To work as hard as possible, and then, when you think you’re done, to work just a little bit harder. To know that if it feels “right” it may actually be completely wrong, and that if it feels “wrong” it may be completely right. There’s no governing principle to any of this except that strange instinct and feeling within yourself that you simply have to learn to trust, but which is always unreliably changing. To create something for people who have not been born yet. To pay attention to how it actually feels to be alive, to the lies you tell yourself and others. Not to overreach—but also not to get too comfortable with your own work. To avoid giving in to either self-doubt or self-confidence, depending on your leaning, and especially to resist giving over your opinion of yourself to others—which means not to seek fame or recognition, which can restrain rather than open your possibility for artistic development. With all this in mind, not to expect anything and to be grateful for any true, non-exploitative opportunity that presents itself, however modest. And to understand that being able to say “I don’t know what to do with my life” is an incredible privilege that 99% of the rest of the world will never enjoy.

I believe that everyone has within them some urge to create something—whether it’s a story, a picture, a song, or a child—but for one reason or another many of us simply aren’t lucky enough to be able to. [That drive] comes of trying to understand and to feel and to empathize; it’s the reason we have language and, in turn, art.

They say the city gets into your blood, but that’s crap.

The city doesn’t become part of you… you become part of it.

It soaks you up bit by bit, year after year. Until you’re just another tiny part of its system…

…Pumping through its veins, lost in its arteries.