you gotta earn it

jk no you don't

Before I start, let’s agree that I’m about to be a massive hypocrite and tell you to do what I struggle to do.

Cool? Ok cool.

There is this thing in the West where we feel like we can’t have nice things or entitle ourselves to the pursuit of pleasure unless we earn it.

Work hard play hard or whatnot.

I disagree. Emphatically.

I believe you are born entitled to joy, desire, pleasure, and passion.

And yet I find myself banning myself from activities I enjoy because I didn’t work hard enough for them. And you cannot participate in joy, desire, pleasure, and passion unless you’ve earned it.

There’s a lot of data pointing to why this is absolute rubbish and I highly recommend you go down the Google rabbit hole on this one to understand why. While you do that I want to challenge us (err - me?) to poke some holes in this (il)logic.

One word for “joy, desire, pleasure, and passion” is art. Another one is “dreams.” I’m going to use these interchangeably.

Virginia Woolf was very open about the fact that she was able to become a full-time (and GOOD) writer because a random relative she barely knew died in an accident and left her money; so Woolf could quit her job and focus on writing full-time:

“Indeed, I thought, slipping the silver into my purse, it is remarkable, remembering the bitterness of those days, what a change of temper a fixed income will bring about.” - A Room of One’s Own, page 38

It used to be that having a Patron for your work was a respectable thing. Something you boasted about and expected. No one expected that a painter would also be a peddler. These were different skills. And having a patron wasn’t something we hid or lied about. Today, it’s the opposite. If you have money to buy time and space to create, you’re derided for it. We use money as a way to discredit someone’s art and mock them. “She does photography because she has a husband in finance. She doesn’t have to work.”

There’s a LOT to unpack there, which I do (in part) in my essay So…do you work? over on Startup Parent. We can chat about it in the comments.

do we hate her because she has a cute hat? Or we’re jealous? OR MAYBE WE DONT HAVE TO HATE ANYONE, and we can just let people make their art and mind our business <3

For Brainstorm Road, I am curious about the inherent contradiction that is the relationship between art and money (I’m using art interchangeably with dreams, creativity, joy, pleasure, and passion). Your art is legitimate if it makes money. But you’re not a legitimate artist if you’re wealthy (or your family has wealth). You’re entitled to create if you’ve earned it (financially and with labor). But if you make time to create (and have “earned” it financially) but your craft isn’t that good or important, you’re self-indulgent and frivolous. Unless you’re retired, in which case it’s fine but that’s because it’s “cute” and “how nice that you found a hobby.”

There is a big mess of contradictions wrapped up in whether or not we are allowed to create, WHO is allowed to create, as well as when, why, and how.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

My thoughts are as follows:

Creating for the sake of creating is just fine and needs no justification.

You are born entitled to joy, desire, pleasure, and passion.

There is no “earning” your right to create. We exist ergo we create. We are human, ergo we make. Some animals dig holes, we paint sunsets and crochet. Tomato Tomatoe.

Your dreams matter even if they don’t make money.

Money matters, even if it’s not your dream.

These things are not mutually exclusive.

You do not need to earn the right to create.

But you do need to claim it.

See you next week,

M

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Claim it every Friday.

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