The cavalry isn’t coming. It just isn’t. So gather your tight knit foxhole compatriots and dig in.
Not because people are rooting against you and you need to prove them wrong. But because the majority of the people out there are not your audience. Your story isn’t made for them. Even if it is really, really good.
They just don’t care.
Most people want to know how the food tastes before they order it. There is little to no risk in that.
Free time is hard to come by. You really can’t blame them.
It’s all just a big chess match being played by a brood of hens.
You’re just one cluck away from the ax.
Most pawns are just fodder to extend game play. They have no armor. They are the shield. Even the design of them is plain. Their entire existence is built on the idea that they have little to no meaning.
Except for those times when they actually matter…a lot.
Those few times when they make it to the promised land and shed their skins and morph from the ugly duckling into the beautiful swan they always believed they were.
It is the folly of every Pawn to believe themselves to be a queen.
And yet, if they did not, they would lay down and die. For without the belief that they have it within themselves to make it through the minefield, there role is only to extend the life of others in service to the crown.
The only way through it. Is through it.
It won’t be pretty.
It won’t be fun.
You may not get there. But damnit. Backwards is not an option.
Blessed is the Pawn. For they march toward an inevitable fate while clinging to the faint glimmer of hope that from within them will burst the tide that turns the entire game on its head.
Be undaunted in that way. If the audience doesn’t show up. Do it anyway. Don’t cancel the show.
You’re going to want to see what happens next. Because if you care. Slowly, so will the people around you.
-Zeke