2024: The year of the grind
Self indulgent musings on the year ahead
New years are often time for reflection. I feel that sentiment rather heavily out in the world to start 2024. I don’t know if it’s because my social circles are getting older and more intentional, or if there’s some collective desire to renew, reset and refocus after three of the most unpredictable years in modern history.
I’m not usually the type of person to participate in New Years related resetting rituals. I am, however, the type who enjoys blowing smoke up my own ass and jerking off over my creative ambitions. With that in mind, I figured any excuse to talk about intention setting would be a good avenue to get myself (and hopefully some others) excited about the creative process.
Creativity really does come easier when you focus on that process, rather than the outcomes.
I randomly followed this skateboarder named Nyjah Huston a few months ago on Instagram. I like skate videos and he’s a good looking dude. That’s the type of content I want in my feed. I had no idea Nyjah was a world champion at the top of his craft. He’s won 12 gold medals at the X Games, among other accomplishments I watch his IG stories and most days he’s ripping around LA looking for spots, or at the skate park working on tricks.
Nyjah has become an inspirational figure for me as a writer. That might sound weird, but I’m energized by his devotion to form. Millions of people are trying to become top level skaters. What I think separates Nyjah, besides the obvious natural talent, is how it feels like he’d be skating every day whether he was getting paid or not.
That effortless love of the process is something I want to cultivate with writing. This shit comes easy to me. I’ve tried my hand at so many creative pursuits — making music, doing podcasts, building a social media presence — the list goes on. All that stuff comes with a mental barrier. If I schedule an hour to edit a podcast or program some drums, I usually spend the first 20 minutes fucking around on my computer and trying to get in the mood.
Writing is the only creative passion of mine where I can open up the phone and ideas come right away. I fill that hour of budgeted creative time and usually spill into the next hour as well. I don’t have the same accolades, success or talent, but writing comes as easy to me as riding a skateboard does to Nyjah Huston. So when I see him “in the lab” on a daily basis, it inspires me to treat my craft the same.
Doing something every day is hard, even if you love it. The logistical challenges alone are tough. It’s also hard to be consistent without much external validation. This was the biggest challenge for me in my 20’s. It sucked to work hard on something, pump it out, and then feel like nobody gave a shit. I struggle with the idea of working consistently without immediate payoff a lot, creatively or otherwise.
I’ve recently started to shift my mentality, though. I saw some cringe YouTube hustle culture video about this, and it really lined up with how I was starting to feel, so I ran with it.
I’ve started seeing success as establishing and completing the process, rather than validation or accolades. Those external motivators are impossible to predict. The only thing I can control are my actions. Shifting the definition of success from the outcome to the action means I control my own sense of accomplishment. Ironically enough, that sense of accomplishment helps me be more consistent, which goes a long way in working towards external validation.
My dream scenario for this blog is to get enough followers who are willing to donate paid subscriptions that I can use The Daily Snob as a viable income stream. Easy money doesn’t exist in hardcore unless (and even if) you’re willing to compromise your values. I don’t want to do that. My objective is to achieve something like the revamped version of Anti-Matter, where I can offer a valuable contribution to the DIY music scene at such high quality that people are willing to pay for it.
That’s the absolute pinnacle of external success in this scene. It’s crazy how Nyjah Huston’s dream is (presumably) to win international skateboarding competitions and make lucrative brand deals, while my dream is to make a couple hundred bucks a month doing a blog. Still, for me, the dream is not the goal. It might be a decade before I can achieve what I want with this, and I’m certain to get burned out if all I focus on are external objectives.
So for 2024, my goal is to treat writing like Nyjah treats skateboarding. I want to fall so deeply in love with the process that doing it every day is a natural extension of who I am. I want to create pieces that are vital and important — not because people say they are, but because I feel they matter when I put them together.
All that other shit will come after. Or it won’t. So long as I feel fulfilled, my time is well spent.