Don't earn a living, make one.

A one-word change that makes life more bearable

Author

Enda Mac Nally
October 09, 2024 • Read it in: 5 minutes

Don’t earn a living, make one

It might seem semantic to make a distinction between 'earning a living' and 'making a living', but this Vonnegut quote got me thinking:

Sure, it might sound a little bit.. “dance like no one’s watching…”, but words matter, and I do think there’s something significant in the distinction.

‘Earning a living’ makes its incumbent upon you to scrape together the means to subsist, and essentially to justify your existence.

‘Making a living’ encourages you to ‘make life more bearable’ as he puts it.

It asks that you be active in creating the conditions of your life, improving on what you’re given and to making your experience the very best it can be.

Only one of these two asks you to look at the world around you and find the raw materials needed to make a better one.

Have a vision, and articulate it

A few weeks ago, I referenced a podcast episode where Nils Leonard outlined his take on what drives creative people.

One of the things he said was:

“All we really have as creatives is a way of seeing the world,”

It’s gotten me thinking about a creative’s ‘vision’: the way they can picture an idea before it exists, and set out to bring it into reality. This is what I think he’s referring to, and in a way, it is all that sets the creative apart from anyone else.

I’d heard Quentin Tarantino speak elsewhere about ‘vision’, based on advice he had gotten early in his career from Terry Gilliam… advice that he refers to as ‘some of the best advice I was ever given’. At the time, he hadn’t yet made a single film. He had the script for Resevoir Dogs written, but was afraid that he might not have the skills to bring it to life.

Here’s what Gilliam told him:

“He said, well Quentin, you don’t really have to conjure up your vision. You just need to know what your vision IS. And then you hire really talented people, and it’s THEIR JOB to create your vision.

You don’t need to know how to grab the light stands and create this kind of lighting effect…

[…] you just need to understand your vision and how to articulate it,”

Tradition is peer pressure from the dead

Sometimes, you clock a simple sentence that blows your mind

This one came from Lankum’s Instagram page (it’s gone now):

‘Tradition is peer pressure from the dead’

🎥 ‘What would Billy Wilder do?' [VIDEO]
Fantastic, short video essay on the best ever writer/director.

👀 ‘The Dangers of Low Agency’ [Reddit Post]
An eye-opening Reddit post, from a man who admits to ‘living my whole life the opposite of how I wanted’

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