For Creatives: Calling out the FAKE villain era that keeps you stuck
If you're going to have a Villain Era, make sure you do it properly
The Villain Challenge Starts Jan 2nd - think 75 Hard for Creativity. Hope to see you there.
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Why Every Artist Needs a Villain Era
Let's talk about being a villain. Not the gym aesthetic. Not the black sheep energy. I mean what it really is – because every artist needs a villain era, and yours is long overdue.
See, creatives who can't access their villain energy stay trapped in the prison of permission. You're all potential, no power. Your gifts are suffocating under layers of politeness, your creativity muzzled by good behavior. And I find that tiresome.
Here's what we know: Villains are infinitely more passionate than heroes. They're disciplined. Methodical. They understand the deeper truth of their world. But here's what you're missing – being a villain isn't something that happens to you. It's a chosen state of clarity.
What does a villain actually antagonize? Not talent. Not ability. They antagonize fear. But not just any fear – they confront the fear so deep that you've mistaken it for wisdom. Think about Luke Skywalker, believing the Jedi path meant rejecting the dark side. Enter Vader – the greatest villain in literature – teaching what his masters couldn't: true balance requires both light and dark.
Every hero's journey has a villain because transformation demands confrontation. Artists who stay comfortable make comfortable art. But great art? That comes from the villain era – when you stop playing nice with your limitations.
Most of you are loyal to fear disguised as virtue. Your hardworking parents taught you modesty, and now you can't take yourself seriously as an artist – you're stuck making yourself small, apologizing for your ambitions, hiding your work until it's "perfect." They taught you intelligence over beauty, and now you're afraid to be seen – you overthink every piece, intellectualize your creativity to death, terrified of being called shallow or superficial. They preached kindness over anger, and now your art lacks the raw fire that makes people listen – you're watering down your truth, smoothing every edge, creating sanitized versions of your vision that offend no one and move no one.
Every great artist encounters their villain – not because they need to rebel, but because they need to grow. Your art exists within you with its own sovereign purpose, but you've learned to resist its true power. You're fighting against your own artistic DNA, choosing safety over sovereignty.
Real artistic maturity isn't about finding yourself – it's about encountering the force that will ruthlessly confront the fears you've mistaken for virtues. Your villain is the one who will wage war with your antiquated moralities, who will expose where your "wisdom" is just well-dressed fear. They're not trying to destroy you. They're trying to awaken what your art was always meant to become.
The Maturation Process
The hero's journey isn't just a story – it's the blueprint for artistic maturation. Every hero meets their villain precisely when they need to transcend their limitations. Every artist needs this confrontation. Not to destroy who you are, but to shatter the prison of who you think you should be.
Being an artist means developing the capacity to answer your art's evolving demands. But right now? You're still loyal to an idealized version of yourself that's too small for your art's true mission. Mature artists understand this: you need a force in your life that will consistently, ruthlessly antagonize the gap between your creative potential and your comfortable limitations.
The Mythology Truth
Here's what you need to understand: Mythology isn't fiction – it's technology. Ancient cloud storage that preserves what's universal in all of us. The faithful call it magic, the faithless call it fiction, but either way, you're missing the point. The metaphor, the magic, the fiction – that's not what distances mythology from reality. It's what makes it more real, more accessible, more potent.
When you watch Star Wars, when you encounter these villains, you're not just consuming stories – you're interfacing with technology designed by our ancestors to help you go deeper into yourself. They knew these truths about transformation, and they wrapped them in magic so you could find them later, so you could actually use them.
This is why we need to actively engage with our villains, not just understand them intellectually. Mythology isn't theoretical – it's practical. It's a technology for transformation. And just like any technology, it only works if you actually use it. Your villain isn't just a concept to contemplate – they're a force to engage with, a necessary antagonist who will make you confront what your art actually demands of you.
The Challenge
I'm launching the Villain Challenge – think 75 Hard for creativity. Starting January 6th, you'll get workshops, daily prompts, a community of fellow villains, and my personal guidance. This isn't for everyone. Shadow work of this format is not for those under 25. For everyone else, I promise you it will be a lot of fun.
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Ready to embrace your villain era? Join us and discover what your art has been waiting for you to become.
Hello, I really appreciated this post and I feel like I resonate with a lot of what you are saying but I am only 22… I can’t tell if you are joking or if you seriously do not advise doing this type of work but I feel like it would be helpful for me. Any feedback appreciated.