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I live with the near constant fear that work — or more fundamentally: the need for money — will kill my creativity. ‘Fear’ might not be the word. I mean something more like immanence; sublime certainty that I’m being slowly crushed in the gears. Every time — every morning — I feel dull or mentally shapeless, I have the higher thought of panic; I tell myself to panic — to not normalize this complacent ok-ness.
Yesterday, I woke up, strangely, naturally, at 4am. I listened to a Bach cantata, read Dante, stirred a cup of nettle tea. I felt fantastic; alive. But 4pm, I was back at home, desperate for a nap. At 8pm, I went back out again to watch football at a bar with an old friend (which was fun, but…)
I have at least two basic modes/selves. The worker (in my case, the teacher) and the artist; hardly compatible, barely interested in each other. Each longs for the destruction of the other, each wants to be alone. I — my executive, higher-order, rational I-self — promote the artist, but without full confidence. I am like someone who votes, but does not canvas for the candidate he believes in. I am lukewarm about my commitment to myself-as-artist; I spend more time worrying about rent than genius.
This was not always the case, but that was my early 20’s, when I for spent three years living, at least part time, with my parents, and crashing on couches in the city. I wrote a…
