Looming Failure
I need to learn to be a less pessimistic person. Sure, some of you readers would say, "But that is your charm!" No, no. Thank you, but I am naturally charming and would arguably be even more if I were less whinny.
The reason I bring this up is that I feel like I am destined to be a failure at SCAD and beyond that into a career. I feel that I really don't have the discipline to succeed. Yes, I have some talent, but so does everybody. Those people that you talk about with your friends are the ones with a singular drive that projects past the merely talented. They don't get distracted with tangential interests, like reality TV or the latest REM album. Or they find way to successfully integrate those diapered elements. I haven't solved that equation, and am not sure if I ever will.
Then again, those people that are successful are because they know that they will be. They are positive and confident about their ideas and work. Sometimes all they have is confidence (Blue Dog, Kinkade). Maybe that is the only element (other than hard work) that I am severely lacking.
So I'm starting the positive thinking now. Yay!!!!
The reason I bring this up is that I feel like I am destined to be a failure at SCAD and beyond that into a career. I feel that I really don't have the discipline to succeed. Yes, I have some talent, but so does everybody. Those people that you talk about with your friends are the ones with a singular drive that projects past the merely talented. They don't get distracted with tangential interests, like reality TV or the latest REM album. Or they find way to successfully integrate those diapered elements. I haven't solved that equation, and am not sure if I ever will.
Then again, those people that are successful are because they know that they will be. They are positive and confident about their ideas and work. Sometimes all they have is confidence (Blue Dog, Kinkade). Maybe that is the only element (other than hard work) that I am severely lacking.
So I'm starting the positive thinking now. Yay!!!!
posted by Stephen "Steve" at 10/08/2004 01:43:00 PM
3 Comments:
I think it is high time that someone you consider a close friend told you the truth. As your best friend, and only friend who has the pedigree to offer advice in regards the arts, I'm here to tell you that you should give up. A lifelong struggle to become an artist will give you many an interesting garage or yard sale but in the long run you will feel empty and unfulfilled forever and ever. Just like your parents. Loser. It hurts, but it is the everloving truth, you whiney bastard. Also, you are short. And you have wide hips and your eyes are too close together. And most people say that you are sort of a phoney. And get a goddamned hair cut, hippie.
Hark!
(sigh) I have wanted to use that word for days now. Really, though, I concur with what Justin said. About having to have drive ... not that he's not successful. I don't even know him.
But, also about what kind of success you are after. You have a beautiful, loving, supportive wife. You are extremely intelligent ... both of you are, but I'm blowing sunshine up YOUR skirt right now, not hers.
Anyway, back on topic. Uhh... oh yeah ...
Making it as an artist can be hard. Harder than any other career of choice, I have no idea. But, really, I think in what really matters you are already successful. You have people in your life that genuinely care about you. If art is what you love, then it will never seem like a job. Cliche? Yes. True? Yes.
Thanks for the support, but I want everybody to know I wasn't fishing (i.e. "I'm fat, and nobody likes me . . . well?"). I was just writing about what was on my mind. I think that Mandy was brutally correct in many ways. So I gave myself a haircut.