THOUGHTS: Kevin Costner Goes all in on Vanity Project, by Adam Lehrer

Reviews of Costner's multipart epic western film series 'Horizon' are in and it's not looking good, Costner earns Adam's resect

My dad tells me he’s proud of my literary achievements but he also messages me at least every three months to tell me to make me more money and remind me of what a bum I am. Truth is, he isn’t proud at all. He thinks I’m a lazy layabout who managed to fumble the ball in the face of all of life’s advantages, earning accolades in fields and disciplines that haven’t been monetarily valuable since the 1990s. There’s no turning back now. I need to make this work, or be marked a failure in the eyes of those who believed in me. Will I persevere?

You know what, I respect Kevin Costner for this, regardless of whether or not Horizon is a piece of shit. For all I know, it could be a shoddy filmic version of Red Dead Redemption 2 made by an over the hill actor with delusions of being a real artist, but I understand that desire. The want to be seen as more than the sum of your persona. Clearly, Costner REALLY wanted to make this thing. I know full well that when an artist becomes fixated on a vision, that almost nothing that life could otherwise offer - jobs, family, financial stability - could stand in its way.

I lately have found myself second guessing: “Why didn’t I just go to fucking business school? Why did I make it so hard to cut a living?”

I just wrote a 400 page novel that is only now coming to fruition. I’ve been working on it since before Communions came out. I know full well that it might sell jack shit and that no one will care about it and that some might even hate it. The compulsion to realize a vision is a madness, and I’ve gone bat shit crazy trying to put this thing out there. My money is tighter. I’m worried about my family. I simply, however, must put it out. To not have yet shared this vision with the world has left me with stomach discomfort, I need to get it out, to share. I need the catharsis of having completed a project. Big swings, big misses. Kevin Costner earned my respect with this project, failure and all.

Duchamp said he wanted to place painting back at the center of the mind. I’m here to do the same for antagonistic blogging. Do it for yourself. Do it for the dream that reoccurs. The worst case scenario is the hate it. But you still made it. That has to count for something.