“Anyone who isn’t embarrassed of who they were last year probably isn’t learning enough.”
– Alain de Botton
If you want to be a writer, you have to suffer first; you need to gather plenty of experiences and adventures to publish something great. There’s no point in writing anything in your 20s. When you’re young, you aren’t wise, you’re bursting with too much energy and enthusiasm, thus you aren’t rational; you can’t produce anything original and you’re going to make plenty of mistakes. To write well, wait another 15 to 20 years, to reach complete maturity, to read enough, reflect enough, take risks, win, and fail.
This is what one of my university professors advised me, after learning that one of my “hobbies” was writing.1 I had already published a few essays on the internet and was working on my first book. In theory, I agreed with him. In practice, I kept writing. Mircea Eliade experienced the same criticism in his 20s, but in contrast with my diplomatic (cowardly?) approach, his reply was stellar: “But, Professor, if I wait another 15 to 20 years, maybe I’ll be dead by then.” And this is the truth. Not maybe. Certainly, for the person we are today will be replaced many times before we die.2
You’ll be a completely different person 15 to 20 years from now, whether you like it or not. Different energy. Different interests. You’ll read different books. Your personality will be different. Your ambitions will be different. Your projects will be different. So why delay the artistic process? People aren’t simply interested in aged wisdom, well-balanced essays and originality. They’re starving for some crazy ideas, silly mistakes and weird books. What’s the value of writing something in your 40s that you wanted to write in your 20s? Odds are you won’t produce better writings, but entirely different ones.
Naval Ravikant isn’t wrong: “Inspiration is perishable. Act on it immediately.” It’s profoundly naïve to imagine you’re going to preserve this energy for another 15 to 20 years. The chances are, it’ll transform into wild frustration or spiritual defeat.
Mircea Eliade wrote of “the power of embracing your age” – you must leverage what’s abundant in the present moment: If you’re young, leverage your optimism and cheerful soul. This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to make wise decisions but rather that making “wisdom” your central personality trait is awkward when you’re 23 years old.
Nassim Taleb put it best: “Wisdom in the young is as unattractive as frivolity in the elderly.”
Whoever claims that you need to “reach maturity” to write or produce art is trying to rebrand toxic procrastination and perfectionism as virtues. Postponing your young, fertile urge to live on the edge, to connect with the sacred, to experience prolonged periods of flow for the first time in your life – this is nothing but a terrible vice. And such advice gives you more information about the one who gives it than the one who receives it. Authors who wait “patiently” until they get “wise enough” to publish often spend too much time on the editing process.3 They evaluate and restructure every single sentence, every single page; they reorder and rethink their manuscript 7 to 10 times.4 This may strike you as admirable – but, again, it is a vice masquerading as a virtue. It’s one thing to publish every now and then because you only write when you feel inspired; it’s another to publish every now and then because you waste plenty of time on the editing process. There’s a clear opportunity cost: The time you spend on the editing process is time lost on the artistic process.
There are writers who’ve been publishing for 10, 20, 30 years – but who haven’t written anything yet. They refuse to write what they think, only publishing what they think they should think. Eliade talked about why we overestimate the importance of how a book is written; what matters is who writes it: the personality, authenticity, the choice of subjects and themes, the historical context.
Only “imperfect” books defy time; books like those by Rabelais, Cervantes, Shakespeare, Balzac, Dostoevsky. Perhaps some academics, journalists or professors could have written these books “better” – in terms of structure, style and comprehension. Yet human nature isn’t interested in the profane definition of perfection.
In hindsight, I realized that calling your passion or obsession just a “hobby” is blasphemy.
Tim Urban had with a great observation: “When you look at a photo of yourself as a child, what do you see? The atoms that make up your body were scattered throughout the world when that picture was taken and the atoms in the kid in that photo have since moved on. So why is that child you? What is the definition of you?”
Artists who rely too much on systems, templates and frameworks lack spiritual depth and genuine curiosity. As soon as your reason becomes the CEO of your projects – instead of being just another employee – your inspiration will get fired. Your work will lack energy, wit and passion. Artists who master the elegance of taking action when inspiration strikes – and of educating inspiration to show up predictably and generously – also boast an arsenal of systems, templates and frameworks. Yet these are not the guardians of their craft; they’re simply some casual friends.
Two to four times might be the sweet spot.
