Sat enjoying the opulence that is Central library in Liverpool. The room is large and circular, and it will take the smallest sound and send it reverberating around the walls. Drop one book and you’ll find yourself centre stage. Worse- it being exam season for students here at the moment means that one sniffle will have ten pairs of eyes throwing daggers. I like to turn the music up loud when I’m in this room. Otherwise even breathing seems to send those heads turning around.
Yesterday I had the perfect day. I checked off everything I wanted to get done (apart from, admittedly, writing this). I got air and sunlight, good food and water. Like a healthy plant. And now I’m not sure what to do with myself.
It’s a strange thing to feel that you’ve hit the balance between doing and not doing. We discussed this before session at Wicked Women last week- the fine balance to strike between working hard, with passion and dedication, while also having the perspective to see that what we do doesn’t matter at the same time. Not to say it doesn’t matter- simply that in order to work with healthy boundaries, to get sleep and rest, I find it helpful to think that the world won’t stop turning without us.
This is by no means pessimistic. For me, it shows the importance of doing something one enjoys, doing something that’s important to us. It allows for a sense of life and play within work- it can be a joyous thing, to accept our own insignificance and do it anyway. Maybe there are playful and joyful academics- of course there are. But I think that due to the exposure and glamour that surrounds artists, it is important to remember that a pedestal isn’t real but a perception, constructed by everyone but those in the frame.
It is so importance to hold onto humility in artistic work. It is tempting to want to impress the importance of artistic work on others- defending the arts degree when people brush it off, defending the way you work, or even trying to define what it is you do (without sounding stupid or shallow) can be a bit difficult. The most that you can do in that situation is protect yourself from the flippancy of others, allow any respect they might deserve, but most importantly give yourself the respect you deserve. You can only control, or at least put real work into, the respect you have for yourself.
So, I encourage you to be playful with the way you’re working. I speak from the privilege of young age (which, unfortunately, in this country means that there are more opportunities available to me than people over 25) and flexibility with how I want to work. I feel like people often push themselves to ‘do more boring work’ and ‘stop being lazy’. How about we flip it the other way around? What about when all you want to do is do work and instead you don’t. I wonder what happens? Will you find a sense of joy and release? Maybe.
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