I was just mentioning how I hated the fact that we can’t function on bad days and how I wanted to just sleep to a better day tomorrow and then I realized.
I shouldn’t have to have a “good day” to be functional. But hooray! My disability is disabling me! Thanks! Where can I turn it off? I hate it.
I keep worrying about school and life and shit -- to the point that I'm actually giving myself anxiety attacks and having trouble sleeping and have triggered a major depressive downswing and brain fog -- and I remembered something I saw. I can't remember if it was a comic or a tumblr/twitter text post, but it lodged itself enough into my subconscious for me to remember it.
It went something along the lines of "I don't have a dream job because I don't dream of labor."
And that's just it, isn't it? That's the crux of my problem, of all my worrying and bellyaching and waffling and my whole fucking midlife crisis.
I went with graphic design because it was adjacent to my skill set. It was a "profitable" creative skill set, especially at the time I decided to start trying to pursue it (2006), when the internet was still young, and we had Geocities websites all over. When it was common for people to make graphics with their pirated version of Photoshop and teach themselves all kinds of design shit, from web design to coding to layout work to making fonts. When it was all booming.
But, as one does, I tripped and stumbled somewhere along the way and life happened. I fell into the corporate grind of working retail, of toiling away at minimum wage to pay my bills, and not have time to finish school. (Nevermind that school ran me in circles trying to get a degree in something no-one in my town seemed to understand at the time...)
Fast-forward to now, when everything is ultra sanitized, corporatized, and cut-throat competitive (made worse with AI -- which for graphic design actually entered the scene closer to 2019, as I remember chatter of AI-generated logo designs back then). I sit back and look also at the deflating wages and go, "Is this even worth it?" I remember trying to freelance, with chasing clients and dealing with haggling to try and get paid more than $50 for a logo design, and I go, "Is this even worth it?" I look at my aged, dilapidated portfolio, and my lack of drive to make anything new or even volunteer my skills (now brushed up a bit with some schooling, even if I haven't finished) to non-profits, and I go, "Is this even worth it?"
Honestly? The more I sit back, imagining myself either at a firm or in-house, dealing with various demands, designing shit I don't give a damn about (because I've noticed there isn't a particularly large demand in TTRPGs or video gaming for graphic designers, judging from job postings and, um, layoffs...), I can't help but honestly say no. It's not worth it. Not worth the money and time sunk into college, or the time spent building a portfolio, or hunting down a place to hire me.
I've thought of pivoting into "Digital Arts" at another college (which would be online), where their courses cater largely to illustration and game design, but even then I'm... not jazzed. (Especially not with how the industry is at the moment, if you take just one look at all the scandals and layoffs...)
And it all boils down to me not dreaming of labor. I dream of being comfortable, of being able to effortlessly pay my bills, put food on the table, and have a nice flat to call my own, in a city I feel safe in, but also want to be a part of. (Unlike now, where I hide in a trailer in the literal woods, hoping the queerphobic and racist town I live in doesn't perceive me.) Like the only time I think of "labor" in that dream scenario is with my art and stories, where I enjoy a little popularity in maybe people buying books or comics and enjoying the stories I have to tell. That's literally it. I don't even want to be wildly successful. I just want people to enjoy my dumb little blorbos in my head.
I just want to live comfortably, happily, and make art, tell stories. That's... all I want.
And you know what I hate the most about this revelation? It doesn't matter. In my opinion, it doesn't help me at all, because at the end of the day I'm still trapped in a capitalist dystopia where I was not only born into poverty (and therefor somehow deserving of suffering), but I must claw my way out to get even a shred of comfort, and in order to claw my way out, I must grind myself to dust in order to chase the almighty dollar, and hopefully not hate myself in the process. I still have bills to pay, food to eat, and to try and maintain my health (which also costs money).
Maybe it does help to know? I don't know. I just wanted to blurt all that into the collective void to make myself feel 5% better. Hell, maybe some stranger will have a bright idea to share, though I doubt it. More likely it'd be a scheme as opposed to an idea.
