Incompatible elements

Getting such a great shot wasn’t luck. (Image by Tri Le)

I don’t like to call anyone out in my work, so trust me that this is not a story about a particular person, but a composite individual.

She is a gifted artist who created beautiful illustrations. This artist doesn’t want to sell her originals, only her prints. And she only wants to create work that features characters she’s created. She doesn’t want to do commissions and she doesn’t want to sell her work at festivals and farmer’s markets. She doesn’t want to be on social media, and she doesn’t want to do any networking in real life.

All of this would be fine, except that she has a goal that doesn’t fit: She wants to make a living solely with her art. In my opinion, she is setting herself up to be either perpetually miserable, perpetually broke, or both.

I’m not sure what it is in our culture that contributes to this mismatch of aspirations. Maybe it’s the whole mindset of, “do what you love and the money will follow.” But the money will only follow if you are willing to sell things, including yourself. If you believe that the only virtuous way forward is to do exactly what you want to do, without compromise, you won’t make a living—you’ll have a hobby.

In the family lore is a story about one of my aunts, who was an incredible country singer. Apparently, at a key moment in her career, she met a music industry person who was wowed by her talent and offered to help her. As they say, it’s all in who you know. My aunt, misunderstanding the game, declined. “I want to make it on my own.” As a result, she never quite “made it.” Nobody makes it on their own.

I know what it feels like to experience the catch-22 of desires that are incompatible with my situation. For example, I thought I needed to advertise to build my business, but I needed money to advertise and the business hadn’t made any money yet. And I remember believing that, as a musical artist, I’d be plucked from obscurity if I could just meet the right person.

But I know now that there are always options that anyone can make the most of. You don’t need advertising on day one, you need salesmanship and hustle. And if you have those things—or you’re willing to develop them—you’ll be much more likely to not only land the lucky break, but also to be able to make the most of it.

So many of us, especially artists, have a resistance to selling. I didn’t make a website for my music for years, despite hours of obsessing about it. I just wouldn’t put myself out there. On the other hand, I was happy to make cold calls and put up flyers all over town to attract local music students; unsurprisingly, that venture was successful.

For me, teaching music was just great. But I know a lot of artists who refuse this type of job as well, or do it with an evident disdain. That’s fine if they’ve found another way to pay the bills. However, if they haven’t—or if they are still pretty unhappy and unfulfilled—it might be time to look at questioning some or all of the convictions and assumptions they’ve made. There might be some path they can take to develop a bit of the canniness necessary to spot and make the most of opportunities in a way that doesn’t compromise their values.

I think wistfully of Lloyd Dobler’s speech from Say Anything: “I don't want to sell anything, buy anything, or process anything as a career. I don't want to sell anything bought or processed, or buy anything sold or processed, or process anything sold, bought, or processed, or repair anything sold, bought, or processed.” So many of us carry a piece of that youthful idealism, and it’s important. I honor it even as I sell, buy, process, and repair things. We can all hang on to a north star that helps us navigate according to what we care about most.

However, in order to make the impact I want to have in the world, I have to do uncomfortable things that my teenage self wouldn’t have been willing or able to do. If it means I’m selling out, so be it. I like owning a house and a nice laptop. That doesn’t mean I’m morally bankrupt.

I know people who live happily off the grid, doing what they want to, making art when they want to. No jobs and no obligations, and no electricity or running water, either. That wouldn’t work for the illustrator I described above—she favors luxury. Thus, her path forward is impossibly narrow. It’s not for me to say that she can’t succeed on her own terms, but I don’t have the imagination to see how.

We can design a life however we wish, but we ought to be aware of building incompatible elements into its architecture. We don’t have to take the “conventional nine-to-five job” route, but the “entrepreneur,” “freelancer,” and “bohemian artist” routes aren’t without their own challenges. Nobody promises us a living, and no one guarantees that we’ll have it the way we want it.

We each have to figure out how to make our lives work. No one can have it all, but we can decide what’s most important to us and prioritize that. From there, if we are willing to learn new things and be uncomfortable, we might have a shot at the future we seek.