Make Your Way
In February 2002 we got home internet for the first time. A 56k modem, which meant that everything moved at the pace of 5 AM, me stumbling home after a terrible party, drunk enough that the world had gone all swimmy and sideways, just trying to get to my bed before I threw up on myself. That’s how slow everything was. You’d click and wait. You’d wait some more. You’d think maybe something broke. Then finally the page would load, ten years later.
I’ve always thought of myself as a maker rather than a consumer—at least that’s what I’ve always told myself. So that same month I got myself a website, nothing fancy, just some pages I’d thrown together in Word about me and the people around me, some of whom were attractive and some of whom really weren’t. I wrote about stupid things. The kinds of stupid things a kid writes about when nobody’s really expecting to read it.
I wrote there for whoever might stumble across it—my older sister, the neighbor’s dog, whoever. I’d ramble about who we’d destroyed in Super Smash Bros that afternoon, which Fanta flavor actually tasted best, whether a girl from another class would let you touch her. Just … kid stuff. Half-formed thoughts. Whatever struck me that day.
Why am I telling you this ancient history? Because it means I’ve been doing this for longer than a decade now. Long enough to watch countless people start blogs and quit. Some of them were actually talented. Most of them probably became plumbers or insurance adjusters or just disappeared entirely. That’s fair.
And yet. Despite spending half my life typing weird thoughts and observations into the internet, I’m surrounded by people who feel this burning need to tell me, constantly and in every possible way, how I’m doing it wrong. How I could be doing it better. These aren’t suggestions—they’re orders dressed up as questions, advice I never asked for, delivered by people who’ve never created a single meaningful thing in their lives.
This blog, or this dispatch, or whatever you want to call it, attracts all kinds. People say I write too much. People say I write too little. That I should be more serious, more irreverent, more provocative, more careful. Too much sex. Not enough sex. Too many opinions. Not enough jokes. I sit there reading these messages and just think: Why would you even tell me this?
I’m genuinely restless in the worst way—this constant anxiety that I’m missing something crucial, that I need to reinvent everything right now, immediately, or I’ll regret it forever. So I try new stuff constantly, ideas that nobody else understands but which make perfect sense to my peculiar brain. Today this blog is one thing. Tomorrow it’s something different. Today it’s serious. Tomorrow it’s frivolous. Today it exists. Tomorrow I’ll burn it down and start over. It’s like trying to find the right position to fall asleep—rolling left, rolling right, rolling left again until finally you find it.
I’m trying to find my place. The place where I can do what I actually want to do, the way I actually want to do it. And somehow, every time, I end up back where I started. That pattern never breaks.
You want to know what that means? It means I’ve tried every single half-baked suggestion anyone’s ever thrown at me. Every piece of advice, every criticism disguised as constructive feedback, every what you really need to do
from people who’ve accomplished nothing. I’ve tried it all. And you know what? All of it was garbage. Failed experiments. Broken projects. Things I started and abandoned. Ideas that made sense at 3 AM and looked ridiculous in daylight.
Here’s what I’ve learned: If you’ve built something you actually care about—a blog, a YouTube channel, even just a website where you dump your thoughts—and people keep showing up to tell you how you should be doing it differently, then yes, stay somewhat open to feedback. But also ask yourself: who exactly is this person? What have they built? What gives them the right?
You’re where you are because you’ve poured everything into this thing. Your time. Your attention. Your passion. You made choices. You set priorities. You sacrificed things. You kept going when you could have been doing anything else, anything easier, anything more social, anything that would actually pay your bills or impress anyone. But you didn’t. You kept going with this, whatever it is, because you wanted to. Because something in you needed to.
So why should some person who’s never built anything substantial, who’s never committed to anything, who’s never actually tried, get to tell you how to do yours? They don’t know. If they did, they’d be doing it themselves instead of sitting on the sidelines throwing rocks. They’d have their own thing. They’d understand what this actually costs.
I got internet for the first time in February 2002. A lot has changed since then. Technology has changed completely. The internet is barely recognizable compared to what it was. But one thing hasn’t shifted an inch: I still want to scream what I think, what I love, what I hate into the void and actually mean it. I still want to make something that matters to me, even if it matters to no one else.
And if you’re like me—if you’ve got something you’re building, something you care about—then for God’s sake, keep going. Don’t let some person with no skin in the game talk you into doubt. Don’t let their criticism become your roadmap. Keep your eyes on what you actually love and stay with it. That’s the only way any of this survives. That’s the only way any of us survive.