You Don't Have To Be A Franchise
I am some kind of artist. I don’t even know really. I used to think I was a musician, but it never seemed to matter enough. I made acceptable music that some people liked and a few people loved. It felt like failure at the time. I am now a comedian. Even saying that sounds weird. I think I’m funny, but I know that there are many doors left to open in my head and I doubt all of them say comedy. I want to take stand up as far as I can. I’m interested in learning what my limits are. But if I hit wall so big or so boring that I don’t want to scale it, I will find something else.
Theres an impulse in my brain to make things. Some of those things are long continuous pieces of work like a tapestry. Others are spur of the moment street musician type life spans.
One thing I’ve learned is to resist the urge to franchise things. What i mean by that is to get carried away thinking what the work I am currently doing will add up to.
Its ok to make things as a one off. Its ok to make things for their own sake. In the same way not every business will be around for a hundred years, not every pursuit has a long life span and that is fine.
Sometimes we have to journey somewhere else as creative people. But there are two types of journeys. Ones where you come back. Thats called a vacation. And ones where you never come back, thats called moving. Both are acceptable.
I know a lot of people who stop themselves from starting things because they have one idea, and they think they need a series.
No. you. fucking. don’t.
And to be honest, your first idea probably isn’t that great any way. But you take it, you work it, and you trust that the next one will drop into your heart on the correct day.
Ideas are like cats. They want to interact with you when you are in the middle of something. They don’t want your attention, they want to catch you off guard, doing something that matters.
Its lie that your idea or your pursuit has to be novel, or duplicatable, or sellable, or franchise-able.
Just make shit.
And in the making, maybe you will get some love. Maybe you will get a lot of love. Maybe you will receive no love. But the process of making will ease the grasping unease that all back sliding artists feel.