weekly dose of inspiration

To work as hard as possible, and then, when you think you’re done, to work just a little bit harder. To know that if it feels “right” it may actually be completely wrong, and that if it feels “wrong” it may be completely right. There’s no governing principle to any of this except that strange instinct and feeling within yourself that you simply have to learn to trust, but which is always unreliably changing. To create something for people who have not been born yet. To pay attention to how it actually feels to be alive, to the lies you tell yourself and others. Not to overreach—but also not to get too comfortable with your own work. To avoid giving in to either self-doubt or self-confidence, depending on your leaning, and especially to resist giving over your opinion of yourself to others—which means not to seek fame or recognition, which can restrain rather than open your possibility for artistic development. With all this in mind, not to expect anything and to be grateful for any true, non-exploitative opportunity that presents itself, however modest. And to understand that being able to say “I don’t know what to do with my life” is an incredible privilege that 99% of the rest of the world will never enjoy.

Oh god, I would wish a better fate on you, first of all. I think the thing to do is to make things. There was a writer who came to my high school and gave a lecture and said, “A lot of people say they’re writers, but not everybody is actually writing.” I always remembered that. Keep making things. Keep writing, and don’t be precious about what you write—just continue to write. Instead of sitting around and perfecting one play, or one story, just keep making more and more. Also, try to put stuff on its feet—if it’s a play, grab your friends and put it up. Do a reading or a full production of it. Work on someone else’s play—be an actor, or do the lights. Just be around people who are making things. Being surrounded by other people who are also doing theater is so important—when you see how actors work, and how directors work, and what dramatic writing looks and sounds like when it’s performed, you’ll start to become a better writer.

It was exhausting, but it was the kind of exhaustion that feeds you and makes you strong.

Well, that life is a lot more serious and shorter than it seems like it will be. And that you can easily waste it. And that happiness is overrated. Be kind. This said—and I can’t talk about the rest of the world—but I’d say that you’re a member of the first generation of modern Americans whom I consider genuine, ready-made citizens. And by that I mean America has essentially exited its protracted national adolescence (approximately the 1920s through the 1980s, with the 1960s being the apex and the baby-boomer presidencies of Clinton and Bush as the hangover) and as a nation we’re at something of a deciding moment of anxious self-awareness, both as to where we’ve been drawing our resources and from what and how we’ve been weaving our moral fabric.