Someone on the Internet thinks what you’re doing is stupid or evil or it’s all been done before? Make good art. Leg crushed and then eaten by mutated boa constrictor? Make good art. Husband runs off with a politician? Make good art. And when things get tough, this is what you should do: Make good art.

Things go wrong in life and in love and in business and in friendship and in health and in all the other ways that life can go wrong. I started answering fewer emails and was relieved to find that I was writing much more. There was a day when I looked up and realized the I had become someone who professionally replied to email and who wrote as a hobby. The things I did because I was excited and wanted to see them exist in reality have never let me down, and I’ve never regretted the time I spent on any of them. Usually I didn’t wind up getting the money either. I don’t know that it’s an issue for anybody but me, but it’s true that nothing I did where the only reason for doing it was the money was ever worth it, except as bitter experience. And because nobody’s done it before, they haven’t made up rules to stop anyone doing that particular thing again. If you don’t know it’s impossible, it’s easier to do. The rules on what is possible and impossible in the arts were made by people who had not tested the bounds of the possible by going beyond them.

People who know what they’re doing know the rules, they know what is possible, and what is impossible. When you start out in a career in the arts, you have no idea what you’re doing. You can watch the whole speech here, and I’ve transcribed some of my favorite passages below: The liberation of not knowing what you’re doing If I remember correctly, he listens to it once a week, which says something about the power of it! I found this life-changer of a commencement speech from Neil Gaiman through Tim Ferriss.

Neil gaiman make great art