Post #4307953

I don't know who the first person was that told you "no" or "don't" or whatever. It might have been your mom or your dad or a teacher or whatever. Maybe someone in your class. But somebody told you that you're too stupid or too weak or too small or too gay or too brown or whatever. They told you that you shouldn't try. They told you that it wasn't for you, whatever "it" was. Someone at some point told you to fuck off and I hope you didn't listen. Maybe they told you to fuck off because they wish someone had told them to fuck off. Maybe they were trying to protect you from the way they felt, or maybe they were trying to protect themselves from the way *you* felt. Maybe they thought that rich kids should play with stocks and poor kids should play with tools, or that girls should play with dolls and boys should play with trucks. Maybe they were just trying to fit you into their own mold. These people dragged you down. They tried to keep you from dreaming, of longing, of yearning, of hoping. They wanted someone to mock, an example to hold up and say "see, why bother, you don't want to end up like this do you?" I hope you light all of that shit on fire. Burn it all. Take my lighter if you need a spark. There's no better way to fuel your eternal engine than the desire to prove people wrong. This is universal. That shit keeps your pistons lubricated, your valves humming, and your eyes wide open. The best part is that you will never run out of gas here, because you will never run out of people telling you to quit. There's no point in your life wherein people will stop trying to tell you that you're a failure, or how you just aren't aware of your own limitations, or how high the walls are. They're projecting. Those are their own failures, their own limitations, the walls that they built for themselves. Every obstacle is insurmountable until suddenly it isn't anymore. Every mountain is too high or too cold or too dangerous until someone summits it. I'm not a great example here. I took what was supposed to be the easy path. I went to school for comp sci back when the dream there was six figures, the dot com bubble money, a cushy ride. Nobody told me to fuck off, and sometimes I wish they'd had. I didn't become everything I'd wanted to be. I'm just another salary man, collecting a paycheck, relishing my PTO, so on and so forth. But when its all said and done, I got somewhere. I'm not rich and famous but I'm comfortable and content. Any one of us, but you, in particular, you might change the world. You might be the cartoonist trying their hand at a web comic that spurs a little hope in some old dog like me, and a million other people. You might work on the battery breakthrough that moves the needle towards making electric cars a surer thing. You might hit that guitar riff that makes my hair stand on end and activates a new vein of meme magic. You might turn that phrase that makes me believe in myself again. The people who change the world aren't special. Sorry. They aren't preordained or blessed or chosen or anything. Its more mere fortune and fortitude than anything else. They are people who were told to fuck off and they didn't listen. So, take your shot. See what happens next. Go wherever the energy and the vibes take you. There are a lot of people who went before you who are watching to see what you can do, and even more people behind you watching what might happen from what you're doing. Those people are watching you get told to fuck off, and watching you ignore it, and they're taking notes. Fuck them, and fuck that. Burn bright and hot. Burn until you blind people with white-hot light. Burn until you tear a hole into the way people see and experience the world.