Still here: On creation and the will to endure

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Hey, Creator!

A few years ago, during one of the most trying seasons of my life, I wrote a simple tweet that ended up going viral. It happened almost immediately, getting thousands of likes and shares on Twitter, then again on Instagram. It was a vulnerable share for me that came from a real, lived experience: I was dissatisfied with my own life, searching for meaning.

Waking early to birdsong one morning sent me on an existential journey that resulted in a simple realization: if the birds sang every morning as a way of saying “I’m still here”, maybe I could do the same with my own art.

What was most remarkable about this experience was not that a lot of people started sharing it. Rather, what blew me away was how this has happened more than once, over and over again, seemingly on some sort of cycle. Every six months or so, someone will find the tweet and re-share it on their account; and once again, I’ll see tens of thousands—or more—people share it.

I’ve met all kinds of people in real life who don’t know that I’m a writer—like my chiropractor or my son’s drum teacher—who somehow come across this meme on some random Facebook page or something and say, “Hey, I saw your words on the Internet!” It is more than a little weird.

But the strangest thing by far, I think, is how I’ve never written about this experience. I’ve been scared to. Of all that I’ve done—thousands of blog posts written, half a dozen books published, millions of annual readers— this silly little tweet is easily the farthest reaching piece of work I’ve ever created. I mean, what do you do with that?

I don’t know, exactly. I have had my words go viral before, but it was usually an article or something a little more longform than a 140-character musing on the dawn chorus. And yet, here we are. Sometimes, our most significant work is the most easily forgotten, and our most popular contributions to humanity are the ones that most surprise us.

Still, the work itself is something I’m proud of. It came at a hard time in my life when I didn’t know how to get through. It was, perhaps in the words of Sartre, a form of existential nausea, one where I wasn’t quite sure what was happening anymore. Success didn’t feel like success, and what modicum of Internet fame had visited me suddenly felt vapid and pointless.

So the birds taught me a thing, and as soon as it went out into the web of connected computers we have come to take for granted, I felt something. It was an electrical charge of sorts—resonance, you might say—vibrating through my whole being. I knew it was something special I’d just shared—not knowing how or why or to what end, just that it was special.

Shortly after this, we were visited with a pandemic, followed by worldwide protests against racism and a war. It’s been a hell of a couple of years, and it seems unlikely that things might slow down.

It is enough to wonder, “What is this all about? Does any of it matter? Do I?”

Perhaps it’s enough to wake up early one morning, as I did over the weekend—or rather, stay up so late that you don’t have to worry about setting your alarm. And if you are so lucky to be awake around that lovely hour of three o’clock a.m., you will undoubtedly hear a glorious cacophony of birds chattering over each other, vying for territory, crying out to their mates, and who knows what else. It is as much a cry of protest to the night as it is one of victory and triumph. It declares, “The darkness did not claim me… yet. Another night is nearly over, and soon the sun will be here. And so, I will let my voice be heard so that all will know that I made it.” It is a declaration of love and lust and—most of all, perhaps—survival.

It is no small thing to make it through, to still be here. When I wrote that tweet, I’d lost a couple of friends to suicide and another to an unexpected heart attack. We’ve all lost a lot these past few years; it is a miracle if we can find a reason to sing at all. The life of birds is no picnic, you know. They are constantly dodging danger, striving to make it through another day, to stay safe from predators and the elements. Even flight is an act of defiance against the laws of nature. No wonder they sing so loudly so early in the day; it’s like the final trumpet blast after a hard-fought battle, ending in triumph.

Sometimes, to keep going is its own victory.

I shared an idea; it resonated with people. And that felt good. But wrapped up in that little tweet was a whole story I never got to share… till now.

Today, I want to share it with you: Read the essay here or listen to the podcast version here.

I’m still here, and so are you. And that is more than enough for today.

Best,

Jeff

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​“People will say he was too young; he did not have time to finish. But it is not How long, it is not How much; it is, simply What. When the door shut for him, he had already written on this side of it that which every artist who also carries through life with him that one same foreknowledge and hatred of death, is hoping to do: I was here. He was doing that, and perhaps in that bright second he even knew he had succeeded. What more could he want?” —William Faulkner

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