how do I survive as a creative and not hate myself?
this week's chapter on my wayfinding journey is about my years of the creative hustle — in which I tortured myself with the question: “how do I survive as a creative, and not hate myself?"
I’ll explore:
my personal distillations of the prescribed / trailmarked paths of success — for writers, visual artists, and business owners
how I thought something was wrong with me for not climbing those ladders (and what I realized instead)
the illusion of safety + promise of conditional success… (that is, if you just override the self)
why “means to an end” thinking doesn’t work for me
how and why PROCESS is my guiding compass instead
this is about my Jump #3: from new creative entrepreneur trying to follow a 10-step plan of SHOULDS… to jumping into the void of my artist-hermit self.
this week I'm continuing this series on way-finding: my journey over 10 years which evolved into the processes and practices I have today.
last week, I talked about going from a fresh out of university aspiring writer with a 9-5 day job... to why I felt deeply compelled to make the jump into working for myself...
- a deep sense of personal conviction
- a desire for energetic reciprocity and the infinite earning / expansion potential
- the soul torture of feeling like I was compromising myself -- and wasting my creative life force in giving to a garden that, ultimately, did not belong to me.
this week's episode
this week's chapter is about the years of the creative hustle -- in which I tortured myself with the question, "how do I survive as a creative, and not hate myself?" --
and... I don't mean to mislead you with this podcast title.
because I don't have the answer.
actually, it took me years to realize that this question is fundamentally framed wrong. or.. in a way that is based on scarcity, survival, and not-feeling-bad... rather than how I actually want to feel.
because: I want to do more than survive as an artist, and not hate myself.
I want to thrive as an artist -- to be overflowing with deep love for myself, for the work, and for others. for life itself.
I want to feel empowered, potent -- and to create a world where artists can thrive, and their thriving ripples into the environment around them.
and that, my friends -- is the unfolding subject of this podcast. everything I talk about: world-building, internet as creative practice, artist-entrepreneurship -- is in service of this ultimate vision.
and of course: there's not ONE path, but many, and yours will be uniquely your own.
But, today -- I'll take us back in time -- to my journey... when I didn't really know anything about anything. and for many years, all I did was obsess over and tried to learn everything I could about the paths of survival for 3 creative "roles"
- how to be a writer
- how to be a visual artist
- how to have a business
why this matters
I think it's important to talk about these "supposed ways" because -- everything I ended up doing instead was in reaction and resistance to "the rules of creative success."
whereas Episode 2, "throwing away the iron rice bowl" was about the first jump -- from my Asian-American cultural upbringing to choosing to be a writer -- and Episode 2 explored Jump #2 (quitting my job and choosing to be an entrepreneur) -- this is about my last jump: Jump #3 -- abandoning the conventional paths of creative and business success... and jumping into the void of myself.
thank you for being here. for sharing this space in your day with me.
let me begin:
Chapter 2: "How Do I Survive as a Creative, and Not Hate Myself?"
so, as I was discovering that I wasn't well-suited to being employed... I was still waking up every morning to write.
I became obsessed in learning about: the creative process, productivity, and business.
when I wasn't at my job, or figuring out how to be a writer, I was swallowing every business, marketing, and productivity book I could find (usually written by white tech men) -- as well as books about being a creative, making a living. the hustle. self-promotion. after work, I started taking evening classes at the School of Visual Arts, to develop my skillset in graphic design and branding -- as I tiptoed into the world of client services work.
**All The Questions Exploding
And so, the question of “how to be a writer with a day job” shifted into “how do I use my creative skillset to work for myself?” and “how I make enough money to survive?”.
That question, of course, opened into:
- “how do I share my work?”
- “how do I get more clients?
- "how do I do marketing on the internet?”
- "how do I be on social media?"
- "how do I be a personal brand?”
- "how do I sell myself?
Those questions then opened into:
- "how do I not be totally miserable?”
- “how do I not burn out trying to be who I'm not?”
- "how do I do this, if I hate social media and self-promotion?"
- “how to keep myself from sinking into feelings of despair, futility, and failure???”
and maybe:
“how do I do ALL of this without losing the reason I’m here in the first place — that is, my reason for quitting everything, and activating the nuclear-grade alarms in my head, and swimming in red hot shame every time I called my family —
that is, how do I remember what it is that I hold as sacred — my reason for existence -- that is: ART and TRUTH and BEAUTY, and SPIRIT, and PERSONAL POWER?”
my friends, those questions didn't have answers for me, at the time.
all I did was desperately living the question marks.
The paths I saw*
But, let me go back to the first part of the core question, "How do I survive as a creative?" and share my summarized distillations of the three paths -- of writer, creative, and business owner. and perhaps they're a little outdated or incomplete, because this is a result of my research, observations, and lived experiences from over five years ago:
The three creative paths I attempted
I. How to be a Writer:
you must write things. form a writing group. submit to places — publications. try to be connected with editors, publishers, agents. maybe, go to literary parties. find peers and mentors. apply to more things: grants. awards. residencies. fellowships. contests. win things. put them on your byline. hopefully, collect “noteworthy” names and prestigious things that you can put on your byline, so that you can, eventually get a book deal. get a publisher's advance. get published. get a teaching gig. promote your book on a social media platform. have book promotion parties. sell books. and all the while, always -- have backup gigs to support yourself, should you need it.
II. How to Be an Independent Visual Creative of any Sort:**
build a portfolio of your best creative work. Start an Instagram. Post diligently, while waiting to be noticed. Build a website to showcase your portfolio. Do your best to network with other professionals in your industry. try to build a following. maybe, become a creative influencer. maybe, if you’re lucky, something catches someone’s eye, and you get a boost in visibility. if you're extremely lucky, something goes viral. or maybe, continue submitting to things: blogs, publications, awards, grants, exhibitions, residencies. continue to network and build relationships. keep applying to opportunities until — you get lucky, and someone hires you for a big commission, or becomes your agent, and sells your work for you. all the while: dance the precarious dance of commercial vs. personal -- “work for money vs. work for art.”
III. How to Start a Business:
create a website as a landing page, where the main goal is to target a predefined audience, and convert them from stranger, to lead, into client or customer. write SEO-optimized, marketing blog posts. make content offerings, or freebies -- and in doing so, generate leads with your lead magnets. send them a sequence of nurture emails, until someone clicks and buys your next big launch. all the while... post on social media, of course. work hard to build and engage with an audience. maybe, do outreach to other people with audiences. network. invest in building relationships with people who might refer you. in the process, make a niche for yourself. focus on looking professional and credible, and put markers of social proof (featured on XYZ Publication) or happy client testimonials on your homepage. grow the business.
So I want to preface this part by saying that I have nothing against these paths.
If one of them have (or is) working for you, that’s wonderful. if you're feeling satisfied, successful, and nourished by them, keep going. I would say I'm almost envious of you.
because for me, they didn't work.
they didn't work because... they didn’t feel good -- so I stopped doing them.
Is There Something Wrong with Me?
I think that at the time, I gave my reason for not doing them as something deeply emotional, un-sensical, and reactive.
because I had plenty of self-discipline at my disposal, and deep motivation.
that wasn't the problem.
but, when I thought about (for example): submitting my work to things, _applying to opportunities, going to a social event, posting on social media, sending an email to a potential new client, or just to build relationships, or — doing any form of “conventional” marketing, outreach, and self-promotion you're supposed to do as an artist or business... any act of "putting myself out there"... I’d think: I really hate this. I don’t want to do this. I resent doing this. Do I have to put myself through this? Is there no other way?
I thought:
there must be something wrong with ME.
maybe I’m so resistant because I’m too introverted and sensitive. I’m too: emotionally allergic to crowded digital spaces, too stubborn, I’m the worst procrastinator. or, I'm too radically, obstinately individualist.
or: I’m too much of a super-Scorpio for this kind of outward-reaching, “put-yourself-out-there” race to success.
maybe, I'm just not meant for this kind of success, or recognition.
(like, maybe I'm meant to lurk in the shadows...)
The Harder I Pushed, The Worse I Felt*
And I thought... no no no, maybe I really just need to keep pushing.
Maybe, I need to do "more."
Try harder. Work more. Make more to-do lists. Plan more. More ambitious goals. Make more "content." Post more on social media. Reach out to more people. Submit to more opportunities. Do more sales and marketing. More, more more.
It's working for other people. Maybe, I'm just not doing enough.
But... the harder I pushed, the worse I felt.
And this is not to say that these actions didn't work. They did. I got likes. New follows. I got new clients. I sold some things. I made some money.
But, I also felt burdened by an endless avalanche of "SHOULDS" -- and as I did these things, I hated it.
At the time, I didn't know that MISERY was a sign post for WRONG WAY. that there wasn't just ONE path to creative and material fulfillment.
I thought this was the ONLY WAY -- and my comfort was just a sacrifice I needed to make to walk this path; I had to do things I hated.
The Promise of Conditional Success
I think that when we want to do something difficult, it’s tempting to follow a 10-step checklist — because we want to know that we’re doing all the right things, that we’re doing enough, that we’re not failures, that our hard work and input will result in some tangible output. I still feel this way sometimes — and I think that’s the way our brains have been conditioned since childhood; the conditionality of (if you do X, then you get Y). If you don't do X, you won't get Y.
We abandon one sign-posted trail set out for us by society and our families, and in the scary, free-fall journey of working for ourselves, we quickly look for a new trail to hold onto.
in that respect, perhaps, the creative paths I described above feel like a "safe" path to success as a creative person — (IF I just post enough on social media, IF I apply to enough things, IF I just meet the right people and get the right opportunities, then, I'll land my big break… then I'll be safe.)
This is the notion of pushing and striving and hustling -- in exchange for safety. You feel compelled to do things that are... uncomfortable, and you think, this discomfort, even if it depletes my energy and makes me miserable, is necessary.
The message is: ignore my bad feelings.
This discomfort is going to help me grow.
A new type of rice bowl
But I think that maybe, you could even argue that it’s like a wild card variation on the idea of the “The Iron Rice Bowl” — that I talked about in Episode 2, the promise of some form of job security as a result of hard labor and sacrifice -- through pushing past your internal resistance, through gritting your teeth.
It took me a long time to trust my resistance, and learn to decipher if resistance was coming from fear -- or from deep energetic misalignment.
As in: if we are all radically individual beings, why would the same path work for us?
{And when I said, it's a version of the "iron rice bowl" the promise of job security -- I actually mean that it's more like “DIY mutually agreed upon artist instructions on: How to make your own rice bowl, even if you burn out, hate yourself a little and want to die, in the process... because The end will be worth it, I promise."}
The Process of Those Paths Sucked
for me, that was the problem.
as I explored in Episode 3 about being soul-sucked by the feeling of *compromise.
I realized that I can't do things -- if the promise is, compromise yourself now, "THE END WILL BE WORTH IT."
The more I pushed, the more I couldn’t keep up the stamina or motivation. I kept falling into cycles of futility and despair. Until... it became hard... to do anything.
(It was like a part of me rebelled — against that part of me that rebelled (against a 9-5, against the iron rice bowl notion of job security)… until I was just fractals floating in the ether … with no clear sense of self, or path, or identity to hold onto. am I — a writer? a creative? a business?? who am I, if I can't even get myself to post on social media, or send outreach emails? and what am I here to do, really???)
How I want to exist in the world
It took me a long time to understand that my problem with these trail-marked paths fundamentally rested on my truth - that pursuing the end goal of "success" was not enough.
The ends didn't justify the means... because I couldn't force myself to even DO the means.
I couldn't use just ANY ROAD, THE SHORTEST ROAD, the MOST USED ROAD to get to the goal post.
I had to go the long way -- in a way that felt good to me.
I had to take a path in which the PROCESS itself would nourish me.
each step had to feel aligned with my internal navigation systems.
I had to go very slowly.
And the process would keep me devoted.
And that process included creation, of course, but also other things like: sharing my work. building relationships. making offerings.
I had to discover my own way of doing those things -- that didn't make me hate myself.
Not doing -- but a way of BEING.
The Values Underneath My Misery & Resistance**
This was how... very slowly, my own ethos and philosophies were born.
it took many years to realize that the fact I couldn't do these marketing, promotion , hustling things didn't mean that there was something wrong with me -- but that my resistance was born from deep embedded personal values and principles... for How I want to exist as an Artist in the World, through the internet.
In other words, my strategy had to be 100% a reflection of how I wanted to BE in the world -- as an artist, and entrepreneur.
I'll be unpacking these values in later episodes, but they include:
- the necessity of personal agency, creative sovereignty, and power
- embracing an ongoing process -- over polished, packaged products
- showing up as a multi-dimensional self in a world that encourages flattening and digestible monotony.
Being an artist or an entrepreneur -- was, more than anything, not something I did, or series of check lists I had to complete -- but a way of learning to be myself, in the world. because for me to find my version of success — and for it to taste like success to me; for that success to nourish and sustain me, I had to be in alignment with myself and my truth.
episode end notes
Dear friends, so, to close and recap this chapter 3 of my way-finding journey, I spent years of the creative hustle trying to figure out "how do I survive as a creative and not hate myself?" -- and after everything, discovered that I did hate it. I hated marketing and self-promotion, I hated vying for attention, putting myself "out there," I hated myself doing it.
In this episode:
- I distilled the paths of the creative hustle -- of writer, creative, and business owner
- I unpacked how ultimately, these paths of hustle are about overriding the self -- focused on "the ends will justify the means"
- and I reflected on my personal truth that: I couldn't pursue a GOAL without being fully devoted to nourished by the PROCESS itself.
- my strategy for art and business couldn't be based on a series of checklists for what I DID, but instead, a reflection of how I wanted to EXIST, TO BE in the world -- as an artist, and an entrepreneur.
thus, this journey brings us to the precipice of where I was before I made my third and last jump: from pursuing the "SHOULDS" of the creative hustle -- to jumping into the void. retreating into my artist-hermit self.
in the next episode, I'll share what happened next: leaving NYC and traveling the world -- through the start, and end of the pandemic -- my version of an artistic monastery, in motion. those were years in which I started and nurtured many of the processes and rituals I still practice today -- and when I developed many of the philosophies around being on the internet, and being an artist.