I've been reading on the 'how' of being an accessible artist, about being seen, doing the 'right' kind of work, knowing where to talk, and to whom, how the tech tools on hand can be used to drive all of that in the face of the goals we have, et cetera. The key words here are exhilaration, immediacy, accumulation, 'making it'.
I'm an artist, I have high - if not unconventional - goals, and I have to say, I don't warm to the race of jumping through hoops going on. I know, for me, it won't bring home HOW I want to live my life.
, exploring how meaning comes out of taking a step away from society, from unplugging.
My creativity as an artist has a characteristic intimacy with my personal life, so I come out of the gate already primed with the urge to minimize any "screen-crowding" in my professional work.
Yes, I'm in the younger crowd of the industry, which means I poke and prod at promotional methods as they are being praised and torn down, but my willingness to participate with various social media and software vogue stems from my quest to learn what's right for me, not what's the best way to mimic the trend of "making it".
Things have seemed to get heavier with pressure to be in the online crowd, to do as they do, in order to be able to
, at all. But something's not right with this mantra.
When I read Pico Iyer's articulate thoughts on this very issue, this quest to learn gained further clarity for me:
"It’s only by keeping a distance from the world that I can begin to see its proportions and begin to try to sift the essential from the fleeting. I feel that so many of us now have the sensation of standing about two inches away from this very crowded, noisy, constantly shifting big screen, and that screen is our lives. It’s only by stepping back that we can see what the screen is communicating."
Iyer points to a thing I have personally felt lacking in the pursuit of living life happily.
He calls it "the virtue of sitting where you are"...
Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard quotes the Dalai Llama to have said, "the problem in the West is people want enlightenment to be fast, to be easy, and if possible, cheap"...
(Let's keep geography out of it. I think the point is bigger than that)
...Cheap here refers to casual, to not a lot 'put in', not a lot of effort or expenditure of energy involved...Short cuts...
I think what we create in response to this cultural conundrum, and how we create, is spinning perpetually round the same problem; we create so to make the creation fast, easy, and therefore, cheap. Cheap monetarily, at times, but certainly in the value of expended energy as well.
I read
Austin Kleon's book
"Show Your Work" recently, which was a delight of carefully arranged tidbits for creatives, and he clarifies the amateur as "the enthusiast who pursues her work in the spirit of love", referencing the literal French translation of 'amateur' as 'lover'.
Now, it makes me happy,
deep-down happy, to know myself as a lover of my pursued passions. I can honestly get behind that.
I can't get behind the race of hoop vaulting, as an artist, or anything else. I can't get behind making my milestones in art about mileage on the internet, or on social media, marking with competitive fever the relative frequency and genius of my posts. I can't get behind feeling I'm a valid artist only if I do what everyone else in the scene of art are doing. It's standing those two inches away from the Big Screen and it's killing my original drive.
There is a dangerous, false correlation between this casual desire - the cheapness - and lasting happiness.
Consider our work, our purpose. We're taught to chase achievements to the grave, starting with impressive resumes and then progressing through the hunt of status advancement, ever craving more consumption, as a means to satisfy fulfillment. How fast can you get that promotion, finish this job, impress that client, beat that record, play the system, show to the world? Can you compare to your colleagues and mentors while doing so? Now do it all on a universal screen, for everyone to compare and contrast to.
When I was at
Illuxcon IV, at the time still in Altoona, PA, I was having a discussion with a fellow artist and our cab driver. The driver felt, not unlike so many others I've talked with, that we artists have a "given talent", a "gift", an ability that could not be recreated or attempted by anyone without the same bestowed blessing. As if by magic. Unexplainable prestige!
Besides this perspective being incredibly insulting to the already misunderstood, ceaseless hard work artists commit to, what does it say about appreciating true,
earned happiness?
Let me put it this way; what do we know about love and relationships? A tried and true simplification
might be:
quality equals work over time plus love
Achieving this quality creates happiness as a direct result of fulfillment, because the deepest self is being given purpose and longevity. And that process is uncomfortable, inherently.
Like that cab driver, many people want their 'enlightenment' to be casual, to be fast and easy. Comfortable! Try each new trendy, shiny gadget, relationship, job, or promise that looks like another easy gift. Seek short cuts. Accumulate 'plugged in' experience. That screen opens in on it's own world, and it will feed you reasons to stay in it, if you let it. Maybe there is the thrill of the chase, the high of workaholic lust, but it's superficial happiness.
If we're looking for gifts, for fast, for casual, then we're bypassing what is fulfilling, and therefore how we live to create that fulfillment. We're weeding out a deeper way of life, in favor of the accelerating trends.
Perhaps this will come off as audacious, in a naive way, or archaic, and maybe my fellow artists won't agree, but I'm not ok with measuring my skill, commitment, or success by what is so fleeting. I'm not interested in standing up close to the frenzy, loosing my vision for all the things I could fixate on. I want to unplug.
I'd rather be a lover of what I do, and HOW I do it, in order to participate with the world. There needs to be a balance to achieve this in our new tech age. Iyer says:
"The machines aren't going to teach us how to keep our sense of balance. That part is up to us...The one thing technology can't teach us is how to make the
best use of technology, how to keep our sanity in the face of technology. For that, we can't go online."
Read
TED Global's 2014 discussion HERE
Buy
Pico Iyer's "The Art of Stillness: Adventures In Going Nowhere" HERE
Buy
Austin Kleon's "Show Your Work!" HERE
In the meantime, until next time, I'm unplugged.
Happy creating.
-Mairin-Taj
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