Different forms of capital have different benefits and drawbacks. Money has the benefit that it can grow itself over time, with the downside that it is heavily scrutinized and taxed. Fame has the benefit that it is not taxed, but has the interesting drawback in that it requires maintenance, and lessens over time.

To retain your fame, you need to continually be doing things and delivering value to your audience. Otherwise, your audience will naturally shrink as people forget about you, and their attention is diverted elsewhere by others playing the fame game.

So if you think achieving fame will make you happy, be careful. The moment you achieve the fame you’ve been seeking is not the “end” — it’s actually the beginning of a hamster wheel you’ve just stepped onto. You might stop to celebrate, but don’t stop for too long — now you need to worry about maintaining it (or even exploiting it), lest you lose it and become a “one hit wonder”. The only other alternative is to keep running.

(This post was written based on my small experiences obtaining nano-fame with my offlinemark and comfort projects).