CHEESE

The important thing to be aware of about making things is that it is terrifying. If you are doing it right, by which I mean taking risks that you aren't sure are going to succeed because you are trying to do something you haven't seen done before, you will be scared.

It will probably not be the cool kind of scared where you look great and your hair is blowing in the wind, and the wind is blowing up from underneath of a well defined edge, which everyone who watches you sees and respects. Most of the time you will not get credit or glory for how scared you are. It's not like the edge is just right over there with a sign marked "the edge" and you can walk over to it whenever you like and have a little peak. Just lean over the precipice a bit and get yourself kind of scared and someone takes a picture and then everyone is impressed and they clap.

The edge, of comfort, of familiarity, of where we collectively find ourselves, is in a mystery location. I think it exists in a space that is popularly considered to be nowhere in particular, maybe not even recognized as a space at all, a murky region that mostly appears empty, or just blurry and unnamed and therefore not a worthwhile place to be.

From what I can tell, the route to getting yourself over to wherever the widely respected daredevil edge is, particularly living in a capitalist paradigm where every investment of time or energy is expected to be rewarded with some equal measure of value, will often be perceived at as a likely failure. People who know you might feel embarrassed for you because what you are doing might not turn out to be a success. Uncertainty, in the current milieu, is something that many onlookers might consider not a very good look.