Jan 17 2009
Fustration
This is a personal thing but I thought I’d share my frustration. I was talking with my mother the other day. I’m looking to get a new job and her suggestions of things to look for are completely off the wall. She suggests trying to advance to something else hotel related and can’t understand my frustration with that. When I was talking to her it was just so odd because she couldn’t see to understand why I wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life in the hotel industry. Um, hello? Artist. Admittedly, I’m more a bum than an artist because my production output of art related material is very low and sparse with big lags of empty space in-between. However, that’s something I’m working on.
I just couldn’t seem to get it through her head that, no, I had no interest whatsoever in finding a way to get to office level work for a hotel cooperation somewhere (I’m currently a front desk grunt). She couldn’t seem to understand that what I’m striving for isn’t so much an upgrade in pay as an upgrade in the emotional quality of the job. I’ve got this drive inside and I have to find someway to please it or I’ll go crazy. I’m more worried about my sanity than my pocket book, sorry if that’s not rational enough for everyone else. Owning all the hotels in the world has the emotional upping effect on me of zero. I’ve got to do something with meaning to myself. What meaning does art really have? I’m not sure. Shouldn’t I be out helping to save the world or something? Perhaps. I guess when you really look at it art is inherently a selfish sort of career path. If you make it in a creative endeavor it’s all about communication. It’s all just one big word game, or picture game, or perhaps sound game depending on whatever your fix is. And that’s the thing about artistic endeavors, it’s all about the fix. It’s a passion but a passion for what? Something that makes you happy. Anything else feels like a hamster wheel.
It might just be the passion itself that is the drawing effect. People want to feel passionate. It’s an instinct. It’s something primal deep down inside.
All this is not to say I don’t see reality for what it is. I know, it’s not all fame, riches, and glory and the truth of the matter is if you can qualify for a cubicle job and eleven dollars an hour then you are doing marvelous. Or at least better than me. What distresses me is being able to see the likely reality that my life will follow and then to be able to see what I’d like life to be and then to realize the huge gapping void in-between and that even all the hard work in the world might not fly me over that gap. This disillusionment drives me crazy and has for the last three years. Frankly, I don’t think I’ll ever fully cope with the disparity between the world we were promised as children and the world as humans have made it. However, that’s why artists do what they do, I think. It’s the fact that they can’t cope with the mundane reality we’ve built for ourselves. We need our crazy ideas and odd projects or we’ll go insane. That’s why it’s logical to be what we are and to prusue what we prusue.
