Bill Waterston is the GOAT, of course, a cartoonist whose impact reached out through the newsprint and embedded itself into the zeitgeist, across all levels of society. He achieved fantastic levels of success for his syndicated Calvin and Hobbes strip.
…and then he walked away.
But this was not without precedent. Prior to starting his strip, he had been fired as an editorial cartoonist, and had to re-invent himself as an artist practicing his craft. He took a graphic design job, worked through it while developing his strip and left it once he found where purchase with his new career.
Years later, giving a commencement speech at a college, he imparted some words of wisdom, and they’ve stuck with me over the last 10 years since I first encountered them:
To invent your own life’s meaning is not easy, but it’s still allowed… and I think you’ll be happier for the trouble.
Bill Watterson
I tacked this up on the wall behind the monitor at the tiny cubicle the university provided the grad students when I started my PhD research. I kept it as the desktop on the same computer too, just to remind me of the goal, that the reason I was there was to do something different, to engender a change in the processes of life that had left me aimless prior to embarking on that journey.
(It had happened at least twice before, but more on those stories at some future date. Bientot!)
I had encountered this quote in the panels draw by the artist Gav at their zenpencils blog in 2013. I probably found it via a link on Slate or Twitter or some such, as the post gained some traction. The panels in question are here:
All credit to the artist. You can follow the link back to the full comic and the story behind it.
It’s remains one of the best pieces of advice that I’ve encountered in the last decade or so, and it’s stuck with me. And so, in case you haven’t heard it, or needed the reminder, I’m passing it on to you.
You can invent your own life’s meaning. It is allowed.