A rare serious thought: the most powerful abstract force in my adult life is not inspiration. It’s not idealism. It isn’t even love. It’s inertia.
Inertia, you will recall from your basic elementary school science lessons, is the tendency for objects in motion to stay in motion and objects at rest to remain at rest, unless acted upon by an outside force. (Pardon the hackery of reminding you of that — I’m going somewhere with this.) What this means in my actual life is, when I lie around on my fat ass, I am inclined to want to always lie around on my fat ass. But if I actually get up and do things, a sort of productive momentum is created and I want to do more things. You’d think I’d get tired out, going from zero projects to one project. But you’d be wrong. Apparently I have two settings: no projects or all the projects. And, if you follow my output with any regularity, I think you can guess which setting I’m at right now.
I define myself by what I do — by what I can tangibly hold up in front of my face at the end of a given week and say “I made these things. They didn’t exist before I made them, and now they do exist.” Ideally they’ll be things other people want to see, and things I am proud to show off. But those thoughts don’t enter into the early parts of the process. First, you run. Then you eventually figure out how to stop falling.
Internet celebrity Merlin Mann has been utterly kicking ass lately with a series of essays intended to inspire people who don’t feel like they do enough. He seems genuinely frustrated by the dearth of “productivity software” (expensive widgets that clear your screen of distractions) and, somewhat ironically (though the irony does not escape him) self-help advice. His main advice: “first, care.” If it matters enough to you, you will find the time and you will do it. Because it’s important. Because you can’t not do it. Yes, Merlin. Yes. Fucking exactly.
Occasionally people ask me how I get so much done. (Regularly completing projects is the only actual talent I will cop to having — I do it better than just about anyone I know.) The secret is no secret at all: I do it because I want to do it. I want it more than I want a career or a social life. Ideally, it will not happen at the expense of these things, but that is the priority I place on creative productivity. It matters. More than nearly anything else in my life. (I had to throw that “nearly” in there because, hey — my wife matters more. And my family, a few close friends and my dog. But that’s it. Honestly.)
I could be making a lot of money at this point in my life. This is not some fanciful “what if?” scenario — it’s a fact. I had a very promising career in a very technical and very lucrative field a few years ago. I enjoyed doing it. But it didn’t leave me the time or the mental energy to do what mattered to me. So I stopped doing it. Now I’m in a job (note: not a career) that pays substantially less. I also enjoy this job. I like it more because it allows me the time to write novels and record podcasts and videos and make video games and make comics and do whatever else tickles my ever-expanding fancy. (Note: do not try to picture my expanding fancy. It can only end badly.)
Five years ago I was making a lot of money, but I was deeply unsatisfied. Today I am living well below the poverty line, but I’m feeling more fulfilled than I ever have. Because I’m doing things. And the more I do, the more I want to do. It’s an amazing feeling.
About a year ago, a very old and very dear friend of mine sat down and recorded a conversation we had on this very subject. During that conversation, we hashed out an argument we’d been having for over two decades: is it better to do things right or fast? My opinion was, as I stated above, the thing about running and falling. My friend, who is immensely talented — far more talented than I will ever be — takes the “measure twice, cut once” approach. If it’s worth doing, he argues, it’s worth doing well. And it’s not an invalid argument. But I think it’s important to note that, a year later, this recording is still sitting on his hard drive someplace. I’m not saying my way is better — honestly. But being able to look at the enormous volume of work I’ve produced in that year, even if every one of them is truly horrible, is a lot more important to me than having produced one or two perfect and flawless things.
It’s not just important. It’s the most important. I don’t ever want to lose the incredible feeling of accomplishment and inspiration I feel right now. The trick is to never stop moving. Never.