I want to revisit something because in re-reading I missed something really, really, really important.
I was writing the intial reply at 3 AM before coffee and now that I've had coffee and a giant bowl of stir fry it is time to
Properly answer your question this time
YOUR COMMENT: "...this part is really hard for me because it feels like I’m failing at the one thing I really love."
Look into my beautiful eyes.
YOU.
CANNOT.
FAIL.
AT.
CREATIVITY.
THAT.
IS.
NOT.
A.
THING.
You can fail at capitalism.
That's not necessarily a bad thing
considering what winning at capitalism looks like.
and I'm going to assume you're alive -- if you are a sentient AI then fuck off, if you're a human or other, stay --
-- revolves around SURVIVING and THRIVING.
Guilt you feel, negativity you feel, anything other than desire to make more you feel is a systematic vice gripping around you by some mother fucker with more resources than you have attempting to squeeze juice from your bones so they can have even more resources.
Every
time
you make
something
you win.
Devil bless my beautiful boobs bones heart and soul.
You cannot fucking fail at creativity.
Your role in this world, in this life, is not "make creativity machine go brrrrr."
Your role is to live the most fulfilled life possible.
As your non-doctor non-professor art doctor professor, I diagnose you with
HAVING SEEN GENERATIONAL WEALTH IN ACTION-ITIUS
I do not have generational wealth.
I am in my middle age. It's beautiful and I love it here.
I started working in my early teens and have only recently started relaxing to the point where my office is (figuratively) a swim-up pool bar where I drink pineapple juice and tell embarrasingly cheesy jokes as I make mocktails for everyone.
It has taken me decades to achieve things that people with generational wealth achieve nearly immediately.
People with generational wealth -- and assholes -- love to say shit like "as an artist you should sacrifice--"
People whom make work explicitly to sell at galleries -- and assholes -- love to say shit like "You can't do [whatever metric I personally deem not worthy] and be an artist."
if not: you can become an artist if you want to, go on, go make art
IF YOU ARE AN ARTIST, DO YOU WANT TO MAKE MORE ART? BETTER ART? MORE BETTER ART BETTER MORE?
we are all trying to figure out how to make more, better (however we specifically define it) art
I have had friends whom have painted things so fucking incredible I kissed them on the goddamn mouth to celebrate this artistic accomplishment.
I have had friends who then stopped painting at all and got desk jobs because they didn't want to make art anymore and I have kissed them on the goddamn mouth to celebrate our friendship.
I guess my point is I'll kiss you on the goddamn mouth if you're into it
i guess my point is that art is a core component to some lives, but it's not everything.
If it was everything, we could outsource it to robots to generate automatically to our tastes, instead of going through the glorious ordeal of figuring out how to make it, how to experiment, how to learn
the entire point of all of this is you are a tiny fragment of the universe figuring out what it means to be energy and matter comprised in your current form
you are expanding the totality of experiences
enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy enjoy