10 hard truths about building shit

1.You might die without finishing anything

If you’re creative, you don’t have a lot of accountability, unless you’re lucky enough to have a book deal or a paid publishing gig. It’s a very privileged freedom, but it’s a freedom we pay for.

It means that most of the time, the world will keep spinning if you drop off the planet and never finish another piece of work. And it also means that you are the only one who can make you finish anything.

If you don’t push yourself every day to wake up, look in the mirror, and ignore the feeling of near exhaustion that comes with balancing creativity and life, you could die without finishing anything.

2. Some people get rich building things, but that’s not the point

The list of examples of startup founders, rock stars, and authors who have made absolute bank and never have to work another day in their lives is endless. I wish I was one of them. Believe me.

If you want to make more money than Scrooge McDuck, that’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with that. By all means, plan to make money. Work to make money. Capitalize financially on whatever success you have.

But if you want to build or create something of honesty and integrity—whether that’s a startup or an album of Japanese noise music—you have to be able to put aside that focus on getting rich.

3. You are going to be misunderstood, but it doesn’t matter

We all want people to understand us, our work, and what drives us. On some level, the act of building something is an attempt to communicate in our own language. That could be an app, a line of code, or a book.

But nobody speaks that same language as you.

But nobody speaks that same language as you. And people are going to miss the point, read between the lines, and add their own opinion and interpretations to whatever you make.

It will be frustrating and you’ll want to scream. You might even feel persecuted when people get the wrong end of the rope and try to hang you with it. Does it matter? No way. All that matters is that you listen to what drives you and create what needs to be created.