Every day is both the end of the world and the beginning of it

Kleon opens with the observation that difficult, even catastrophic news cycles are a permanent feature of human experience, not a temporary aberration that will eventually clear to reveal calmer conditions ideal for creative work. Waiting for a stable, worry-free moment to begin or continue creative work means, in practice, waiting forever, since some version of crisis or distressing news is always present somewhere.

His response isn't dismissiveness toward real suffering or political urgency but a practical reframing: since difficult conditions are permanent, creative practice has to be built to coexist with them rather than depend on their absence. He treats daily creative practice as something that can happen alongside genuine engagement with the world's problems, not as an escape that requires ignoring them entirely.

This framing gives creative people permission to keep making things even during genuinely difficult periods, rather than treating creative work as frivolous or inappropriate whenever the news feels heavy. Takeaway: stop waiting for a calm, crisis-free moment to resume creative work — that moment will never reliably arrive, so build a practice that coexists with difficulty.