“Creativity is a high risk-high, high-return game. You’re a lot safer in your life to find a functioning entity and to operate as a cog within it […]. Because if you´re creative and you go off on tangents all the time there´s some probability that one of those tangents is going to be exactly what is needed at the time and you’re going to become hyper-successful as a consequence. But there’s much more probability that, even though some of your ideas might be highly valuable, the probability that this is the right time and place for them is extraordinarily low […]. [Still] a creative person who is not being creative, they just wither and die. If you want to engage in a creative pursuit you should find something stable to do that will generate you and income and you should pursuit the thing you want to creative about on the side. Because monetizing creative production is so bloody difficult.”
— Jordan B. PetersonListening to this part of one of Jordan Peterson´s lectures provided me with one of those deliciously unexpected everyday life kinds of mind-blowing moments on my way back from the gym this week. It spoke straight to my heart, and I felt directly addressed, deeply touched, and movingly validated. This topic had been an ongoing latent mental struggle ever since my late high school years, time to be thinking about possible career choices after school.
I always enjoyed sciences very much. On the other hand, I was regularly told by friends, peers and the such things like: “You want to study Medicine? Such a shame/waste! Your artwork is amazing, you should do that professionally”. Of course, I was aware of the fact that these statements were mostly compliments, but the edge of criticism toward my life choices they so implicitly held did bug me, albeit almost to an imperceptible degree. At some point a little voice in your head just starts to wonder, though when everything else is in balance, it tends to remain very low, sometimes even mute.
My choice to go off and study anything else other than something scientific and “serious” was never really an option for me. I know and I´ve always known to live off art is extremely difficult, and one must be insanely good and/or very, very lucky. I had no desire to invest all my time into perfectionating my fun hobby just to turn it into a job, an obligation. Recently, though, having started my first job as a doctor, during 4-5am commuting train rides to work, after 10-12h shifts with no lunch in my stomach, while shedding tears of exhaustion and frustration to my mom on the phone… all of the sudden, for the first time in my life, that little voice—the one telling me that I was missing out on my “true artistic destiny”— started getting louder, even deafening at times. After many excruciating moments of clear and focused deep introspection disrupted by blurry emotional breakdowns and doubt, I finally made some difficult personal choices and started redirecting my career path. That voice became quieter. Finally, this week —without meaning to sound all fanatically transcendental— Jordan Peterson´s words made any remaining residual whisper disappear completely. It´s one thing to hear something like that from a proximal, potentially biased source like your parents —well-meaning because of their love, but thus, lacking objectivity— the way I have all my life. But a very different one is to receive that message from an external source, even more so one that you also happen to admire a great deal.
Nowadays, anywhere I look —movies, social media, music— there´s this prevailing, omnipresent cheap line of imfantile pseudo-inspirational crap, empty of actual meaning and real depth, telling people to “chase their dreams”, and that doing so is what ultimately will lead them to happiness. Well, define “dream”, define “chasing”. There are many reasons why I dislike this message but exploring them in detail would require a whole other blog entry. So, let´s just say that it only produces the opposite effect in me —one of pressure, of self-doubt, of uncertainly and sense of lack of purpose—. Well, giving up on that “what-if” idea recently has done nothing but make me happy. I haven´t felt so much like myself in over a year. Probably longer. I don´t need “dreams” to follow, I need realistic goals, stability, security, meaning and structure. And for that, I need to be very much awake.
It may not sound romantic or adventurous or fun. But I rather be mature to explore the exuberance of life, my emotions and art romantically, adventurously and joyously within myself, with the certainly of being free, safe and independent to do so.