I just realized that today I am 2 years old! Two years ago today, I left the corporate world and software development with one aim in mind: to wander aimlessly for a few years in search of what I wanted to do next. I’ve been happily unemployed ever since.
Two years. And what has happened? The first year was all about letting go: I spent three months solid playing video games. The remaining months were all about avoiding responsibility and exploring a bit. Dabbling. Wandering around Europe for a couple months. Strangely enough, I had to re-learn how to do something without a plan, without a goal (an absolute requirement for an open, creative mind).
Ever clenched your hand really tightly for several minutes, then tried to open it? ‘Course you have. We all did that in elementary school. You get this weird sensation because your hand can’t relax. You actually have to work to open your hand. This image stuck with me throughout that first year — having to work at opening up, to work the muscles, after having been clenched so long, so that they could naturally relax.
The second year ended up being a year of persuing — without expectations — things that interested me. Zealous dabbling… I worked on four filmmaking projects. I’ve begun writing on a somewhat regular basis. I photograph on a somewhat regular basis. I played music from time to time. And by the end of the year, quite unintentionally, I began to see what areas I might like to follow in the future.
Now at the beginning of my 3rd year, I’ve come to a point — time to choose. Will it be Door #1: Photography? Or Door #2: Filmmaking? Or Door #3: Writing? Or will I find some way to do all of them? It feels like the third year will be about choosing. Happily, the method-less method I’ve been using thus far seems to be working well, so I’m not going to worry about it.
But, there are a few things I’ve learned along the way:
1) It wasn’t the job. It’s so easy to say time commitment or emotional and intellectual load of my job is what’s keeping me from doing My Thing, My Art. It isn’t. I’ve been unemployed for two years and I spend almost the same amount of time doing My Things as when I had a job. Heck, I’ve been thinking about getting a part-time job because, well, I get bored from time to time.
2a) I’ll always be busy, even if I’ve got nothing to do. I am incredibly effective at filling my time with justifiably important busywork, thus leaving little time for My Things. Owning my own house provides endless sources for diversion. My house has rats; gotta set traps, call exterminators, plug holes. I’ve got no income, so I’ve gotta make budgets, track them in excel, keep on top of my finances. Gotta clean out that basement so I can make a studio. If you haven’t seen it yet, watch this movie.
2b) I’m very good at doing something without actually doing it. I’m a photographer. That means I want a darkroom; so I’m building one. And I need to study — so I bought about 40 books on photography to read. Plus web sites — lots of information on the web. Doisneau, Turnley, and Erwitt are my favorite photographers; gotta read up on them, study their lives, scrutinize their work. Photo group meetings. Art gallery crawls. Tons and tons of photography to do. Yet through all this, I haven’t picked up a camera and clicked it’s shutter. It’s so easy to get lost on the ancillary tasks and forget to do the thing itself. It’s just a more subtle procrastination.
2) (conclusion) I only do My Thing when I deliberately allocate time to My Thing. A few months ago, I wandered aimlessly through the labyrinth of Elliott Bay Books. By pure chance, in three separate parts of the store, my eyes fell on three books on creativity and the creative life. The unsettling synchronicity continued as the page that I chose at random in each talked about the need to allocate time to your art, to have a discipline of doing art every day. The next day I read Neil Gaiman reiterating the need to make art, always. That night, I would’ve had chinese, but I was too frightened to get my fortune cookie.
3) Fear is the mind killer. Fear of other’s opinions. Fear of Doing it Wrong. Fear of failure. Fear of success. Fear that I might once again be diverted from my One True Calling. Fear that there is no such thing as an One True Calling. Fear that I may not be any good at what I like to do. Fear of overanalyzing. Fear of underanalyzing. With a thick Scottish accent and two thousand years of Scottish heritage, I say: “I’sall crap!“
So, though it pains me to say it, Nike has it right: Just do it.
Update: Oh drat. Today is already yesterday and tomorrow is today. Well, this was intended to go out on 1/17 as that’s my anniversary.
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February 9th, 2005
by ronfstop
Well, for me it was the job. I, like Rob, was a full-time software geek (different kind of software but what the hell). However, unlike Rob I am cheerfully equipped with wife and four (now grown) children. Between job and family (especially when the kids were at home) time for photography was scarce. I checked my printing notes and found that, even after our kids were grown the bulk of my darkroom time took place in the two weeks surrounding Christmas and New Years â when the noted aerospace company for which I worked declared a recess and the weather was mostly too drippy to go outside much.
I retired (early but not a minute too soon) 10 years ago this July. I found that my life closed seamlessly around the 40 (yeah, right) hours that I had been devoting to my job. However, the impact was *much* greater than the â40â?. I was never able to compartmentalize my life to any significant extent â every time my mind went into idle, code or mathematics popped off of the stack and gobbled all the unused cycles. No kidding â I would wake up in the morning and there would be the then-current problem waiting for me. (Drove my wife nuts from time to time.)
For four months I was really retired â hung out at the library, played in the darkroom, got up relatively late, read the paper over breakfast, etc. Then the noted aerospace company offered me a half-time gig doing the stuff I really enjoyed (and not the stuff I really hated) before retiring. I did that for two and a half years. Problem with that was that the gig occupied a great deal of my attention â outside the 20 per week that I was paid for. That was especially true since I really was enjoying what I was doing. I did, however, salvage a lot more darkroom time during that period than I had previously done.
Parenthetically, a writer/poet/photographer/filmmaker friend who bailed the same time I did was aware enough of how his mind worked to steadfastly refuse a part-time gig for the same reason. He knew it would take over his life.
Anyway, after the 2.5 years I bailed out again and this time I meant it. Iâm sure that I have done more photography in the past seven or so years than I had in the previous 30. Like Rob, I have try hard to impose some structure on my âworkâ? week â but itâs structure that I choose. The big issue is that now when my mind goes into idle, itâs photography that pops off of the stack instead of differential equations. Again, for me it was the job — or maybe now I’ve just got a different job.