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RE: Thanking What’s Not Despair and Misanthropy
A nickel, a thaler, a doubloon... You don't write for money. You want to say something. Get it off your chest, shout it out, hurl it from your soul. Money is okay. But only listening has meaning...
Hear hear!
I wonder what my social role would have been a thousand years ago as a peasant, illiterate and “uneducated”. Maybe there would be no worries and wonders to get off my chest, and life would be one day to the next without money because I was content and accepted by community as a farmer, blacksmith, baker, weaver, carpenter... If I had something to say, most likely it would be understood by everyone in my local contact. And it would probably stem from a kind of passion shared by all, only I had a better gift for the gab. There was no writer or artist anywhere in the year 1025, not invited by a bishop or Pope. And today, writing and painting are not careers except by invitation of the establishment, which is the Pope of 2025.
I don’t know what I’m getting at. Art and writing aren’t careers, but I wouldn’t be a practicing artist if I didn’t make it a “career”—there would be no “improvement”, like an 11th century carpenter got better with age and practice. The latter still got paid for the occupation, in turnips if not silver and gold. The most important difference is that he was received, accepted, needed and respected. Those careers exist today in care-giving occupations (nurses, teachers, social work, cooks, servers...). They pay barely enough, but enough for contentment-for-the-taking. As an artist and a writer, I feel like a sort of beggar. After all, without support (a bag of nickels, a thaler, a doubloon), the community expresses its disinterestedness with returned silence, and that is the opposite of what humans crave, if the social psychologists have any say in the matter. The listeners need to want you. Basically no 11th or 21st century carpenter will improve, or even bother to work, without her turnip.
Expression is everything to me. Communion is everything to me. The two need a thriving marriage for me to feel successful. I don’t care about money. I need corduroys to wear and olive oil to sip to enrich my experience, and provide fuel to continue. Even a head nod or thumbs up works most days. But those are rarer than the gold people make making money gold.
Thanks for reading!
Thank you!
Thank you!