Terwijl de trein Rotterdam verlaat, schiet me onwillekeurig een flard levensadvies binnen: ‘Do something everyday that scares you.’ Baz Luhrmann populariseerde de gemeenplaats van Mary Schmich met zijn hit ‘Wear Sunscreen’. Wat me dwarszit is de opzichtige leugenachtigheid ervan: het advies opvolgen zou een leven in een voortdurende staat van angstig afwachten betekenen. En toch zie ook ik de aantrekkelijkheid van het idee dat het leven met elke overwonnen angst iets lichter wordt, alsof je waadt door steeds ondieper water.

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If you’re doing anything artsy, the rest of the world’s job is to say whether it’s any good or not. Because you’re making art. You’re trying to be a magician. You’re trying to create a unicorn. If you put out something that’s like just a horn taped to a goat, people are going to say, ‘Nah, that’s not a fucking unicorn, man.’ People are going to tell you you suck most of the time, but a couple of other people might be like, ‘I don’t know man. That might be a fucking unicorn.’

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It’s a restless hungry feeling
That don’t mean no one no good
When everything I’m a-saying
You can say it just as good

You are right from your side
I am right from mine
We’re both just one too many mornings
And a thousand miles behind

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Sam: That’s the thing. The internet is not the larger conversation, the internet is the smaller conversation. I, like, had this realization. I was checking into a hotel room Sunday night in Dallas, and this woman asked me what I’m doing, what I’m in town for, and I’m like, “Oh, I’m a journalist,” and she’s like, “Oh, what are you doing?” And I – I said, “I work for NPR, I’m covering this shooting.” And she’s like, “Oh, my god.” So we start talking about the shooting and her interactions with police and – we have a long conversation – and finally she says to me, “You know, I see both sides. I see Black Lives Matter point, I see the police officer’s point. I see both sides, but whenever you say that you see one side, everyone thinks that you hate the other side, so I just stay quiet.”

PJ: That’s it. That’s what he saw. And I know how small that is. I know how … meagre it is to find hope in the fact that people are quietly thinking about something. But I think Sam’s right. Like, even though we know that we’re ruder and louder and more argumentative on the internet, I think that we forget that the other thing the internet doesn’t show us is quiet. The moments that we’re all having where we’re sitting there turning this stuff over, trying to make sense of it. It can feel like nobody else is doing that.

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Nobody tells people who are beginners — and I really wish someone had told this to me – that all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you’re making stuff, it’s just not that great. It’s trying to be good, it has potential to be good, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, that’s still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase. They quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it’s normal and the most important thing you can do, is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.

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