Making (Art) Is Hard Work

Hey, I'm Matt-Dave, and I have released exactly two videogames, written over 100 blog posts, wrote a novel, and recorded 4 demos with a band that broke up.

And those things were all bloody hard to do.

Any personal project is something that's very hard to get off the ground. You're usually solely responsible for it's completion and holding yourself to task is hard. Often, the reward is... Nothing. Perhaps a small audience, perhaps a couple pats on the back, but most of the time you're shouting into the void and hoping someone hears it.

It's hard to make a career and name for yourself off of passion projects, hell, this blog has been going for years now and I couldn't tell you if any actual humans read my blog or if it's just porn bots.

Why do we do the things we do, even if they're difficult, tedious, time consuming and sometimes not even that cathartic?

Well, I crave creative satisfaction. I consider myself something of an artist. I make music, I make games, I write, all that good stuff and I publish a lot of my work online. Sometimes it just doesn't get noticed.

That's okay though.

Making art for the sake of making art is where the true joy in life lies. I wish I could spend my life just doing that. Just writing, just penning blog posts, just making games, just making songs. It's some of the greatest pleasures I've had as a human being and I wish more people could experience those things.

But it takes its toll.

Sometimes you do wonder if it's all worth it, if screaming into the void means you're just yelling at yourself.

I don't know what to do about that.

I do know I'll continue. I'm trying my best to make something out of nothing here and I hope some day it will pay off. In some ways it already has, so we'll see if there's any further return on investment.

All I can say is, finish your passion projects. Don't let them linger.

We all have too many lingering regrets already.