CREATE FOR THE SAKE OF IT

A mutual (good dude) on hell’s playground aka Twitter posed a series of self reflecting questions about his experience. They were valid questions. Questions about not finding their audience, consistency, and not being entertaining enough. 

I’ve been there before. I asked myself the exact same questions. It’s all a part of self reflection. I always asked myself “What the fuck am I doing wrong?”

All the hours. All the sacrifices with your physical and mental health. All the days and nights without any money. You can’t help but wonder “When is my time coming?” “When is it my turn?” I’m a God fearing man and when I would pray about it I’d ask Allah to take their time but hurry up. 

Here’s what the truth is in my opinion and the best advice I feel I can give about this subject. 

You just have to create to create. For no reason. There’s no “why” to it. Almost as if you’re a mad scientist. If you’re a fan of Chrisopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight film. You have to be Heath Ledger as The Joker. As Alfred explained to Bruce “Cause some men aren’t looking for anything logical like money, they can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.  

The Joker even said it about himself, “I’m just a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do if I caught it. I just DO things.” The Joker was hard to beat because he just did shit. 

You have to be the same way with creativity or art in general. I know the common thing you hear when it comes to pursuing what you want in life is to find your “why.” When someone asks you “why you create?” the only perfect answer is because it’s fun. 

You have to create for the sake of creating. It’s your play time. 

The reason why I’m hard to beat is because I don’t give a fuck about what anybody else is doing nor am I competing. I can write for 24 straight hours and not get tired of it. I’ll keep going and not give a fuck about sleeping. I’m like a kid in a toy store when I create. I’m having the time of my life. I don’t give a fuck about metrics, who likes or shares my shit, or being recognized. Creating is my play time. I’m like Kobe in the gym. Playing ball is fun. That’s it. End of story. I have no deep meaningful reason to give you. 

If no one was watching. If social media didn’t exist. If you wouldn’t get paid for it. Would you still create what you create? If the answer is no then your journey will be difficult. It won't stop you from being successful but it will definitely wear you down. You just gotta work hard but working hard is overrated as fuck. 

Think of working hard like this. There’s a difference between someone who works hard and a person who knows exactly what to work on. If you play basketball and you’re really good at dunking and you only work really hard 40 hours a week on finishing at the basket but don’t work hard on your weaknesses such as jump shots and defense but you play against someone who works efficiently on every weak part of their game 25 hours a week. The probability of the person who worked the least amount of hours winning is really high. Working hard on the wrong thing versus working less on the right thing is very real. Working hard on the wrong thing means you’re not in control of your time. 

I removed the goals out of my creative path. Fuck goals. I’m not about goals. I’m about being artistic. When I’m artistic I’m unapologetically myself and when I’m myself that’s when the support and success came. This blog you’re reading right now is one of the greatest blogs ever. I’m talking worldwide and the reason why it got to that point is because I just showed up everyday. Consistently. I never asked why. I just sat at my desk after working my regular job and started writing. It was time to play. I had no goal. I just wanted to write until my body gave out and I fell asleep at my desk. 

Once the success comes and you get a little motion that’s when you get business oriented and stay sturdy. When you’re having fun all the goals start checking themselves. I’ll give you another example of this. 

I joined tiktok because my bro Marty recommended I do it. He thought I was funny and thought I should talk about anime using my sense of humor. I joined tiktok with no goal in mind. I just started making videos giving my opinion about anime. In 4 months I went from 10 followers to 50,000 followers. My second video I ever made on tiktok hit a million. I didn’t plan it. I didn’t have a goal. I was just having fun making videos about something I love watching. Time didn’t exist when I was creating the content. I just did it because it was fun and the success followed. 

Success follows fun. Every. Fucking. Time. 

You have to keep doing it. Over and over. Keep doing it no matter what and never keep score. Never keep track. When you keep score you run out of time and it runs out fast. Everybody wants it to happen ASAP but that's not how the world works. When it’s your time it’s your time. The universe decides that but remember this, time flies when you’re having fun. Just create because it’s fun. 

Love, Benny