Pick Your Poison
Dear Reader,
(I may have written this a couple weeks ago before I had my site ready, but the thoughts are still relevant.)
After a while of entertaining the thought of starting my own blog, here we are. I don't want to spend forever rambling about things on the first post, so I'll get straight to the point. Here's where I am: I'm an art student with no job right now. Granted, I do commission work as it comes, it gets a bit boring. I'm starting this up in order to: A. Entertain myself. B. Share some ideas and hopefully make some connections and C. Document this part of my life. Lately, I've been thinking about our society and what mark we leave on things. I've been hit with the sad reality that I may never make it big, and you might not either. For some reason, I find that to be empowering. I think there's power in experiencing a normal life as long as you realize why it's powerful. Let me explain.
I'm a twenty year old undergrad student. I'm unemployed, and nobody back home will hire me on the sole basis that I will only be around to work on breaks from school. I've come to terms with this, and I've decided to change my mentality. I really have no reason to complain about my financial situation. My family isn't very well off, but we're fortunate enough to have what we need. We have food, a home, clothing, and enough commodities to entertain. I'm able to go to school on a scholarship to seal a better future for myself. This is a time of my life in which I don't have a lot to offer the world. All I can really do is absorb knowledge and experiences until I'm able to give back. For a while, I was extremely stressed about making money because there are things that I'd like to be able to buy. There's a part of me that would like to be able to work at a mundane part-time job doing the same things everyday so I would have an extra couple hundred dollars here and there to spend. Why, though?
STORY TIME. We all have this in our heads that we NEED to be living up to these standards with the newest model of everything. For whatever reason, we think that's what determines our success, and successful people are happy people. I know we can talk about how grateful we are for the things we have, and we can work hard to get them. Does the value of what we have determine the value of us? This really hit me just the other day. This is the first week of summer, so I'm still getting settled in. I spent the first two days of the week going through my clothes and boxing up things that I don't need anymore. On Tuesday, I took them all to a thrift store to sell. I offered all that I had (way too much) and they managed to offer me close to $40 for fifteen items. My shoulders dropped at the offer, but I took it anyway and I was on my merry way. I managed to get a few items at the store that I needed and I broke even. I felt... this... emotion... h-h-happy? What? You mean I was HAPPY after getting obviously cheated on items and breaking even with a couple thrift store finds? WHAT?
So, I came home and settled in for the night because it was a long day. I kept thinking about the day and how simple it was, but it was satisfying. It was a long day full of errands being run in the cheapest way possible. Splitting gas money, selling items, turning in jars of change in return for bills, but there was one thing that was present and made it all worthwhile. I was living an experience that only somebody in a similar place in his/her life can experience: making the most of what I have. I thought about what other people my age are doing and how miserable they seem. I see people with iPhone 6's in there hands and $40 lipstick on who couldn't afford their own home, and they hate where they are. They have all of the material things that I thought I wanted, but they still aren't really happy. They're on Facebook and Twitter complaining about how hard things are. Here's a proposition: Rather than letting the sad state of the housing market and unemployment rate get you down, realize that experiences are what makes life worthwhile. As much as I hate to use cliches, you can't take anything with you when you go. Navigate your life in such a way that you're making the most of it whether you're living in an apartment without A/C or a $200,000 home on a hill.
As an artist, I find it my personal responsibility to point out things that the average person wouldn't notice. Sometimes that means doing a super realistic drawing of something that I want people to be forced to look at, and sometimes that means simply stepping back and doing the opposite of what everyone else is doing. Instead of spending this summer trying to accumulate a mass amount of money and buy material items, I'm going to do a lot of thinking, painting, and enjoying the time of my life in which I'm the only responsibility that I have. I propose that we all have two choices for how we live. We can either allow ourselves to be truly tormented by struggle and try to reach unattainable goals, or we can recognize those struggles and make the most of what little we have. With the first choice, you may have all of the things you dream of and you may make lots of money, but you risk becoming obsessed with those things and never actually achieving happiness. With the second choice, you may spend all of your life without the newest models of everything, but you can be empowered by the idea that you are all you really need. I'm hoping that this blog will be relatable to people like me. I may need this more than you do, but I hope that you can read along and get a new perspective with every post. I hope that I can share some struggles with you and talk about things that my generation faces, and I hope that I can be an artist who inspires you to think outside of those struggles.
Welcome to my life: the life of a simple artist who gets sheer joy out of secondhand canvases and quirky hats from thriftstores.
