ericy

Painters and musicians and other “creative types” don’t hold a monopoly on art. When we create something new, inimitable, and intensely personal – and then take the risk of putting it out for the world to see and judge, we’re artists.

There are plenty of artists among us:

• The entrepreneur who gives back by devoting himself to making his whole city more entrepreneurial
• The activist committed to spreading freedom of information – even at the expense of his own liberty and life
• The foodie who makes her own opportunities by creating her own world around her interests instead of just waiting for them to fall into her lap
• The junior-level data entry employee who figures out a better way to do things instead of just blindly following the company script

I always flinch whenever I hear someone say that they’re “not artistic”. We’re no longer sitting on assembly lines memorizing rote instructions and carrying out orders like robots. We’re each privileged enough to be able to strive for greatness, to fully apply ourselves and take risks and make a dent in the world, no matter how small. This process is art, and you have the ability to create art for your entire life.

But the moment you renounce art by not caring, by treating your life’s work as “just a job” – you cease being an artist and you become just another cog in the machine. You’re not sticking it to the man and you’re not a cool hipster for caring less than everyone else. You’re just denying yourself the ability to really live.

“What is the most depraved type of human being?”
“The one without purpose.”

Sure, it takes effort to create art instead of putting in the minumum amount of work required. But the feeling you get when you hold nothing back and fully apply yourself to your chosen task can only be described as pure transcendant joy. Forget money and fame – extrinsic motivators are nice but not even comparable. Creating art by applying yourself fully to whatever you choose to do is the most divine purpose of life.

Imagine having your breath taken away by the beauty of the Grand Canyon every time you leave your house. If every day you see something as astounding as Naigara Falls on your daily commute. If you found beauty in every single place you went, no matter how banal it was.

This is how many photographers see the world – they’ve trained themself to see ordinary objects in an extraodinary way. They usually burst with energy, speak with unbridled enthusiasm, and move with the passion and purpose of a person hopelessly in love with their job.

I’ve never met an unhappy professional photographer before. After all, it’s a photographer’s job to not just capture scenes and objects but also to tell a story or make a statement about them. They’ve trained themselves to attach meaning to everything and never to take anything for granted in order to create beautiful images.

Maybe this is why so many people gravitate towards photography as a hobby. There’s something intrinsically attractive about being able to see simple, everyday scenes as being remarkable and beautiful. (Contrast this with many lawyers, who often spend the day poring over documents looking for mistakes.)

Happiness is one of those elusive qualities that everyone wants but no one knows quite how to get. Maybe we could try actively finding the good and the beauty in the world instead of waiting for it to fall in our laps. Maybe there’s more of it than we previously thought – and we just need to learn how to see it.

Pillar habits are things that you do every day to help maintain your momentum in life. Examples include exercising or writing, which create a productive baseline that helps you accomplish your other goals.

A large part of human nature is to constantly strive to surpass the person they were yesterday. Everyone has places to someday see, and people to someday meet, and goals to someday achieve. The problem is that sometimes these higher-level ambitions get deprioritized and fall by the wayside. Goals can’t be achieved without consistent improvement, but it’s so easy to get sidetracked by life.

Pillar habits help, even if they’re orthogonal to your life objectives. Make a conscious decision to, say, exercise every single day – and stick by it. It’s far easier to make progress on your other life goals if you have that habit in place.

If you try this, you’ll never want to stop once you get started. But the funny thing is that once you stop you’ll also never want to get started again – because it’s undeniably hard. Momentum plays a huge role here, so make sure you’re on the right side of it by never missing a day.

Get into a routine of doing something productive without skipping a single day. It’s much easier said than done, but it’s worth it if you’re expecting the most out of life.

I once went for a run and almost died of exhaustion. Just halfway through I could feel myself physically unraveling. I don’t even remember running the last mile because I was using all my energy to just move one leg in front of the other. When I was finished I collapsed and lay on the floor for about 5 minutes before I could summon the willpower to get up. Then I took a shower and slept like a baby for 3 hours. I was really fucking tired.

But the next day I went for another run. This time, though, I ran a longer distance in a shorter time and felt like Superman at the end. What’s going on here? How did I suddenly become so much faster and stronger in just a day?

Well, there was only one difference between the the two days: where I chose to run. On the first day I ran by myself on the apartment treadmill. The second day, though I ran at the fitness center while surrounded by dozens of other exercising people.

I felt like I was thinking the same way on both days – I was just trying to get through my run. But under the surface there’s something about being around people that brings out the best in me. Maybe I was being subconsciously competitive with the other runners, or maybe I felt inspired by the effort that everyone else was exerting. Whatever it is, I felt noticeably stronger and more motivated around other people.

I think this applies to everyone to some degree and isn’t just for physical activities. For example, have you ever talked to someone more successful than you and felt an instant jolt of motivation? Ever read a biography of someone you admire and then immediately have your most productive week ever? Humans are hard-wired to be sensitive to the accomplishments and expectations of their peers, so it’s only natural that we work better in a social context.

That’s good news, too, because it’s a great way to effortlessly motivate yourself for free. For example, if I wanted to run faster and feel better doing it, I should just go to the fitness center instead of at home by myself. It’s a no-brainer – it doesn’t cost me anything and only helps.

You can always put yourself in an environment where you’re surrounded by like-minded peers, no matter what you’re trying to accomplish. Personally, I’m working out of a co-working space called Capital Factory alongside dozens of other Austin startups. The great thing about CF is that there’s an unmistakeable feeling that everyone’s always moving forward. There’s always a Facebook post about a product update here or a website redesign there. Subconsciously this makes it far easier for me to stay consistently motivated and just get shit done every day.

I’m not trying to say motivation is all based off of other people, because it is largely intrinsic. Just remember that you can greatly increase your own capabilities simply by seeking out like-minded people.

A few years ago I decided to learn popular web development framework Ruby on Rails, so I found a tutorial and jumped right in. I already knew PHP like the back of my hand, so how hard could it be?

I soon found out. For the next two weeks I spent hours each day painfully slogging through the book at a snail’s pace. I would copy tutorial examples word-for-word and have literally no idea what I was doing. Anything that I did learn seemed disjointed and irrelevant. Making any progress felt like swimming through thick syrup. My brain would feel physically exhausted at the end of each day – completely stretched to the limit.

I like to call this Novice Hell – when you’re so laughably unfamiliar with a subject that your incompetence holds you back like a prison. When you can’t even practice because you don’t have the slightest clue how.

This happens whenever you learn a new skill. This is the stage where it’s easiest to quit because there’s just no positive feedback. You’re working hard, your brain hurts, but you don’t feel like you’re making any progress. It feels like you’re banging your head against a brick wall.

But after two weeks of practically living inside my Rails book, lo and behold – everything suddenly clicked. It felt like a dense fog had parted in my head, making way for the angels of insight to bestow Knowledge upon me. All of a sudden, things just made sense.

At this point I was certainly not a Rails expert… but I was past Novice Hell. I grasped the basic philosophy behind the language and could create simple web applications. Then it became easy to improve: the more websites I built, the better they became, which created a positive feedback loop that became an engine of consistent improvement. The hard part was getting to this point.

See, positive feedback isn’t linear. You have to work at something for a long time before you see results, and it will be extraordinarily hard and discouraging. The good news is that it’s just a matter of time before you move past Novice Hell and reach a basic level of competence. It’s easy from there.