Thing is, it literally takes forever to create art. I’m a musician. How much time do I spend making music? All of it that’s available. One lifetime isn’t enough. Infinite lifetimes wouldn’t be enough - there’s no end to creativity, it’s never done. You can’t just dabble in it for fun - it’s not about fun, though it can be enjoyable. Practising is every day forever.
I don’t care about money at all beyond meeting my basic needs, but there’s no way to support my family from any of my creative activities (which I do sometimes get paid for) under capitalism.
You can’t imagine how much practise is required. I can’t imagine it because it’s impossible to fully comprehend, like trying to tangibly imagine infinity.
Capitalism wants people like me to be the full-time servants of the wealthy. Capitalism and art can’t coexist, not ultimately. You can’t understand this unless you’ve spent your life making art. Have you? Sorry, I doubt it.
For a few weeks a year I participate in some events where I get to be fully a musician for the benefit of a community who support the musicians who make the events happen. That’s the way. It’s not about money, just that art takes forever and people gotta eat.
There’s no reason not to be living like that all the time except capitalism says get back to Real Work™.
But… making art is infinite work already!
No wonder a lot of artists and musicians go crazy and end themselves.
Idk what to tell you man, if you’re not growing food or cooking food or doing anything for the people that grow and cook food except be competition for the other art they could enjoy or make, then people probably shouldn’t be giving you money until they can figure out how to organize a society that produces enough food for everyone
Also, you only feel pressured to get incomprehensibly infinite practice because you made it about money. I haven’t practiced piano in forever or directly used my piano skill for any of the music I’ve made, and I’ve never heard any music better than what friends have played for me after mere portions of mere human lifetimes of practice on their instruments, back when I had friends.
If you have friends, no level of virtuosity you reach or money you make should ever be as meaningful as time you’ve spent jamming or even just listening to music with them
I repeat, it’s not about money at all. It’s not about virtuosity either (no chance). Neither is it about competition, fuck that noise. Music is just what I do. It’s not my hobby, it is life, like breathing. That is the artist’s struggle - it’s in you and it’s got to come out. It’s not an optional activity!
Of course I do lots of other things too and have grown food - though not currently, got burned too many times from having to leave rented properties after I set up the garden. I will do more growing for sure.
I spend most of my time alive looking after other people, which also doesn’t help me afford to eat. I cook and clear up most days.
Pro tip: don’t have disabled family members! /s
Exchanging time alive, or art, for money is a fucking scam which we’re deliberately artificially pushed into. We’re not supposed to be able to make it - I’ve given up on anything like that but I still have to make music.
I didn’t mention virtuousity. Practise is just forever, because creativity is practical, in the doing. It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday. Breathing yesterday won’t keep me alive today.
I wish I had time to jam with friends but unfortunately it’s rare. I guess I appreciate it more when it happens.
But it could be every day, alongside growing food and looking after each other in a community. This is legal but effectively impossible under capitalism unless someone is well-off and able-bodied to begin with.
Anyway I sense we’re on the same team and not arguing over much. I’m just a permanently frustrated musician because there could never ever be enough time alive for it. That’s the struggle, and it used to be manageable but increasingly is not. Fascism kils art.
Aye! I’ve grown, foraged, planted, farmed, fermented, brewed, baked, butchered and eaten roadkill, skipped (dumpster dived), mass catered and mass washed up many many times. :-)
It sounds like you’re the kind of person who generally does useful stuff all the time, aside from music, while perhaps not getting paid enough for everything.
And it sounds like you want to economically rely on music as your marketable skill, and it’s core to who you are. People will pay for music, even if they’re irrational for it, it still seems rational for you to want to be one of the musicians they pay. Because you want to focus on music, if I’m understanding correctly?
So you can survive by marketing your other skills, but you try to make money on music and you want the arts to be well funded.
But funding the arts wouldn’t work as a generalist idea because not all artists are the same kind of person as you. Not all actually do useful stuff when they can. Taylor Swift just flies around polluting shit for example.
I see it as a problem that our culture had the idea of music as an economically marketable skill before the idea of ending world hunger. I don’t think our culture should make you feel like relying on that is a viable option. Taylor Swift shouldn’t be so rich. Wealth should be so evenly distributed that your drive to make the world a better place makes it easier for you to earn enough from side jobs and focus on music.
But since that’s not the world we have, it’s understandable that you think the way you do. I don’t judge it.
It sounds like our core disagreement might even boil down to one term - “on the side.” It sounds like you envision doing music with other work on the side, and I envision doing other work with music on the side. It sounds like, if you get rich on music, you’d probably buy a home and start a community garden or do something for the hungry in your community. Then I’d say you’re earning your position with that stuff and the music is on the side, but you and society would say you’re earning your keep with music and that other stuff is on the side, I guess. You don’t envision flying around pointlessly like Taylor Swift, your vision is more like mine, just with different words, maybe.
You keep using the word “useful” in a way that suggests you’ve narrowly defined it in your head to exclude art. Life without art quickly results in a whole lot of death. Even the poorest humans throughout history have created music and art, because it’s a fundamental part of human life. Just because art is less critical to immediate survival in most cases than eating doesn’t make it any less necessary than it; shelter being more or less critical than food in a given situation (deadly sub-zero blizzard, more critical. Temperate area with no dangerous weather or predators, less critical) also doesn’t make it more or less necessary, it’s just a varying order of necessity. Being anti-Capitalist is important, but I feel like you’ve written off “professional” art as the domain of Capitalism rather than another victim of it (which food is as well, for that matter).
No, art is definitely less necessary than eating. Art doesn’t help much if you’re starving to death.
And yeah, poor people can make art. In fact, I don’t think you can be too poor to do art. You can be too poor to eat.
As long as there are people starving, there’s not enough money for food and therefore far from enough money for art (which is supposed to be free anyway, as is food indeed).
Art doesn’t help much if you’re starving to death.
And being well-fed doesn’t help much if you’re contemplating suicide because your life has no joy in it. And art is not the only source of joy, but it is one of them (and one of the most common).
Thing is, it literally takes forever to create art. I’m a musician. How much time do I spend making music? All of it that’s available. One lifetime isn’t enough. Infinite lifetimes wouldn’t be enough - there’s no end to creativity, it’s never done. You can’t just dabble in it for fun - it’s not about fun, though it can be enjoyable. Practising is every day forever.
I don’t care about money at all beyond meeting my basic needs, but there’s no way to support my family from any of my creative activities (which I do sometimes get paid for) under capitalism.
You can’t imagine how much practise is required. I can’t imagine it because it’s impossible to fully comprehend, like trying to tangibly imagine infinity.
Capitalism wants people like me to be the full-time servants of the wealthy. Capitalism and art can’t coexist, not ultimately. You can’t understand this unless you’ve spent your life making art. Have you? Sorry, I doubt it.
For a few weeks a year I participate in some events where I get to be fully a musician for the benefit of a community who support the musicians who make the events happen. That’s the way. It’s not about money, just that art takes forever and people gotta eat.
There’s no reason not to be living like that all the time except capitalism says get back to Real Work™.
But… making art is infinite work already!
No wonder a lot of artists and musicians go crazy and end themselves.
Idk what to tell you man, if you’re not growing food or cooking food or doing anything for the people that grow and cook food except be competition for the other art they could enjoy or make, then people probably shouldn’t be giving you money until they can figure out how to organize a society that produces enough food for everyone
Also, you only feel pressured to get incomprehensibly infinite practice because you made it about money. I haven’t practiced piano in forever or directly used my piano skill for any of the music I’ve made, and I’ve never heard any music better than what friends have played for me after mere portions of mere human lifetimes of practice on their instruments, back when I had friends.
If you have friends, no level of virtuosity you reach or money you make should ever be as meaningful as time you’ve spent jamming or even just listening to music with them
I repeat, it’s not about money at all. It’s not about virtuosity either (no chance). Neither is it about competition, fuck that noise. Music is just what I do. It’s not my hobby, it is life, like breathing. That is the artist’s struggle - it’s in you and it’s got to come out. It’s not an optional activity!
Of course I do lots of other things too and have grown food - though not currently, got burned too many times from having to leave rented properties after I set up the garden. I will do more growing for sure.
I spend most of my time alive looking after other people, which also doesn’t help me afford to eat. I cook and clear up most days.
Pro tip: don’t have disabled family members! /s
Exchanging time alive, or art, for money is a fucking scam which we’re deliberately artificially pushed into. We’re not supposed to be able to make it - I’ve given up on anything like that but I still have to make music.
I didn’t mention virtuousity. Practise is just forever, because creativity is practical, in the doing. It doesn’t matter what happened yesterday. Breathing yesterday won’t keep me alive today.
I wish I had time to jam with friends but unfortunately it’s rare. I guess I appreciate it more when it happens.
But it could be every day, alongside growing food and looking after each other in a community. This is legal but effectively impossible under capitalism unless someone is well-off and able-bodied to begin with.
Anyway I sense we’re on the same team and not arguing over much. I’m just a permanently frustrated musician because there could never ever be enough time alive for it. That’s the struggle, and it used to be manageable but increasingly is not. Fascism kils art.
If you’ve grown food, I have no criticism. Will read the rest of this a little later, just wanted to reply to that part first
Aye! I’ve grown, foraged, planted, farmed, fermented, brewed, baked, butchered and eaten roadkill, skipped (dumpster dived), mass catered and mass washed up many many times. :-)
Edit: But I could always do more of all that!
It sounds like you’re the kind of person who generally does useful stuff all the time, aside from music, while perhaps not getting paid enough for everything.
And it sounds like you want to economically rely on music as your marketable skill, and it’s core to who you are. People will pay for music, even if they’re irrational for it, it still seems rational for you to want to be one of the musicians they pay. Because you want to focus on music, if I’m understanding correctly?
So you can survive by marketing your other skills, but you try to make money on music and you want the arts to be well funded.
But funding the arts wouldn’t work as a generalist idea because not all artists are the same kind of person as you. Not all actually do useful stuff when they can. Taylor Swift just flies around polluting shit for example.
I see it as a problem that our culture had the idea of music as an economically marketable skill before the idea of ending world hunger. I don’t think our culture should make you feel like relying on that is a viable option. Taylor Swift shouldn’t be so rich. Wealth should be so evenly distributed that your drive to make the world a better place makes it easier for you to earn enough from side jobs and focus on music.
But since that’s not the world we have, it’s understandable that you think the way you do. I don’t judge it.
It sounds like our core disagreement might even boil down to one term - “on the side.” It sounds like you envision doing music with other work on the side, and I envision doing other work with music on the side. It sounds like, if you get rich on music, you’d probably buy a home and start a community garden or do something for the hungry in your community. Then I’d say you’re earning your position with that stuff and the music is on the side, but you and society would say you’re earning your keep with music and that other stuff is on the side, I guess. You don’t envision flying around pointlessly like Taylor Swift, your vision is more like mine, just with different words, maybe.
You keep using the word “useful” in a way that suggests you’ve narrowly defined it in your head to exclude art. Life without art quickly results in a whole lot of death. Even the poorest humans throughout history have created music and art, because it’s a fundamental part of human life. Just because art is less critical to immediate survival in most cases than eating doesn’t make it any less necessary than it; shelter being more or less critical than food in a given situation (deadly sub-zero blizzard, more critical. Temperate area with no dangerous weather or predators, less critical) also doesn’t make it more or less necessary, it’s just a varying order of necessity. Being anti-Capitalist is important, but I feel like you’ve written off “professional” art as the domain of Capitalism rather than another victim of it (which food is as well, for that matter).
No, art is definitely less necessary than eating. Art doesn’t help much if you’re starving to death.
And yeah, poor people can make art. In fact, I don’t think you can be too poor to do art. You can be too poor to eat.
As long as there are people starving, there’s not enough money for food and therefore far from enough money for art (which is supposed to be free anyway, as is food indeed).
And being well-fed doesn’t help much if you’re contemplating suicide because your life has no joy in it. And art is not the only source of joy, but it is one of them (and one of the most common).