The diilulu manifesto
Tell me it's not possible.
Tell me it's nonsense.
Tell me to be realistic. To be serious. To sit down.
Then watch
Watch every move I make scream it back at you:
Oh, you think you can tell ME what to do?
Aha.Yeah.Okay.
You've heard it too
You had an idea.
They called you delusional.
Not always to your face. Sometimes it was a smirk, or a "hm." Sometimes it was a long, careful talk about being realistic, given by someone who has never built anything in their life.
And you listened. You put it away and shrank to fit. You let people who'd never risked a thing decide what you were allowed to want.
That ends here.
Let's be honest about who said it
They weren't protecting you.
They were protecting themselves.
Your idea scared them. If you went for it, they'd have to look at everything they never went for. Your ambition made their excuses look small, so they shrank you to fit.
They didn't call it jealousy. They called it advice.
It wasn't advice.
What we know
Their doubt is not your problem.
Let them keep it.
"Realistic" is a cage with a nice name.
Nobody ever got anywhere by being realistic. They got there by refusing to be.
"Impossible" is just an opinion.
And nobody asked for it.
Every idea that mattered got laughed at first.
Every one, no exceptions. The laughing doesn't mean you're wrong. It means you're early.
Nobody is coming to give you permission.
Good. Stop asking.
The drawer is where ideas go to die.
And you put yours there because someone told you to.
So here's what you do
Take it back out.
Build it badly.
Ship it early.
Say it out loud and watch who flinches.
Stop explaining yourself to people who'll never get it. Stop asking the crowd for a vote. The crowd has never once been first.
You don't have to convince anyone. You just have to do it. They'll catch up.
It'll be ugly at first, then loud, then real.
And when it's done, you won't say I told you so. You won't have to.
This is diilulu
We are not for the comfortable, or for people who play it safe and call it wisdom.
We are for everyone who was told be serious, get a real job and that's never going to work, and heard not yet.
We are for every dot that broke from the line while the rest stood still and laughed.
We took the word they used to shut us up and stitched it on our chests.
Delusional?
Yeah. Okay.
Watch me.
Come be one of us.
— AJ, diilulu