The fundamental question
When you’re a creative—doing your own thing, deciding what to work on, setting your own schedule.
You have these moments of silence and solitude.
When nobody else is around.
And you’ve finished working on one thing and don’t know what to work on next.
AHHHHHHHHH
Those moments open their mouths and scream at you with silent blackness.
I've experienced this both as an independent writer and now as a solopreneur.
It’s important to distinguish between independent writer versus employed writer, and between solopreneur versus an entrepreneur with investors and employees.
Because if you're writing for a magazine, a newspaper, or a book deal, this doesn't apply, because you still have the external forces pushing you along, telling you what to do and when to do it.
And when you're an entrepreneur, you probably have investors, employees, or co-founders who are all involved in your venture and pushing you along in a general direction.
But when you're an independent writer, just writing for yourself or a small audience, there's nobody pushing you, telling you what, when, or how to write.
Or, if you are a solopreneur with no investors, no employees, and no co-founders, the only people who could be pushing you are your customers. But if you run the type of business where you don't have customer demands like, for example, you sell a pre-recorded course online, or you're just the owner of a business that runs on its own, then you basically have limitless autonomy in terms of the direction in which you want to continue developing the business.
When I started writing this, I was thinking of creative work.
But I’m now realizing that other lifestyles also create the conditions for these moments of not knowing what to do with yourself:
Housewives or househusbands who stay at home alone
People with traditional jobs who have work off on a Sunday
Retirees who are completely out of the work world
Trust fund kids who never had to work
If you don't have any external forces or obligations pushing you to do certain things at certain times, then what do you do?
For example, I’ve been home alone this week.
Kirissa left for New York on Monday. Today’s Thursday.
It’s a unique time because I don’t have work to distract me (I’m in the process of putting my business on “auto-pilot,” but that’s a topic for another post).
No Kirissa. No work.
What do I do?
Morning stretches. Drink water. Wash face. Sit down at the computer. Work a little. Don’t feel like working anymore. Make breakfast. Go to the gym. Shower. Make dinner. Watch TV. Etc. Etc.
There are some obvious things to do.
Get hungry, eat.
Tired, sleep.
But then there are times when you’ve eaten, you’re not tired, and you don’t feel like watching TV.
You’re restless, so you exercise. Then you shower. Now you’re hungry again.
You can keep the cycle going.
And when there are gaps in the cycle, you can fill them with entertainment: TV, scrolling on your phone, shopping, meeting friends.
Depending on your situation, it can be easier to keep the cycle going.
If you have a family. If you have a job. If you have a busy social calendar.
For others, there are more gaps in the cycle.
The gaps are when you’re forced to ask yourself, what should I do?
That's the fundamental question.
I don't know if it's healthy to put yourself in a position to constantly be faced with this question.
Speaking from personal experience, it’s definitely not enjoyable.
Part of me thinks I should just get back on the traditional path and that will be more comfortable because I won’t have to think so much about what I should do. I’ll just follow the path and do what I’m supposed to do.
But something else in me says that facing this fundamental question is important.
It feels like being an explorer on the coast of a new land.
Your ship is beached behind you.
You’re looking into thick green foliage.
You don't know what the land has to offer.
It might be full of predators that are going to eat you, or treacherous natural forces. But it also could be a paradise. It could have a lot of natural resources or better weather.
So you have a choice: turn around and go home, or step into the foliage.
In order to take each step, you have to answer the question again and again, what should I do?
We haven’t been able to come up with a good answer to that fundamental question as a species, and I think it's because we were never really meant to be in this position. We’re animals. Animals live in the cycle of life where they're constantly concerned about food, reproduction, and survival. But humans are now at a point where all that is easy, so we don't have to worry about any of that stuff. So what do we worry about?
Perhaps there is no universal answer to the question.
Each person has to answer for themselves.
Well, you don’t have to do anything.
But it’s hard to avoid the question.
Especially if you’re a creative.
Or a stay-at-home housewife/husband, trust fund kid, retiree, etc.
It’s easier to avoid the question if you’re on a traditional path.
But then you’re going along with someone else’s answer.
And maybe you haven’t really, truly answered for yourself.
But maybe that’s fine.
Maybe it’s the questioning that’s the problem.
It’s for God or someone else to ask the question and then tell us the answer.
Once we have the answer, we’re pretty good at going along with it.
For most of human history, the answer was simple: survive.
And even now, the answer is obvious: get good grades, get a job, have kids, save for retirement.
If you stay on the traditional path, you don’t have this problem of questioning.
But once you start asking questions, the answers lead to more questions, and you can’t put the toothpaste back in the tube.
The answer may very well be to stop asking the question.
But I don’t know, obviously.
the daily (hourly? every minute??) struggle