There are people who would rather have an unpredictable life than a comfortable one.

There are people who would rather have an unpredictable life than a comfortable one.

This makes absolutely no sense to people who value stability above everything else.

They look at the irregular hours, uncertain income, constant travel, unfinished projects, sleepless nights and complete absence of a sensible five-year plan and think:

Why would anyone choose this?

And the person living it is thinking:

How could I possibly choose anything else?

That's one of the great misunderstandings between people.

We assume everyone is trying to solve life according to the same equation.

They aren't.

Some people optimize for security.

Some optimize for freedom.

Some want status.

Some want peace.

Some want family.

Some want adventure.

Some want to build something.

Some want enough money to disappear.

Some people genuinely want a quiet house, a predictable week and the same pillow every night.

Others begin feeling strangely dead when two consecutive Tuesdays look identical.

Neither is inherently superior.

The trouble begins when we use our preferred version of existence as the measuring instrument for everyone else's.

There is a particular kind of person who needs motion.

They need the next thing.

Another city.

Another project.

Another room full of strangers.

Something unfinished.

Something slightly unreasonable.

Give them too much stability and they start dismantling it just to see what happens.

From the outside, this can resemble chaos.

Sometimes it is chaos.

But sometimes what looks chaotic from the outside has an internal logic that only becomes visible when you understand what the person values.

Predictability feels safe to one person.

To another, it feels like disappearing slowly.

And I think this is why certain people tolerate extraordinary amounts of difficulty in creative lives.

The work itself pays them in a currency other people can't see.

A musician may spend ten hours traveling to experience ninety minutes onstage.

A writer can spend years producing something that earns almost nothing.

An artist will destroy a perfectly competent piece because it doesn't feel alive.

Someone starts a business and voluntarily exchanges a reliable paycheck for the privilege of lying awake at 3:17 in the morning wondering whether they've ruined their life.

From a strictly rational perspective, some of this behavior is ridiculous.

Human beings aren't strictly rational.

Meaning changes the arithmetic.

We can endure enormous difficulty when the difficulty belongs to something we care about.

That's why exhaustion doesn't always mean you're doing the wrong thing.

There is exhaustion that empties you.

And there is exhaustion that somehow leaves you more alive.

Most people have experienced the difference.

You can spend eight easy hours doing something meaningless and come home completely depleted.

Then spend twelve difficult hours doing something you care about and somehow still have energy to talk about it.

The body measures effort.

The mind also measures significance.

That second measurement changes everything.

Perhaps that's what people mean when they talk about finding something they love.

They're not promising you'll never work again.

Quite the opposite.

You may work harder than you ever have.

The difference is that effort stops feeling entirely extracted from you.

Some part of it is voluntarily given.

And there is dignity in voluntary effort.

You're building something.

Maybe nobody cares yet.

Maybe nobody ever will.

Still, you recognize yourself in it.

That's rare.

A surprising number of adults spend their lives becoming extremely competent at things they never consciously chose.

They followed opportunity.

Then responsibility.

Then money.

Then momentum.

One decision made the next decision easier until eventually an entire life appeared.

There may be nothing wrong with that life.

But occasionally they encounter someone living with obvious uncertainty and unmistakable enthusiasm, and something uncomfortable happens.

Envy.

Not necessarily envy of the person's career.

Envy of their aliveness.

That's an important distinction.

Sometimes when we envy another person's life, we don't actually want their circumstances.

We want their relationship with those circumstances.

We want to care about something that much.

We want to wake up with momentum.

We want something that makes us forget to check the time.

We want to be tired for a reason we chose.

That's harder to acquire than money.

And it cannot be faked indefinitely.

You can perform enthusiasm.

You can manufacture an identity.

You can buy the clothes associated with some culture, learn the vocabulary, collect the right objects and place yourself near people who appear interesting.

Eventually the performance becomes exhausting.

Real enthusiasm has a different quality.

It leaks out.

People become animated when they talk about whatever has captured them.

Their vocabulary changes.

Their posture changes.

They become temporarily unconcerned with whether you're impressed.

They're simply excited.

Adults don't experience that often enough.

Children do it constantly.

Ask a child about dinosaurs at the wrong moment and you're about to receive information you never requested.

There is something beautiful about that intensity.

Then adulthood teaches us to moderate ourselves.

Don't care too much.

Don't be embarrassing.

Don't become obsessive.

Don't talk about something unless other people find it interesting.

Be cool.

Coolness has probably killed more enthusiasm than failure ever did.

Because enthusiasm requires vulnerability.

To openly love something gives other people the opportunity to laugh at you.

So we learn detachment.

We shrug.

Whatever.

It's fine.

I don't really care.

Eventually some people become so skilled at appearing unimpressed that nothing can reach them.

What an awful victory.

I'd rather encounter someone hopelessly enthusiastic about something I don't understand.

Old motorcycles.

Jazz records.

Gardening.

Architecture.

Birds.

Punk music.

Ancient Rome.

Making the perfect pizza.

I don't need to share the obsession.

I just like seeing a human being temporarily become incandescent.

That's what passion does.

It concentrates attention.

And attention may be one of the purest forms of being alive.

Think about the moments when you've felt most present.

You weren't thinking about your personal brand.

You weren't wondering how old you were.

You weren't comparing your progress with someone from high school.

You weren't calculating whether the moment was productive.

You were inside it.

Completely.

That's increasingly rare.

Modern life fragments attention into microscopic pieces.

Notifications.

Messages.

Headlines.

Meetings.

Feeds.

Advertisements.

Everything wants five seconds of your consciousness.

Then occasionally something grabs all of it.

A song.

A conversation.

A project.

A person.

A problem you desperately want to solve.

Suddenly the noise disappears.

You're there.

Maybe that's why people keep returning to the things that make them feel alive even after they've become difficult.

The excitement changes with age.

The knees hurt.

Travel becomes less glamorous.

Recovery takes longer.

The world moves on to whatever is newer.

But something inside you still responds when the lights come on.

That's worth paying attention to.

Because eventually life becomes an exercise in subtraction.

There will be things you do for the last time without knowing they're the last time.

Eventually there will be a final trip.

A final project.

A final night surrounded by the people who once seemed permanent.

You won't receive a notification saying:

This is one of the good ones. Please pay attention.

You have to notice yourself.

So when something still makes you want to get up, go somewhere, build something, make noise, take a risk, learn something difficult or embarrass yourself with enthusiasm—

protect it.

The world already has enough mechanisms for making you tired.

Finding something worth being tired for is different.

You don't need everyone to understand it.

You don't need to convert it into a career.

You don't need to monetize it, optimize it or explain how it contributes to your long-term goals.

Sometimes loving something is sufficient justification for giving part of your finite life to it.

Because one day there really will be nowhere else you need to be.

No next project.

No next flight.

No next attempt.

Until then, if something still makes you want to get up and make some noise, maybe you should.

There are worse ways to spend a life than becoming exhausted by something that made you feel completely awake.