The Question with No Answer

At the graduation party for my final-year design students, someone had hung a large mirror on the wall. Teachers and guests were encouraged to take a marker and write a few words of blessing for the graduates. Most people wrote the expected things—wishing them a brilliant career or a bright future ahead.

I wrote two words: Be Happy.

I suppose that has always been my quiet motto. I have spent most of my life simply chasing what brings me joy, seeing what makes me feel engaged, curious, and genuinely happy.

At that same party, a few students came over to ask for my Instagram so we could stay in touch. When I mentioned that my account had grown quickly without paying for a single sponsored ad, they were surprised—especially Agnes. She had run social media accounts before and sold her own art, so she knew firsthand how stubborn organic growth can be. She pulled up a chair next to me and started asking questions.

She told me that back when her work was selling well, creating felt effortless and exciting. But over time, sales began to slide, and her creative passion dropped right along with them. She realized that tying her creativity to sales meant that when sales dropped, the pure love she had for making things went down with them.

She looked at me and asked: "What should I do? How do I keep my passion alive? And how do I not give up on the project I already started?"

I had no answer. Right there on the spot, I told her honestly: "I don't have an answer for you right now."

Why I Had No Answer

It took me a while after the party to understand why I froze.

Agnes wasn't asking how to make more money. She was asking how to keep her passion alive. She had realized that without meaning to, she had hitched her creative joy to sales numbers—and when the sales fell, the fire went out. For an artist, sales are rarely just about money; they are a direct form of validation. When someone pays for your work, it tells you that you are seen, that what you made matters. When that validation fades, the discouragement sets in fast, easily smothering the spark to create.

In my last post, I wrote about how the money button in my head still isn't wired, and I admitted that maybe I really ought to develop more of a business mindset. But Agnes is the opposite—she already has a commercial mind, and she was trying to bridge creativity and monetization together.

The reason I couldn't answer her at the party, the reason I told her "I don't have an answer for you right now," was because the things I do don't start from that external scoreboard. I have never tied my passion for them to sales, so I didn't even know how to begin thinking about "how to protect your passion" from that premise.

Whether I am teaching design, organizing meetups, or vibe coding with AI, what gets me started has never been external applause or financial return. It is purely about having fun.

Solving for My Old Self

If I never start from market validation, where do I actually start?

Every time I make something, I am trying to solve a problem my old self once faced.

When I was younger, I knew nothing. I stumbled constantly, fell on my face, and took hits that could have been avoided. Later on, when I build something, I am usually just creating the solution I wish someone had handed me back then. That is the rawest starting point of what I call Friction Empathy.

Take hiking. Years ago, I went on a trail without checking the route, the terrain, or how exposed to the sun it was. I ended up with severe heat stroke and barely made it down the mountain. That painful day taught me a lesson. Today, whenever I go hiking, I scout the logistics down to the smallest detail, study the difficulty, and map it out on Google Maps before I ever step out the door.

It is the same with yoga. Early on, I had instructors who pushed students into extreme postures, giving you cold looks if you backed off, as though stopping was a sign of laziness. But I knew my own body, and I knew that forcing it would lead straight to injury. When I teach my free community classes now, I never push people past their limits. I always tell them: "If you can't do this pose, don't worry about it. That's why we're here today—to practice together."

And it is the same with Wondering Wanderer, the social club I run. I hate networking events where people interrogate you with a hundred resume questions like a job interview. In my group, there are no interrogations. People chat naturally, and having fun together is all that matters.

I look at where I used to trip, and I try to move that big boulder out of the way—so my younger self, and anyone walking behind me, doesn't have to fall over it again. Whether it can make money or earn praise from the crowd isn't why I do it. The moment the boulder is moved, its purpose is served.

The Container, and Where We Part Ways

Not long after the party, Agnes sent me a YouTube link on WhatsApp: Dan Koe's video, If You Have Multiple Interests, Start A One-Person Business.

The core idea of the video is fascinating. He argues that society often labels having broad interests as being unfocused or lacking clear direction, but that in reality, curiosity is the superpower of people with many interests. The way I see it, people like us never lack passion. What we lack is a "container" that can hold all those interests together, and that container starts with solving a problem you once had yourself.

Watching it, I nodded along completely.

Growing up, I was the definition of someone with multiple interests. I was obsessed with crafts: origami, paper sculpture, pop-up cards, Chinese knotting. When curiosity took over, I would do it obsessively for months on end. But the moment I mastered it and had my fill, I dropped it and never touched it again. Cooking was the same: I would cook one specific dish over and over until I was tired of it, and then move on. In the eyes of traditional adults, that looked like having zero staying power and quitting halfway. But I don't think we are distracted. We are gathering puzzle pieces.

Yet that video is also where Dan Koe and I part ways.

In Dan Koe's video, the container is a commercial model, a personal brand, a "one-person business" designed to monetize your interests. There is nothing wrong with that path. As I said in my last post, maybe one day when that commercial button clicks in my head, I will figure out my own way to monetize things.

But for now, my container isn't a company.

My container is a weekend hike, a free community yoga session, a city walk, or a little tool I happen to need. Agnes thinks in road maps far more than I ever have, and she is already preparing for her next step. What her container should be is hers to find. For me, as long as the old boulder is moved and we have fun together, my container is already full.

Branching, Not Giving Up

That afternoon, replying to her message, I finally found the answer I couldn't give her at the party.

What troubled her most, besides keeping her passion alive, was her reluctance to abandon the project she had started. But the question I wanted to ask her was: why do you feel you have to hang on so tightly?

If an old project drains you, or if your curiosity quota for it has run out, letting it go is not quitting halfway.

Those experiments you seem to leave behind are never wasted. You are simply collecting fragments in your mind, even if you don't yet know what picture they will form. Setting an old project down isn't chopping a tree down in the middle of its trunk; it is giving yourself permission to grow new branches.

At the graduation party, the mirror was covered in wishes for a "bright future"—the standard blessing from a world that expects everyone to walk down a straight, shining highway of steady promotions and five-year plans.

I wrote Be Happy.

Who says a straight, predictable highway is the only way to have a bright future? If something started out for the sake of happiness, what guilt is there in changing directions when the joy is gone?

To follow my curiosity wherever it leads, to branch out freely, and to live happily—for me, that is more than enough.

Who says one way is better than the other?