Check out the video version of this essay: https://www.instagram.com/p/DUzxxH4jUJA/
I think you should give up on your dreams, by Nathan Cayanan
I think you should give up on your dreams. Especially if you want to get into writing, you really should not even try. It’s– it’s hard! It can be embarrassing. I mean, people look at your work and they go, “Oh, who do you think you are, Shakespeare?”
You know? Just give up. It is easier to do something that has more of a guarantee. I think we should all try to aim for something easy, right? That is a voice that we hear in our heads a lot when we think about actually pursuing our passions. And failure is scary. And I’m not going to lie to you and say, “You know what? You should pursue your passions, because you actually will be successful.” You know, ‘If you just follow your dreams, you will, become the next Whoever you want to be.’
I think that’s disingenuous and even disrespectful.
And it could happen–I think everyone should pursue their passions and and I think everyone, even if it’s not your thing, should write and tell stories–but I don’t think the goal should be to publish or to get recognition or to get rich. There are other things you can do.
I think you should write because… you never leave the page unchanged. What I mean by that is, if you are writing something, yes for yourself, as cheesy as that sounds… when you look at the words, what you write the sentences, what you write on the page… and you reread it over and over and over again…
The goal is to learn something about yourself. Even when it’s uncomfortable. Even when it makes you angry or sad. The point is to have that writing serve as a mirror.
What I think will happen–and this happens with me–is you start to question things, and you start to question your own beliefs. What I get out of it is: I get more clarity. I don’t necessarily leave with all the answers. But, things become clear to me and I’m more honest with myself, and that’s a discipline that’s important. And that’s something that improves the quality of your life.
There are so many things that inundate our attention, you know? We’re constantly told what to believe and we’re constantly inundated with social media. We’re never really given space to reflect. And that’s what writing is to me.
When I think about what I’ve written for DC Comics, for example, I try to explore themes that I think about a lot. With the Dr. Light stories, my first short story with Dr. Light was titled “A Constant State of Healing.” That’s because I constantly think about the pain we sometimes carry, without people realizing it. Or, in the last story I wrote with Dr Light, “The Shine in the Silence,” about giving your all, but often feeling invisible among more important things, as the world will claim.
And with my book Suspicious Activity I wanted to explore the more meta–the more philosophical ideas about morality–and how we often tell ourselves stories to feel better about the choices we’ve made, but in reality we start to realize that sometimes we’re buying a story that was written for us. And that’s where the value comes in for me. Achievements are great, getting published by really cool publishers, getting a story from DC, having your own book, getting someone to give you a good review… All that… that’s all nice, but that’s all temporary, that’s dopamine that drifts very quickly.
When you leave the page understanding yourself more, understanding something that confused you more, that becomes sustainable. That becomes valuable for your life in general. And that’s why I think you should write. I think it’s–as cheesy as it sounded–it’s for yourself first and then it’s for others.
And yeah, you should share your work if you’re proud of it, and if you’re comfortable with it. And hopefully you’ll find your people. You’ll find people that look at your work and go–this resonated with me. [It’s] Gonna feel incredible, not because you get recognition but because you’re actually—you actually have someone that says I see you and I understand it.
And that’s an incredible feeling and I think that’s the goal.