Feb 13, 2022
Go Do
“You are not responsible for the world — you are only responsible for your work — so DO IT.” — Sol LeWitt
I’ve written a number of letters in my life. But my favorite letter is one that is not my own.
Sol LeWitt and Eva Hesse were two American artists who first met in 1960, LeWitt predominantly focused on Minimal painting, and Hesse being a pioneer in creating artistic sculptures. Despite the divergence in their art processes, they became close friends and corresponded through letters for years.
Perhaps the most famous letter in their correspondence is a letter that LeWitt sent Hesse five years into their friendship, at a time when Hesse was facing self-doubt after moving to New York.
The five-page letter has a simple message: Do.
Just stop thinking, worrying, looking over your shoulder, wondering, doubting, fearing, hurting, hoping for some easy way out, struggling, grasping, confusing, itching, scratching, mumbling, bumbling, grumbling, humbling, stumbling, numbling, rambling, gambling, tumbling, scumbling, scrambling, hitching, hatching, bitching, moaning, groaning, honing, boning, horse-shitting, hair-splitting, nit-picking, piss-trickling, nose sticking, ass-gouging, eyeball-poking, finger-pointing, alleyway-sneaking, long waiting, small stepping, evil-eyeing, back-scratching, searching, perching, besmirching, grinding, grinding, grinding away at yourself. Stop it and just DO.
I often wish that I could have received a letter like this.
But since I do not yet find myself so lucky to have a Sol LeWitt in my life, I’ll try to be my own.
So you’re finding yourself stuck. You haven’t felt passionate about anything for the past few months — or for the past few years.
You can’t remember the last time you watched a movie with bright-eyed curiosity as you used to do back when you still aspired deeply to be a director. You find yourself having a hard time focusing on reading, despite being able to voraciously tear through books just a few years prior. You absent-mindedly think about ideas to write without ever opening your laptop to put the words on the screen.
You sometimes wonder if this is it. If all of the dreams you had back when you were in college were just that — dreams. You simultaneously fold to self-doubt and self-arrogance, believing that your writing isn’t worth anything while also believing that it should be good enough — after all, you’ve sometimes got compliments on your writing right?
You can choose the path laid in front of you. The path that millions, if not billions, have chosen. The path that is safe, stable, secure. Give up on the dreams, lock them in a box deep inside your mind, and live a happy life. Go to your job every day, make money, save up, buy a house, get married, have kids, have grandkids, retire, and (hopefully) die peacefully. No more worrying if your writing is good enough, if you’ll ever be able to work in the film industry, or if you should give another go at making a podcast.
Or you can choose to go on the path that isn’t easy. The path of constantly putting yourself out there, the path of heartbreak, the path of failure, the path of naive dreams. The path that you have tried to amble along countless times, and the path that you have abandoned countless times as well. The path you so hope to be able to follow.
Which one will you choose? At the crossroads, the question is about what are you going to do?
Here’s some tough love: right now, you’re nothing.
But here’s the good news: that’s okay.
You don’t have to be ‘something’.
But do something. Make something. Write something.
Remember that it’s not about you. You’re not the work, the output, the product. You’re not what people come to see. You’re not an Instagram star or a model. The ‘you’ does not matter here.
What matters is what you make. What you write. What you take photographs of.
Remove yourself from the equation. The self, the ego, has no place here.
Instead, put parts of yourself in your work. Pour your heart out into the things that you do. Insert tidbits of yourself into the characters you make, the words you type.
But regardless of whether or not you decide to remove yourself from the equation, just go do.
Dreams and ideas are all nice and dandy, but they’re worth near to nothing. It’s like what everyone at work always says: execution is everything.
Execute, execute, execute.
Don’t worry too much if it isn’t good. Anything you make right now probably isn’t that great.
But that’s right now. That’s a temporary state. Like all things, you change over time. So does your work.
The only thing to decide now is if you want your work to become better over time or you want to let it stay in this state forever. This state where it’s just okay enough to receive some praise, but not good enough for you to be confident that it’s good.
Stop the moaning and groaning, the I’ll-do-that-tomorrow or I-just-haven’t-got-around-to-it-yet, the talk and riff-raff. You’ve done enough talking about what you’re going to do.
When are you going to get around to actually doing it?
No one is waiting for you. No one is there to push you. No one is there to cheer you on every step of the way. Right now, it’s all about you and you alone.
Only you can get you to do it.
So do it. Go do.
Of course, you know all the reasons of why you haven’t done anything worth noting yet. You doubt yourself too much. You worry too much about whether people will like it, or whether it will be popular, or whether it’ll be a sensation. You’re filled with admiration and anger when seeing other people succeed — admiration because you’re happy for them, anger because you know you could have potentially got it too.
A few months ago, I would’ve told you to use those emotions to fuel your creativity, to find a method in the madness and write long pieces from the swirl of rage, like a phoenix emerging from the ashes of its flamy death.
But now, I’d tell you to shut up and put your head down. Don’t lean into the emotions.
I’m not telling you to not feel them. Nor am I telling you that your feelings are invalid.
But you aren’t some angsty petty 17 year old anymore. You can’t rely on hateful emotions to fuel your work anymore. It’s not healthy to rely on emotional breakdowns to reach some sort of creative enlightenment — at least for you.
Take note of the emotions. Let it simmer down. Rest for a bit.
Then move past the emotions and do.
You need to learn to do the work without the emotions. Emotions fade. Your work shouldn’t.
So go do.
Go do bad things. Outrageous things. New things.
Forget everything you think you know and start anew.
Write about joy. Write about pain.
Write horrible movie scripts. Make them. Cringe at them.
Read a great book. Think that you have the ability to write one yourself. Write a book. Get scathing feedback. Then go write again.
Destroy everything you think about yourself. Rebuild a new identity. Then destroy it again. Experience an extensive existential crisis. Then go write about it.
Fall in love. Get your heart broken. Fall in love again, thinking that maybe this time it will be it. Then inevitably get your heart broken again. Then go write sad stuff.
Don’t worry too much about whether people like it, or whether it’ll be popular, or even if you like it.
Do something. Do anything.
Just go do.
