An Awful Conversation Most Creatives Have With Themselves

It’s all meaningless, Todd.

What? No it isn’t. It can’t be. Look at all these things I’ve built. All the stuff I’ve written. Look at my site and my work and these moneys I’ve saved.

Meaningless.

And I’ve got a book in the works! I’ve been talking with designers! I work hard. I’m a good person. I mean something to people. I’ve had comments on the Internet from strangers telling me how they love my work.

Meaningless. They don’t really care about you.

They do! I mean, I think they do. They cared at that point…

They don’t. They don’t. Nobody cares. Nobody listens. Look at you. If you’re so special, why are you hiding out in a conference room right now to write this? Why are you ducking away to spend 20 minutes crying about things that bother you?

This is the only time I have to write!

See what I mean? If you were really special, you’d have made it already. You wouldn’t be taking a paycheck.

But if I keep hustling, I could be someone special, right?

I doubt it.

But if I get picked up by the right person… if someone notices me on Twitter…

Yeah, like that will happen.

…it’s really meaningless?

Yep.

All of it?

Yep.

… but…

But what?

If it’s meaningless, why should I even bother? What’s the point of getting up every morning. Why should I be writing posts? Why should I be going to work? Why should I be writing this right now?

Go on.

Unless…

Unless it’s not meaningless.

Unless what I do matters to a couple of people now at this moment in time and that’s enough. Unless it really does make a difference. Unless, even though it will all be gone in ten years, even though I might die in a car crash tomorrow, it matters to someone.

But what if it doesn’t? What if nobody ever reads your work?

Then it still matters.

To who?

It matters to me.