Being Exhausted + Being an Artist
I write this utterly exhausted. I've been exhausted for weeks. I work a 65-hour a week "day job" in addition to being a working artist.
And lately, I'm always tired.
There are a lot of schools of thought on what happens to an artist when they are exhausted. In this blog piece, I'll tell you mine.
“If you don’t have your basic needs met, it’s tough to focus on anything else.”
I've always been a big fan of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. From the very first time I saw a graphic of it and heard the concept explained, it made total sense to me.
In short: If you don't have your basic needs met, it's tough to focus on anything else.
An example is: A child in a "third-world country" (a term that I hate) who is starving and does not have access to clean water does not care about gendered pronouns or gender neutral bathrooms.
That doesn't make them a bigot.
They simply don't have time for solving problems aside from the life-or-death ones facing them. Whether or not "Casey" feels comfortable in a bathroom isn't high on their list. (After all, they at least have access to plumbing and running water.)
If your basic needs are not met and you are hungry, tired, thirsty or freezing to death, it's hard to stare at a canvas and think "How can I adequately convey the feeling of real, true love onto this mere piece of cotton?" It's too daunting.
When I'm exhausted, my creative mind is among the first few things which go into hibernation mode.
“When I’m exhausted, my creative mind is among the first few things which go into hibernation mode.”
Where normally, I walk down the street and am awash with countless ideas for paintings, photographs, poems, movies and stories, when I am exhausted they drip in at a not-even-comparably slow rate. Maybe one or two a day. Maybe.
It's been a grind at this job and I have to be honest, unless something changes, I won't be here much longer.
I can't.
I need that creative side to my life.
Without it, I believe everyone's lives become paler and paler in color until it's just an exhausting monotonous grey routine.
I ascribe to the gospel of Joe Rogan on this one.
Unless you come from extreme wealth, we all need a day-job to support our passions until our passions can support themselves.
However, the day-job shouldn't be one that sucks so much out of you that you have no energy left for the passions.
“We all need a day-job to support our passions until our passions can support themselves. However, the day-job shouldn’t be one that sucks so much out of you that you have no energy left...”
If you're in a grind-of-a-job like me, I get it. The money is good. It allows certain freedoms. But it has its chains, as well.
Sure, I was able to pay off my ungodly sum of credit card in-full. But, I'm too exhausted to paint.
That's the trade-off I made for the last few months because those were the goals I set for myself. Now that my financial goals are almost entirely accomplished, I can focus on other goals, like fulfillment, purpose and creativity.
“If every child had access to a bath, a warm bed, a meal and water, ‘the arts’ would see a new Renaissance. Perhaps the next Picasso starved to death yesterday in a village somewhere, and we never knew it.”
But I can't do that so long as I can barely wake up in the morning.
Art is both a luxury and a necessity. My commitment to helping others have their basic needs met is one out of a commitment to the importance of art.
Art saved my life.
If every child had access to a bath, a warm bed, a meal and water, "the arts" would see a new Renaissance.
Perhaps the next Picasso starved to death yesterday in a village somewhere, and we never knew it.
The world will never enjoy that child’s art.
I'd write more on the topic, but, frankly, I'd rather take a nap.
TRISHA WILES