Why You Hate Everything

You hate everything.

* That shirt she bought you
* The new movie your kid thought was “amazing”
* The new must-have smart phone
* The book your friend Chuck is raving about
* That “incredible” new show on Netflix

Everyone around you has lost their minds: unhinged and adoring, singing inane praises.

You?

You hate it all.

No matter how much you try, you are utterly, offensively unimpressed.

When did you get so jaded?

When did you become so hard to please?

As your wife’s no doubt wailed on numerous occasion… what’s WRONG with you?

Here it is: not a damn thing.

This isn’t some workless whinging.

It’s proof positive of a higher standard…

Proof you’re meant to make amazing shit.

Creative vision is over-rated. What’s needed is creative DISSATISFACTION. And you have that in spades.

This stick in your craw… this chip on your shoulder… these exacting tastes that drive your wife batty…

It’s not some neurosis to be dutifully purged from your system… some troubling habit you need to “fix:”

It’s the goad to greatness: the mark of a would-be creator with a bigger game to play.

So wipe that fake, obliging smile off your face, marshal your dissatisfaction, and put your scorn to work.

Set your sights on the industry or genre that raises your especial ire…

One you have the piss and vinegar and resources to destroy… and gut the category.

Forge the disrupting knife that opens the belly and lets the bowels fall steaming to the forest floor.

Stupefy the incumbents.

Smash the shit out of their business-as-usual.

Write the book or code the program or make the movie or start the company that washes their sacred halls with new blood.

You’re project of making nice and learning to like and not being so picky… it’ll never work.

You’re wired to rise, raze, and reinvent.

Lest your stewing go wasted…

Roll up your sleeves, light the forges, and put your hate to work.

Take your spark of discontent and breathe it to life.

Where once there was darkness, show us the light.

…

Bryan Ward is the founder of Third Way Man and author of the LIT Black Paper