Will Smith: The Semantics of Success Cover

Will Smith: The Semantics of Success

In the summer of 1985, the king of Philadelphia’s DJ scene threw down at a house party. That night, his hype man was missing. You know, the dude shouting around, getting folks excited, and prompting chants. Luckily, a local MC lived just down the street and offered to fill in.

The name of that MC was Will Smith. He and DJ Jazzy Jeff instantly hit it off. So much, in fact, that Jeff sent his former sidekick packing and the two joined forces. Less than a year later, they dropped their debut single “Girls Ain’t Nothing but Trouble” just in time to take the 1986 prom season by storm and allow Will to graduate high school as a rap star. Jeff recalls:

“Once Will and I made a record, we killed Philly’s hip-hop and ballroom scene. Nobody wanted two turntables. Now they wanted one turntable, a drum machine and some guy rapping. It wasn’t about Philly anymore. It was about conquering the world.”

And conquer the world they did.

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Why Is “The Road Not Taken” One of the Most Famous Poems of All Time?

I’m sure you recognize this fragment:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — 
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It’s from The Road Not Taken, written by Robert Frost in 1916, one of the most popular poems of all time. People read, talk about, and teach it in schools all around the world to this day. But in order to survive for over 100 years, the poem couldn’t just be popular.

It also needed enemies.

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The Wonderful Thing About Broken Promises Cover

The Wonderful Thing About Broken Promises

One of the most important things to remember about other people is this:

They won’t.

Your school teacher says she’ll take the class for ice cream. But she won’t.

The store clerk says he’ll gladly refund you if the shoes don’t fit. But he won’t.

Your old acquaintance says she’ll text you when she’s in town. But she won’t.

The guy handing out loans says he’ll see what he can do for you. But he won’t.

Your classmate says she’ll send you her essay when she’s done. But she won’t.

The professor says he’ll only use class material for the exam. But he won’t.

Your waitress says she’ll be right back with your drink. But she won’t.

Your date says they’ll call you. But they won’t.


One way of looking at this is that it’s just sad. The fact that humans don’t value their own word must be one of the biggest reasons the world isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. I, too, wish we could all grow up without losing that spark of hope in our six-year-old eyes and never be disappointed. But we can’t.

What we can do is change our perspective to at least try and turn this weight into a stepping stone. So here’s another point of view: Every broken promise is a chance to be compassionate.

An opportunity to think “I hope he’s alright” instead of “he’s dead to me.” A shot at considering they, too, might’ve been given nothing but broken promises all their life. A wonderful excuse to reduce your expectations of flawed humans in a world we all struggle with.

Practicing this is hard. But compassion is the right answer. How do I know?

Well, here’s another change of perspective: You are other people’s ‘other people.’ To them, you’re the one who ‘won’t.’

We all fail to follow through sometimes. No one’s perfect. But my guess is you, like most of us, don’t make promises and break them on purpose. Do you?

People are good at heart. It’s how we’ve come to be so many in the first place. We do look out for one another. That horrible picture of human nature the news continue to paint was never accurate. Still isn’t. If it had been at any point, we’d long be extinct. Therefore, the odds of being in the wrong when you forgive others are so low, it’s not even a risk worth taking.

When you give others the benefit of the doubt, you can also more easily extend this graciousness to yourself. Because whenever you break a promise, that’s also an opportunity: one to show yourself compassion. Maybe, you needn’t shoulder all that much. Maybe, you don’t have to make so many commitments. To live up to all these self-created obligations.

Promises are hope manufactured by humans. And we tend to oversupply.

Let’s switch perspectives one last time: Life doesn’t make any promises. We’re all born with high hopes, but none of them were ever advertised to us as guaranteed to come true. None of them. To no one.

In the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient, spiritual text of Hinduism, Prince Arjuna is led into battle by his guide and charioteer Lord Krishna. There are many interpretations of it, but Arjuna likely stands for humanity, while Krishna represents a higher power. The battlefield reflects the many struggles of life.

At one point, Krishna tells Arjuna we have “the right to our labor, but not its fruits.” You can take this literally, of course. Love the process, but don’t get attached to the outcome. Given the broader context of the scripture, however, I think it’s worth projecting:

The only reward we get out of life is being alive itself.

This includes beautiful, sunny days, on which you’ll eat way too much ice cream and fall asleep in your dream partner’s arms, as much as it includes the days you break down crying in the subway, because you’re broke, desperate, and that partner just left you. Gratitude for being able to experience both is the one gift that keeps on giving.

But it’s a gift we must learn to keep receiving and that itself takes a lifetime. Our own failure to accept this is what we’re truly disappointed with when others don’t keep their word with us. Not that our friends were five minutes late. It is out of this universal disappointment that individual anger arises, which we throw at whoever happens to feel like a close, appropriate target at the time.

No, people won’t always keep their promises. And you won’t either. But if you can remember that it’s neither what we do nor what we say, but the time we spend here together that makes life worth living, even broken words will weave the fabric of the experience.

How To Survive as a Writer Cover

How To Survive as a Writer

Being a writer is hard. In an interview, storytelling legend and screenwriting teacher to the stars, Robert McKee, explains:

“Your job as a writer is to make sense out of life. Comic or tragic and anything in between, but you have to make sense out of life. You understand what that means? Making sense out of life? And this is why most people can’t do it. Because they can’t make sense out of life, let alone make sense out of life and then express it in writing.”

As writers, it’s our duty to live in our heads. And there’s no place more enticing, more exciting, yet at the same time more dangerous and more terrifying than the human mind. Time and again, we have to venture into this place from which some never make it back. Whatever we bring home we have to process, to shape, to form. Until somehow, something worth saying emerges, which often never happens. And so we have to go back.

For the times we do go “oh, that’s interesting,” we then have to chisel an arrow out of the marble block of messy information. An arrow loaded with emotion, dipped in reason, and wrapped in gold. Because otherwise, it’ll never land in the reader’s heart. And at the end of it?

After all the turmoil, the struggle, and the pain, the best we can do is fire the arrow into a sea of dark faces. Because even if we don’t play for the applause, in the end, our fate lies in the hands of the audience. Always. So the best we can do is show up, shoot, and pray.

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Everything Popular Is Wrong

We remember Oscar Wilde as a poet, a playwright, a player who’d write. Most of us associate him with drama, both in his work and life. The Picture of Dorian Gray, a few pithy lines, an early death.

But when I look at the sea of thoughts that unravels when you click on the author of the most popular quote on Goodreads, I see none of that. I see a philosopher, full of contrarian ideas, paradoxes, and lots of new angles to look at life from.

They remind me of the beliefs of a philosopher we can still talk to: Naval Ravikant. After reflecting on an interview he did with Shane Parrish, I can’t help but notice that some of the most popular sentiments floating around Medium and the web are, well, just sentiments.

“Everything popular is wrong.” One of Wilde’s many polarizing statements. It may be hyperbole, but it’s a starting point for originality. In the echo chamber of self-improvement, some ideas have been circulating for so long, we’ve stopped questioning them.

What if we considered the possibility that these ideas are false?

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Hero Worship Cover

The Importance of Worshipping Your Heroes

Three weeks ago, one of my heroes took his own life. You never know who your heroes are until they’re gone. One day you listen to an old song from some band you like, the next you realize they’ve shaped who you are for over a decade.

One of the saddest truths in life is this:

“Great heroes need great sorrows and burdens, or half their greatness goes unnoticed. It is all part of the fairy tale.”

– Peter S. Beagle

Sometimes, it’s not until the hero collapses under that very burden and the fairy tale finds no happy ending that our eyes open.

I don’t think Chester Bennington realized how much of a hero he really was to me and millions of Linkin Park fans around the world. Because we didn’t either.

Now all that’s left for us is to write your name on every wall we walk past.

But even amidst the torrential outpour of love over this tragedy, there are the voices of those who tell us not to channel our grief into worship. To stay grounded.

“We mustn’t idolize him.” “He wasn’t that special.” “Suicides happen every day.”

Somehow, whatever greatness we find in a special person must be explained away. He had a great coach. She followed the 10,000-hour rule.

In our politically oh-so correct world of all equal everything, it feels out of place to have heroes. I feel out of place for worshipping my heroes.

That’s fucked up.

Nobody Remembers a Nobody

In The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time, Will Durant writes:

“The history of France is not, if one may say it with all courtesy, the history of the French people; the history of those nameless men and women who tilled the soil, cobbled the shoes, cut the cloth, and peddled the goods (for these things have been done everywhere and always) — the history of France is the record of her exceptional men and women, her inventors, scientists, statesmen, poets, artists, musicians, philosophers, and saints, and of the additions which they made to the technology and wisdom, the artistry and decency, of their people and mankind. And so with every country, so with the world; its history is properly the history of its great men.

In other words: Nobody remembers a nobody.

Even in a world where everyone can reach millions of people at the click of a button that hasn’t changed. We just hate admitting it more. Because fame feels so close. But it is as it always was: most of us won’t remember most of us.

Yes, thanks to viral videos a lot more people will get their 15 minutes of fame. But very few will get on 60 Minutes.

Leaving a legacy is a different game altogether. You really have to mean it.

Chester knew this:

“I always wanted to be a rock star. That was my childhood dream. That’s what I told everybody I was going to be when I grew up.” 

You may have a real talent for singing. Maybe, singing is a big part of your life. But to Chester, singing was his life. There’s a difference and a profound one at that.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Herman Melville, Monet, Bach, Kafka, even Van Gogh, died poor and unknown — after having dedicated their entire life to their craft.

The reason we still remember their names now is an incredible combination of luck, timing, chemistry and, most importantly, a lifetime of dedication and perseverance.

Who are we to take that away from them? Who are we to think we’re entitled to an entry into the books of history?

We Can’t All Be Famous

Technology may distort our view, but the numbers don’t lie: Very few of us will end up on someone else’s pedestal. And that’s not a sad thing.

In fact, most of us aren’t meant to. Or want to.

But we’ve gotten so angry about this fact, as a collective we’ve managed to push our heroes into a corner of humility — whether they like it or not. Chester felt it.

He’d always say things like “If fans come up to me, I talk to them.” or “You’re constantly trying to prove yourself, even after you’ve made it.” or “We’d like to think that our music will always be bigger than any one of our individual personalities.”

PR teams tell their athletic talent to play it cool, entrepreneurs say their idea was “just common sense” and actors read out long thank you lists at award ceremonies to not look entitled.

How often do you see a noteworthy individual take pride in their accomplishments? How many of your heroes have you heard say: “I deserve this. I worked hard for this.”

Even more importantly: How many times did you agree?

The Value of Shameless Worship

Imagine, just for a second, you embraced all the inequality in this world. What if you gave credit where credit is due, even if it means credit for just a few?

What if you let go of all that anger? Why not let your heroes do the screaming? Wouldn’t you feel a lot closer to them? At peace?

I know Chester’s screaming helped me a lot when I was younger. He wore his heart on his sleeve, so darkness wouldn’t grow in mine. Anything but reverence would be a disservice.

No, I refuse to let my hero get lost in a sea of equal faces. Life’s never fair. But my shameless worship is my relief. It makes it easier to bear.

My shameless worship is my vision. It allows me to see.

And oh how clearly I see – just like Will Durant:

“I see men standing on the edge of knowledge, and holding the light a little farther ahead; men carving marble into forms ennobling men; men molding peoples into better instruments of greatness; men making a language of music and music out of language; men dreaming of finer lives-and living them. Here is a process of creation more vivid than in any myth; a godliness more real than in any creed.” 

You Can Shape the Course of History

Miserable people chisel away at heroism every day. She got lucky. He’s not special.

Let them keep chiseling in blindness, because that’s exactly what makes our heroes special. That they saw the odds and continued anyway.

We can’t all go to the places they’ve visited. But we can take our hats off. Stop pushing them. Stop envying them. And help them earn their rightful place in history.

Open your eyes. Find your heroes. Lift them through the fucking roof.

And worship them while they’re still here.