If there’s a quintessential rule in marketing, it’s probably this: that whatever your contribution, whatever your art, whatever you make with your own two mitts, whatever you choose to gift to the world…

It ain’t for everyone.

But if we only look to influencer culture’s drive to be famous, or high-growth start-up culture’s drive to dominate markets, we can be forgiven for thinking that we need to connect with everyone—the faster the better.

Not true, though.

Sixteen years later, futurist Kevin Kelly is still right: you only need 1,000 true fans to make a handsome living, not millions of them. You don’t need a megahit or superstardom to make your mark. And there’s more good news: you have everything you need to connect with your true fans, at your fingertips, all practically free.

This means that for the first time in human history (or at least since the beginning of the industrial revolution), you—the daring creator—get to do the work you want to do and design the kind of life you want to live! It’s an unprecedented opportunity and an equally big responsibility.

Also, quite scary.

That’s because we’ve all been warned not to rock the boat; to just chill; play it safe; stay passive; consume!

Consuming and passively dreaming of achieving some level of stardom is a convenient excuse not to start doing work that truly matters to us. Then, a despairing sense of entitlement kicks in and traps us.

The trap is cleverly portrayed in Arcade Fire’s 2017 song, “Creature Comfort:”

Creature comfort, makes it painless

Bury me penniless and nameless

Born in a diamond mine

It’s all around you, but you can’t see it

Born in a diamond mine

It’s all around you, but you can’t touch it

Sayin’, “God, make me famous”

If you can’t, just make it painless”

Just make it painless

It’s an interesting tune with layers of meaning. But the takeaway for me (in addition to the heartbreaking realization that too many people, especially young people, see the world in this way) is that your success isn’t what other people say it is. It’s not something out there somewhere; nor can you find it in your bank balance, in the number of Likes on Facebook, in the comments section, or in any other external measure.

Success is what YOU design it to be.

Success comes from within, not from without.

So please, go ahead, dare to dance to your own music. Give the world your humble best. Enough people will find you and love you for it, and it will be more than enough.

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On a recent trip to Maryland, I came across a desk calendar in my sister-in-law’s kitchen.

I love the quote, and the prayer below:

Lord, help me see Your hand of preparation in my life. Create in me a lasting work.

After reading it several times, and reflecting on how it called to me, an idea struck me: That’s what life’s all about, isn’t it?

Yes! Beyond even a shadow of a doubt. If life’s a caravansary, and knowing full well that we don’t get to stay, I ask myself frequently:

What lasting work will I create with enthusiasm while I’m here?

The word enthusiasm matters to me. It comes from the Greek, entheos—God within. That’s important to me because I can’t envision creating a lasting work without the inspiration of a power greater than I can know or understand.

What’s more, amid the complicated rhythms of life I only see two possibilities for creating a lasting work:

• By the way I can pour into others during my life, so that my spirit may live on, far beyond my lifetime, and find expression in their lives and those they subsequently touch;
  
• Or, through the creative artifacts I can choose to live behind, all with varying half-lives: books, blogs, paintings, drawings, musical compositions, recorded performances, nonprofit organizations, companies, social movements, etc.
  

Both matter to me, for what else is there?

I can’t help but think of the people who are long gone but who inspire me today, in some cases, thousands of years after they lived. Immortals, like Socrates, Spinoza, Michelangelo, Emerson, Thoreau, Lincoln, Tolstoy, Ruben Dario—to name a few. But also more recent heroes of mine like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., my father—Danilo Vargas Sr.—and Maude Welsh, among so many others.

And I remind myself that creating lasting works requires much preparation; sometimes a life’s worth of it.

It’s in that spirit that I pray that this blog is a lasting work and that, what Benjamin Franklin called, All Powerful Goodness, grants me the deftness, humility, and grace to serve my readers well.

It’s taken me 51 years of life to get to this point in space and time. What wisdom, and knowledge, and useful tidbits I’ve gathered along the way I hereby promise to humbly submit for your kind consideration.

With that I say, Hello world!

And I say it with love and gratitude,

Danilo Vargas
November 1, 2023

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