The Art of Playing the Game (Without Losing Your Heart)

Navigating the creative world’s illusions, egos, and unwritten rules—while keeping(somewhat) of your sanity and soul.

I have mentally punched a wall for nine days straight. Not because I want to punch an actual wall (I am not aggressive or crazy, promise), but because the frustration has been so intense that no other visual quite captures the existential thrashing of my sanity.

This post was supposed to be a doorway into my world—short stories, a touch of magical realism, something whimsical. But the universe had other plans. And by "universe," I mean the unhinged game of navigating the creative scene, where egos are currency, flakiness is an art form, and the whole damn thing (sometimes) feels like an exclusive gala which I am not yet invited to due to the lack of consistency and dread I mask my confusion with ( I own it ).

I walked into the game pretty naively, believing that my heart, my desire to help, and my willingness to give my time for free, spreading pure love like confetti, would somehow be reciprocated. That the same people I poured into would one day see the flood of creative ideas I long to share with the world and, just maybe, pour back into me. Almost Disney Princess-ish of me, really.

But I’m not here just to complain. I’m here to think logically—because that’s the only way to survive the daily gut punches this industry delivers, each one laced with a fresh new game tactic. IF you want to make it. And I do.

✎ᝰ.✎ᝰ.

Can you have a heart in the game?

The questions I ask today don’t come with wise answers—at least, I don’t think they do. But they are charged with the same fire I woke up with after days of slumber, wallowing in the unfairness like a child. Mixed, of course, with the waves of hormones that arrive like clockwork every month.

And I tell you this to say: it’s okay. It’s okay to sit in the frustration, to feel unmotivated, to grieve the madness of it all—especially the ridiculous games we humans create just so our egos can pretend they have purpose in this universe. Because God forbid we ever live purely from a desire to help one another, without an incentive attached.

But going back to the question, yes, I do think it is dire to keep our heart in the game. We are human, and we long to be seen not just for what we can offer, not for the clout attached to our names, but for the raw place our creativity stems from.

I walked down an aisle recently, gazing at emotion-drenched paintings, and all I could see were hidden messages of exhaustion. The weight of it all, tucked between brushstrokes. If we listen closely to music—even the ones that claim joy, that promise light—there’s always a minor chord lingering somewhere, humming its quiet confusion, its undertone of sadness.

Some are winning at the game outwardly—the ones for whom the tactics come naturally. But even they are not immune to the drain, the overstimulation, the quiet erosion of self. The only way out is to find your heart again. To play the game knowing that this softness within you is not a weakness but a guide. That it will always find its way through, always carve a voice that influences, that lasts.

✎ᝰ.✎ᝰ.

And in the end? It’s all silliness.

I am thankful to have friends over 60. I take pride in it. And in my days of anguish, I spill my creative turmoil to them—the way we move, what I see as both an insider and an outsider. And they laugh. They laugh at our theatrics, our desperate maneuvering. They show me what I am sometimes too close to see: that at its core, all of this is fear.

The fear of humility, which we can’t bear to sit in. The fear of vulnerability leaves us naked. The fear of being seen as anything less than grand. And yet, in our art, isn’t that exactly what we do? We undress before the world, whether we are soaring or just starting.

Today, I have learned to see everyone as just as soft as I am. To take every closed door as something almost humorous—an invitation to create more. To let a healthy dose of delusion transform what looks like disaster into a world of new possibilities, of made-up characters, of colorful endings waiting to be written. And when I say Today, I mean TODAY. As I wrote this, I cried, and I stripped down before you to let you know that it is NOT easy. NOTHING is easy, but I will always choose this because I believe in it, and I believe in what I have to say to you and this world, and you should too. So at the end, continue to create for the sake of yourself. Play the game, knowing the purpose for it all, and know that eventually the right people will come whenever it is time. Emotions can be an enemy sometimes, balance them with logic, and always show up.

Remember, Stability is Death. Don’t let yourself die, we only have so much time.

Hopefully next time, I can finally bring a little more fiction and fantasy and less of the heaviness, just to switch it up a little. ;)