If one more person tells me that "this is just a doorway to something better," I will throw up onto their shoes.
I want to ask them- "How do you know!? Prove it!"
Ever since I was a child I have been bombarded with platitudes about the future- I guess nowadays they would be called affirmations- "you can do anything you want to do," "your talent will be rewarded in due measure," and so on. And I have always hated those obvious lies. I can do anything I want to do? I am medium height , middle-aged and overweight, can I be a model? A ballerina? Not that I want to do those things but those careers were not/are not possible for me.
Listening to those platitudes in my own head is, in part, how I landed here- that magical thinking that tomorrow my talent would be discovered and rewarded and my home & studio would be saved. I just need to hold on for one more day, and another, and another. While today I stand in a shambles of a dream surrounded by excess stuff that I hope can be sold.
And its not that I have been spending my time dreaming- I have taken so many actions that my head spins, but all of them to no avail. The list of galleries and publishers I have sent DVDs or dummies of my work to and have gotten absolutely no response- not even an email saying "thanks but no thanks"- reads like a directory of the industry.
Well, perhaps my talent has been rewarded to its fullest extent- a sobering thought.
I have also heard from many people who have gotten through ghastly life circumstances and for those stories I am grateful. But then I think of the millions of people who have also been visited by great misfortune and who have not come out the other side to something better- we don't hear their stories but we see them on the streets collecting soda cans in shopping carts, or buried in unmarked graves in Potter's fields.
Today, the glass is half-empty, please don't tell me its half-full unless you have a pitcher of water with you.
Bits & bobs of my life as an artist, bricoleur, mythologenist, logophile, reader, thinker and tea-drinker
2 comments:
You have a point. I blame it on the current premise that is taught in all public schools: "You're special and can do anything." When the hard truth is that you aren't special, the earth is filled with 4 billion on you. And you're not related to any of the rich ones. Additionally, you can't do anything. Truth is that most kids have adopted such a sense of entitlement that they would rather become homeless meth mom than do a lick of honest work requiring a minor amount of sweat.
It should be completely acceptable to be frustrated when you have been working hard to improve both yourself and your situation. But folks don't know how to respond with empathy anymore and instead suggest you watch Opra. When your friends say, "I feel your pain." What they are really doing is stalling while they search their memories for any clues as to whether or not you own a gun.
That in mind, I will make a deal with your. If you don't climb a tower today, I promise not to climb one tomorrow.
Ok Mark, thanks.
Post a Comment