It’s a lot easier to not only know you’re remarkable, but to feel you’re remarkable earlier on in life. You can do good in school, get good grades. You can participate in afterschool sports and perform very well. You can be a star athlete, you could be a great academic, you could even be really popular, really funny, really fashionable, you know? But you get older and it becomes a little harder to gauge how remarkable you are.
Maybe a big part of that is capitalism. Like if you were actually a really good adult athlete you’d be in the league, right? Or if you were a really good adult academic you’d be a published author or you’d be a professor or you’d be something else that serves as a standard metric for what everybody agrees is success. When you’re younger, people just appreciate the talent itself. Like, wow you’re really smart or sheesh you’re really good at tennis or playing the piano or whatever. But you get older and suddenly these positive traits or skillsets have to align with a career. And if you aren’t using those skills to make money, it must not be that good a skill (according to capitalism).
By a ton of metrics, I’m doing super well with my skillsets as careers. On one hand I have this deeply analytical career in tech where I get to use the facts and figures, theories and patterns, part of my brain. And I love that because I’ve always been an academic at heart. From Kindergarten right up to a couple degrees and my doctoral program. But I’m also a creative person. A writer. A director. A producer.
This newsletter has really resonated with people in ways I didn’t expect going into it. Friends text me excerpts and tell me it really helped them, and knowing the shit they’re going through, I’m like wow my words helped you with that? That’s big. That’s a metric better than any like or view count. Then I have strangers hit my DMs with I really needed to read this right now at this time and that feels amazing, too. To not know someone but still be able to speak to their situation.
Then I have this digital series that’s also doing exactly what I want it to do. A friend was telling me about this situation where his boss hasn’t paid him, but still expects him to work. People who don’t freelance or work in the creative industry could probably never understand what that’s like. But it’s very, very common. I was responding to his situation, giving some advice, then stopped and played him the episode of Untitled Anthology that comes out this Wednesday (trailer dropped today!), and I watched him react to it live.
It was unexpectedly affirming as a writer to see him laugh at all the parts I wrote a comedic beat, and to see the relief that washed over him when he got to the core of why I wrote the episode and realized his situation is not unique. That other people are getting finessed, scammed, and exploited the way he was getting finessed, scammed, and exploited. I could’ve talked for hours about that, but instead an episode of my digital series had a real and immediate impact. It showed him he’s not alone and that he’s not the problem. That’s really big to me. That’s what I wanna do.
There’s this quote either by August Wilson or about August Wilson, that says he was very invested in the mundane. I think that word often has a pejorative connotation but the way I always interpret it, is it’s this shit right here that matters. I love the superhero stories. I love me some sci-fi. I love stories of The Chosen One and all these other great narratives, but it’s the 9-to-5 struggles, it’s the not-9-to-5 creative freelancer struggles, it’s everybody wanting to be remarkable in some way. As I write this, the Emmys are on. To some, being remarkable is really solidified or validated by having an Emmy or some other accolade in your field - Pulitzer, Employee of the Month, Webby, a degree, a number of likes, or subscribers, or the number of followers, or if your boss really fucks with the spreadsheet you provided, idk lol.
I think I say all that to say, I journaled a few days ago and it was just one sentence: I miss being remarkable. I think on the path to remarkable you can experience extreme self-doubt if you’re using the wrong metrics. If I’m as great a writer/creator/thinker as I and many others say I am, why am I not making X amount of money, why don’t I have a book deal, why don’t I have this or that? But I was talking to my boy Yoh - who I’ve written about in this newsletter before. Man do I love that guy. He really affirms me in ways that don’t feel like I’m trying to make you feel better. It just feels like facts. I tell him a specific way I’m struggling with self-doubt and it feels like he pulls out a book and runs the numbers and is like Mhmm. Yup. As I thought. You are remarkable. You are making progress. A year ago we were having conversations about XYZ and these days we talk about ABC. That’s progress. It blows my mind every time and I’m appreciative of that.
So the point of today’s journal is first of all, you are remarkable. And if you don’t believe it, reconsider the metrics you’re using to come to the conclusion that you are not. And if that doesn’t work, have a 2 hour conversation with someone who sees you more clearly than you’re currently seeing yourself. Could change your whole perspective for the better.
Classic words of wisdom from Master Yohshi 🫡
Thank you for this post! Reading this, I thought back to a few weeks ago when I thought of how much I used to write and had to remind myself of what I've accomplished with said writing, along with other accomplishments beyond pen and paper.