with more experience and success in the world under my belt? Maybe. Who’s to say.
It doesn’t matter either way. I got what I needed out of writing those books. Perhaps a handful of the readers got what they needed, too. But that’s out of my control.
What is in my control was writing the books the best that I could. I published what I believed to be solid pieces of writing. Whether they actually were doesn’t really matter.
At worst, the books become solid kindling one day (or have already). At best, they inspire others — or help push me to make better works that have a greater reach.
We can hope that the best-case scenario plays out. But the worst-case scenario is fine, too, because I removed expectations for both projects as soon as they were published.
To be honest, anything I have written has always been for me and that will rarely ever change. Having the honor of exploring topics and writing about my findings has always been enough for me.
Money and praise are always nice. But that’s hard to come by and never expected. Anyone expecting either out of their art should also expect to be pretty upset most of the time.
Art is an unconscious idea that we workshop and bring to life. It is ours, sure, but also a gift from a place we do not yet understand. To give life to it alone is a joy that we should accept as reward.
We were never promised to matter and neither is our work.
Understand that the joy of creating art is not something everybody gets to experience. That joy carries no price tag and is meaningful in a way only you can understand.
If that’s not enough for you, maybe you should stop creating art.
Dylan Hughes is a 24-year-old freelance writer covering self-development and his life on the road as a tour manager. You can read his writing on Medium and Substack — and check out his two books on Amazon.