Reality check.

“I Want My Work to Feel Like a Brick Getting Thrown Through a Window.”

You want something digestible? Turn on Netflix. This isn’t that.

The narratives I write don’t ask politely to be understood. If you want food truck recommendations or the best chocolate chip cookie, go to every other publication in town.

This is the front line. This is making something where there would’ve been nothing. This is human expression in real time. This is joy carved from scarcity.

My standard when I sit down to write is to create something real enough to make someone feel. I want my work to feel like a brick getting thrown through a window. To remind people that we still have some power here, and to say, “Hey, I see you. You’re not the only one who is tired. Keep going”.

I wear my heart on my sleeve every day, and own the space I was born into. To show you that you can, too.

People are gonna hate, but I’m still standing right here. To show you that you can, too.

The idea that by producing work I could inspire someone else to create, lights up my soul, and seems worth the sacrifice. I’ve got this drive to make a difference, with very little understanding of why, and no roadmap for how to achieve it.

I’m torn between action and inaction in every moment. It consumes me. It fuels every moment of my day. I’ve bet on myself, and now I have to answer to that.

Reality check.

Most creatives aren’t trying to go viral. They’re trying to survive.

Their beating hearts yearn to be heard, to be felt, and it can be fucking crippling.

This isn’t about clout. This isn’t about presentable portfolios or some brand campaign that will successfully attract a few new followers.

That’s not why we do it.

The act of creating is the only way to wrap our minds around and make peace with a world that feels immensely shallow. A world constantly trying to downplay our ambition, dilute our pain, and profit off our ideas.

Real creatives don’t wake up thinking, “Hmm, how can I optimize this for the algorithm?”

We wake up thinking, “How do I make it through the day without conforming to something less than what I am capable of creating?”

Art, the kind of work we do, requires everything from you. It grabs you by the collar and forces you to look at the shit you don’t want to look at. It shakes you to your core and then asks more from you when your pockets are empty and you’ve got nothing to give.

And for what? No one’s gonna give a fuck anyway, right?

So we shut down. We keep our work to ourselves. We make enemies out of strangers. Everything seemingly feels like a threat. We turn to every vice we can get our hands on, and take another puff of our American Spirit. All while trying to put our finger on just how much the apathy in the modern age really pisses us off. An apparent lack of depth, seems to leave all the people still feeling, feeling alone. Kind of funny, huh?

Well I am here to tell you that what you are doing matters. This is for all the people who put their craft first. This is for all of the people who don't have a Plan B. This is for everyone who refuses to be more practical. This is for everyone in the trenches who knows their only way out, is through.

Keep creating.

Because someone, somewhere, will see it. Someone will value it. It might not go “viral”. But it just might change someone’s life, and that life may very well be… your own.

Until then.

I’ll happily use my time and energy to wake up a few more intellectual gangsters. I’m here for whatever scraps of time we can steal back from this fucked-up machine, and the hope that some of y’all will join me. 

Let’s party.

Written by Evan H. Duvall

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