How I Start

I was sitting in a 3D Design class when I heard the teacher say a phrase that has me reconsidering my approach to both art and writing.

The words weren’t his own, but his teacher’s from years ago. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it, and I’ll hear it again from some other source down the line. It could be said these words don’t belong to anyone, but are something of a shared truth.

Lately, I’ve been struggling. Depression, anxiety, divorce, and all of the lovely aftereffects of chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation on the body, not to mention the dozen or so pills I have to take every day for the rest of my life. Things that make most people happy terrify me, and everything is harder than it was two years ago. I had to quit my job because forcing myself to work was making me suicidal. It’s crap, and I hate it. I hate it, and wish that I could just tear it out of my chest like the breast cancer.

But that’s not how it works, is it?

One of the things that gets me down is the progress of my own personal work. I love writing. I love art. But especially now, it’s hard to do hard things. Sounds kind of obvious, right? Like, “Duh, Kaze, or course they’re hard.” But after spending a year teaching myself to take it easy because otherwise, bad things… whenever I come up against something harder than clicking a few buttons, I just stare at it disconsolately before walking away. It doesn’t feel good. Even when I’m doing something that I can and enjoy, deep down I feel miserable because I’m not doing what I wanted and feel that I should be doing.

You can’t give what you don’t have.

So I’ve been thinking about it. What do I have? What can I give?

Most of the time, I try to focus on fantasy. Tolkien-esque worlds with made up races, magic, and medieval backgrounds. Sometimes I dabble in western themes or sci-fi. But those are thick, elaborate stories — things that take oodles of time and editing. Inspired by stories that take hundreds of pages to write, and even games that would take a similar amount of writing to finish — I’ve tended more towards those lengthy giants. And I love writing them. I really do.

But they’re so hard to share. I still need to finish writing them, and as I’ve found, not everyone can be alpha readers. They just want the end product, and they whine and cry if something changed between the last time they read it and now. Eventually, they just stop reading at all. That’s depressing. Especially if it’s the person who meant the most to you in the world. But that’s a different story.

But what do I have to give?

The answer for me came from an odd place. A class that I absolutely loathe. It’s set up in such a format that I just feel sour and angry by the end of the two hours. In the midst of all that bitterness, however, I found something strange. Here I was, sitting in an art lecture, and I’m starting to write… poetry?

It’s odd. Last week, I wrote about an auction, selling marvelous things. Hope. Dreams. Love. But then the reader goes to collect their prize, and to their horror… all these things have been taken from a child who has no choice but to give them. This week, it’s a poem that uses the Great Plains as a metaphor for the divisions between people. Who knows what the next will spark? None of these were directly related to what the guest lecturers were displaying, but the situation sent my mind in some unexpected directions.

So, what do I have to give?

Another view. I’ve seen some of the worst of life — maybe not all of it first hand, but I know it’s out there. I know there are children who lie shaking in their beds, wondering if tomorrow will ever come. Prostitutes who were stolen from their lives, forced into the sex trade and addicted to drugs. I know there are fat, rich moguls who care nothing about those less fortunate than themselves, viewing power as a right and not a privilege.

And I know there are people who either avert their eyes or simply don’t know what’s going on. People who might be reached. People that I might reach.

I don’t expect them to go out and rescue all the orphans. I don’t expect them to boycott or march or make mighty speeches because of my words. But maybe, just maybe, next time they’ll pause and think before moving on. Think about what they could do to make things better. Maybe they’ll be a little kinder, more understanding, more willing to teach and be taught.

Just imagine what the world would be like, if everyone took that step, day by day by day? That’s the sort of thing I want to do. That’s the sort of world I want to help create.

And this is how I start.

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This post was originally published on BidiiBuild Business and was written by Kelvin Wachira, Founder + CEO of BidiiBuild, a tech startup on a mission to optimize the construction management process…