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Everybody's primary goal is to put food on the table! You must be pretty insulated from the hard realities of life if you think people can simply treat survival
by homonculus1 7y ago
Everybody's primary goal is to put food on the table! You must be pretty insulated from the hard realities of life if you think people can simply treat survival as optional.
- vanusa 7y agoEverybody's primary goal is to put food on the table! I meant your goal in choosing to do creative work, obviously. Not in a hierarchy-of-needs sense.
- cortesoft 7y agoBut I was speaking in a hierarchy-of-needs sense. Not everyone gets to the point where you can choose to do creative work.
- keiferski 7y agoI recommend reading some biographies of famous creative people. You’ll quickly learn that a sizable portion of them lived in poverty, took on enormous debts, or died young.
- cortesoft 7y agoAre you suggesting that is correct choice to make?
- keiferski 7y agoObviously one should try to avoid poverty, debts and early death. But if you are truly dedicated to your creative field, then sure, it's clearly the correct choice. Having a family, buying a house and other middle-class living standards are choices, not necessities. If someone isn't willing to make some sacrifices for their art, perhaps they aren't meant to be great at it in the first place. Otherwise, when will you pursue your art? In the next life?
- medion 7y agoPutting food on the table for yourself is pretty damn easy. But if you want a house, kids, a wife, a nice car, etc, then it gets exponentially more difficult. So, there is a choice available for creative people who don't wish to compromise: They can be fully into their work at the expense of the above cultural norms - perhaps if they are very successful in their niche they can have those things too, but there could be a very long or infinite period of their lives where this is not possible - that's the sacrifice. I'm so sick of the 'I can't do XYZ because I have kids and a mortgage' talk - well maybe you should have thought about the long term ramifications of kids and a mortgage?
- homonculus1 7y agoOkay, I agree with you. I guess "put food on the table" has a connotation of providing specifically for others and not just yourself, which I wasn't considering.
- aphextim 7y agoAs my father phrased it when I moved out at 18, "Make sure you have food on the table and a roof over your head, the rest is just details."