The way art happens, I think, is much the same way pearls are made: A tiny grit of something gets inside of our shells, grinds its way into us uncomfortably, and we have to weave some softer facade around it to keep it from hurting.

I’ve been very tired recently, so I’ve been dialing back my ambitions for the month. I’ve relaxed my scheduling, I’ve let myself feel okay with getting less done every day, and I’ve been generally taking a bit of time to lean back and think about why I feel so tired, so discouraged, so unenthusiastic.

For the most part I live a fairly solitary life. I sit around in my tiny room and I try to make art and enjoy art and that’s basically how it goes. I can usually do this because I believe in what I’m doing and I believe that it’s intrinsic to who I am to want to make things that are interesting and, perhaps, even beautiful.

The more I think about it, though, the less certain I am that this life is any more intrinsically a part of who I am than any other life I might live. Certainly I have certain priorities or activities I might be predisposed to, and certainly I value art, but I have learned to view certain aspects of my existence, certain priorities and values, as solid – as immovable. I have learned to believe that only one type of life could possibly suit me, and the only choice I had was to see what else I could fit in around those immobile points: That this was my nature, the core of who I am. However, when I ask myself questions about why I feel uncomfortable, why I live the life I do, I then also must question how much of this identity I inhabit is intrinsic to me as a person – and how much of it is just habit, just the memories called up by being in this room, living in this body, and having each day follow its predecessor in a chain that seems often to be unbreakable.

The tricky part is, even if you identify your current life as imperfect, it is at least one life that has worked. Out there, there’s an infinite number of lives that may or may not work. Once you identify that something that you thought was constant is a variable, you have to wonder what else could fit in its place… and, if it might be moved, what else could fit in around it that couldn’t before?

I like the idea of being an artist. I like the act of creating art – usually. However, I see very few models of how being an independent artist can be compatible with leading a happy and rewarding life. Not being able to see these lives being lived is unfortunate, because while I believe it can happen, I also believe it is a difficult life to build, and made more so by the lack of any reliable guide. In a context where many people exploit and abuse artists, in a context where what is considered good entertainment is increasingly consolidated into the coffers of a few megacorporations, in a context where social safety nets are getting sawed away by bandits, in a context where we are told that we must constantly be working and constantly be making or we are worse-than, less-than… How can one halfheartedly create, and hope to get anywhere? What can I do with these doubts besides diminish myself?

Yet halfhearted creation may sometimes be all I have, as I do not always have a whole heart available to create with. I’m split in so many directions, the projects and ambitions and the leisure and the longing, I feel like I have no time or energy left over to seek to rectify the holes I perceive in my life. I keep feeling I ought to give something up to make room for something else, and yet I have no idea what to give up, like ceding any territory is self-annihilation. I keep feeling that there has to be some way to rearrange things to make room.

I keep feeling so tired.

When you’re an independent artist, with little to no audience, and you lose interest in what you’re making, there’s no real reason to keep working on a thing that no one wants to exist – or, at least, a thing no one knows they want to exist. The only resource I have at my disposal for creating my passion-projects is passion, and if I let that slip I really don’t have anything. Which raises the question of how I can be consistently passionate if I want to do another project every month. Which raises the question of why I want to do another project every month.

I keep getting caught in these feedback loops, where I nudge myself to make progress, stall out, nudge again, stall, nudge, stall – and this process, even when I don’t actually do anything, consumes a huge amount of energy. While I burn energy this way, I burn even more energy getting angry at myself for not doing anything while I’m stalled out.

This, I think, is how a person can burn themselves out while doing absolutely nothing at all.

The nice thing about working for other people is you can know at least one other person wants your work. The nice thing about working for other people is you can blame someone besides yourself for feeling tired, crushed, hopeless. The nice thing about working for other people is that it doesn’t have to be your identity, it can just be a job.

The terrible thing about working for other people is that, because the richest have so much more power, the value your time and effort creates, in the form of the money you need to survive and thrive, is the value of the change in their pocket and is utterly without significance to them. The terrible thing about working for other people is you have no power to change your approach if you feel tired, crushed, hopeless. The terrible thing about working for other people is that they won’t let it just be a job for you, they want it to be the reason for your existence.

And at the end here I would like to come to some big meaningful conclusion, something with impact, something Important. We always want what we write to be important. And that which is important compels change. So if I conclude here with something Big and Important, I need to change my life afterwards. If I want to claim insight, I have to make a change. I wonder how much of my confusion stems from trying to regularly create viewpoint-shifting insights, and having to believe them. Is this another way I’ve sabotaged myself?

I suppose the next day will be much the same as today, and I won’t be compelled to make some huge lifestyle change. Perhaps this is just my process of finding point of discomfort and encasing them, softening them, beautifying them. Or perhaps my role, here, is just to be the tide that brings sand to you, and to make you uncomfortable – but just uncomfortable enough, and in a way that you can work with.

If you enjoyed this essay, please consider supporting me on Patreon. Support at any level lets you read new posts one week early and adds your name to the list of supporters on the sidebar.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *