The struggle of young artists

The Writing Hut

We are finally in the modern era, the great era of science  and technological advances, a era in which we are thought from our first years on this wonderful planet that to be successful in life and be truly happy you need to act a certain way.
The way of which they speak is the following:

  • Having a stable job
  • Being able to provide for the family
  • Teach your kids that same thing

Now I am  sure most of you heard that , some of you might have had the ideal parent on the other hand that pushed you to do what makes you truly happy. Just think about it, as kids what did you do the most ? Thats right dancing, singing, drawing and lying. Now you are wondering why on earth I’ve added lying to the list of arts, well just think about it for a second…lying is equal to storytelling aint it?
When we were kids we grew up having fun, building that sand castle or those delicious looking but not very tasteful mud pies while our parents yelled at us “You will get dirty!” or “It will be taken away by the waves.” . When we would start to play with our imaginary friends , for those of you like myself who had a brother you didnt need to imagine , you had a mythical creature right with you,  and you started playing some story , almost like you did a play. For example me and my brother used to play as soldiers a lot, we imagined we were fighting some monster and we took some stick , I found a broken drawer door that I used for a shield and we played the whole day. A plot was developed by our own little minds, we were really powerful in our imaginary play, except for when the demons came from out a space , to make things worse they have taken the form of my grandmother and they were fearless. Now this is a prime example of young kids using art as a way to gain happiness and what does society do when they see that? They want to stop it, stop the child from doing “stupid” or “unproductive” things but with this the only thing they do is suppress the little artist inside of the kid, they might even manage to kill him. They say art is worthless, its better to have a stable job and be like everyone else “normal”. Well I am not sure what the correct definition of normal is but I am 100% sure I don’t want to be just that, its true I have to have a job that would make me able to keep living , because you know dieing like bad for you or something , but why can’t I be an artist at the same time?
Because of [insert list of thousand reasons why you shouldn’t be an artist and why its not good for you] reasons , they say, but what we really need is only that one reason to be an artist, nothing more nothing less.

So as you can see the struggles of an artist start even before he/she knows what art even means, but they dont stop there. In our reality , that is really cruel by the way but I guess you know that ,  artists are most of the time looked down upon because of the narrow minded people who were brain washed into believing that art is some sort of evil and that if you try to create something and share it with the world you will be destroyed . They say there is a small chance that you can make it as an artist, that I must say is true , but that doesnt mean you should stop doing art. You can always do two things at the same time. Once I went on to a basketball game, I am currently working as a basketball player and we had a fun tournament which I had to skip due to a injury. I sat there with the team we were supposed to play and seen a guy who was writing something on a strange shaped notebook. I didn’t look much as there was a match going on and I was focused on basketball rather than that guys scribbles. After a few minutes I was called on the other side to join a group of friends who just came into the gym, as I went there I passed this guy with the strange notebook, he was still writing. As I looked down at it it was one of those music notebooks where you can write the notes and create a song . I was so surprised that I stopped and looked at it for a bit. Of course he noticed, he said hello , I apologized for being rude and staring and asked him “What are you doing , arent you having a game soon? Shouldn’t you be watching the match instead of writing?” and the response blow me away, he said :
“Its true that I have a game , but I will be focusing on that when its time , for now I am focusing on writing this song that I am working on from over a week.” I was shocked at first to hear this , usually as a player you take a whole day focusing on the next game , its your job so you have to earn your money….I followed his response with another question “Why are you doing it?”  i asked, he just said “Just because I like it.”

There was nothing more to it , just because he liked it. This is why we all do art, just because we like it, yet because of that we are despised and sometimes looked down on, I am not saying that everyone hates us , there are people who enjoy art books or drawings , dancing or music no matter what form but the others are just looking at us like we are aliens, like why would a young guy/girl want to write if they could do something else, there is enough time when they get older to write , the more experience the better the writings.  But why do they think that way? Why can’t I write and express myself through a piece of paper that is stained by ink in such a way that it transfers my world into the brain of another person ?
I understand the basic concern , artist dont earn much and have a high risk of failing and ending up on the streets , but why kill the side of us that yearns for art , that wants to create, why kill it ?  Why don’t we just focus to reshape it into something that would go along side our daily activities?
But thats how this century is , instead of inspiring and pushing young people to try it out we push them into a tunnel that has no right or left turns , with no choice we go straight ahead into the promised light that is supposed to make us happy but as far as I am concerned we are just making the road harder for everyone.

I hope you enjoyed my little article, this is my simple opinion of one part of our wast world that is cruel and yet beautiful at the same time. Please leave your comments as I’d love to hear your opinions on this topic 🙂

 

 

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