Easy things are fun, but useless.

You should try doing the hard things too.

Times are tough. I think we can all agree on that. With several crises facing us simultaneously, we don’t even know where to look first: the economic crash caused by an authoritarian leader in the most powerful country in the world? A genocide being committed in a country whose population was already suffering from years of oppression from different sides? Or maybe the everlasting looming sword of Damocles that is the climate catastrophe?We don’t have it easy. Only, most of us do. We watch all of these horrors unfold in front of us from the comfort of our homes, on a small handheld computer, and are naturally completely overwhelmed. I’m not suggesting that there’s a lot we can do about most of the worlds problems we are facing. I can’t do anything about the Republican Party losing their goddamn mind. I can try my best to do my part in the climate crisis, but I know taking a train instead of a plane is not changing anything if there is no systematic change. What I am suggesting though is this: We are living in the age of convenience and comfort, and we can’t keep that lifestyle up with all the problems we have to deal with. To truly face the problem-riddled world we have to start being resilient, and as someone who very much enjoys comfort, that sounds like no fun. But resilience is not only the only way to get through trying times, it’s also the only way to grow:

grow a community, a strong emotional self, an exceptional creative practice, or a sharpened mind for a tangled new world.

If, like me, you only hear resilience in the context of some business coach dude who wants to sell you shit, then maybe you’re tempted to stop reading right here. Even though it’s a buzzword that the marketing gurus hijacked, it’s a skill that is so important if we don’t want to drown in the flood of uncertain times.

There is always an easy way: taking answers as given, choosing the already trampled path to a conclusion, repeating stuff we heard from someone else without reflecting on it or trying to truly understand it. It’s also the most certain way to be manipulated into believing things in the long run. Doubt is not the answer. I don’t want a world in which I have to doubt everything and everyone, thinking they probably want the worst for me. The answer is: critical thinking and doing the work yourself. I have met people who stopped reading their emails and let ChatGPT summarise them. We are unable to grasp information from an email and think we’re up to the task of outsmarting a well-oiled propaganda machine, now that right-wing populism is rising? We are losing the tools for critical thinking, and it’s getting too convenient to even try to resist anymore. If I want my brain to stay sharp well into old age, I have to keep it resilient. I can’t outsource my thinking. Or at least, I shouldn’t want to.

The same goes for a creative practice: you don’t grow by taking the easy way. You can always just stay where you are, repeatedly doing the things you know "work". I am so, so, so guilty of doing that. I tend to see illustration as something I just do. Repeating the same motifs, the same colours, the same techniques – all in the disguise of “my style.” I hardly try anything new, and therefore, my work just gets more and more mediocre over time. I got lazy some while ago and stopped trying. And even if you were to do the same thing over and over for years, the process behind it is what matters, the process still can make it a valuable piece of work.

There are four different versions of The Scream by Munch, and 50+ sketches for it. Munch worked his way to the final version through different techniques, colours, and compositions to get where he needed to be. He did the hard thing. I love looking at those sketches, admiring at the undoubtedly difficult process. You can feel frustration, uncertainty, and a path forming in front of him. He perfected his skills and found a masterpiece in the process.

With the advent of AI art, it has become increasingly clear to me that creativity is not only about skill, because of course, these computers will generate flawless versions of the exact thing you want (i.e. trash bins "in the style of Van Gogh" or the heart-shattering Ghibli-style pictures of people being deported that were posted by the White House). Currently, the internet is flooded with images like that, and some tech bros talk about the “democratisation of art” like it’s the final boss we had to defeat: making an incredibly hard-to-master craft available to all of us by the click of a few buttons and the burning of a few resources. I can’t help but wonder if people who are not themselves in the creative field look at these generated pictures and feel the same eeriness that I do. I do know one thing though: You personally will never become good at what you do if the way you decide to do it is the easy way. If you always take the route of comfort and ease, you will never find what you are looking for in the process and you will definitely never find it in the finished product.

So this is kind of a plea to everyone. To you reading, and to myself especially: Doing the easy thing is nice. It makes you feel good for a while. But it is completely useless, and in the long run, dangerous for our society. Life doesn’t have to consist of suffering and doubt, but it should not only be comfort either. If we never do the hard things now that we are comfortable, we will never be able to do hard things once it becomes necessary. If we never work our way to a result, we will never have exceptional things to experience anymore. Creativity and resilience need something that will never be replaced by convenience or AI: A long, intense, and emotional process of learning, driven by your own individual biography and your view of the world. You and your creative work will not be replaced if you learn to do the hard thing and stay resilient.

A small PSA to end this: You don’t have to fight ALL the battles out there. You can focus on things that are important to you and your life. The world has always been complicated and riddled with chaos, but people have always found ways to improve it. Find community, find the fights you want to fight, and strengthen your hope, because hope too is something you can train to make you more resilient. Hope is quite radical in that way – and who could explain this better than John Green who always know to say it better than I ever could: On hope.