I feel like I've followed a script my entire life. My parents were divorced and then my father died when I was young. Lots of confusion growing up, loneliness, depression. Somehow I got out of it, but I feel like I've never really taken the choices that I want to take. Maybe my mother didn't have enough money to provide what I wanted or needed, and sometimes I was too weak and unwilling to take what I wanted.Right now, my choices have led me to a cozy corpo job that requires minimal effort but maximum hours. I'm honestly very burned out, I've saved enough money to live well like about a year. Even though everyone around me thinks I'm crazy, I want to quit to try and make a comic. I want to do art and express so many things. But it means isolating, creating a new identity, living the kind of life I've always wanted.Can anyone offer some advice? I feel like a stranger to family and friends. I feel like I could very well end up under a bridge at some point but I literally can't go on. I want to nuke my life and start a new one.
>>34400504I relate to this problem a lot. You definitely need to keep some means to support yourself open, but if you cannot be happy where you are, it's better to take the plunge while you can. If you're really set on making comics/art in particular, try to form a semi-viable plan for marketability; you need to pander a bit and make compromises to be successful as a creator, but if the passion and skill behind it are real, you can survive.
What do you mean maximum hours, like it's literally impossible to have a job and make a comic at the same time? I think a lot of the people making comics also have jobs. It's a mistake to think you can only do one thing at a time in life."I would get in shape but I'm so tired after work.""I would learn French but I need to be immersed in the culture."Mental defenses to protect the ego and prevent change. You've presented your choices as 'start new life' or 'continue current life', but I really don't really believe it needs to be a binary choice like that. Have you tried starting your comic yet?
>>34400576There are some jobs where you are simply so drained at the end of the day that it hurts as an artist to see how contrived and lifeless your work is. Art isn't something that can always survive the doldrums.
>>34400593Sounds like a mental defense to me. Those are all abstractions: "drained" "contrived and lifeless". What do you actually do at this job and how much time away from it do you have? You have days off right? And if it is a 10 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week job then maybe art isn't for you, such is our lot in life.What gave us this idea that "art" is more noble and gives us more purpose than doing other things? Oh yeah we got that idea by consuming art, from other artists.And what's so inspiring about not having a job? If you think having a tedious job is the doldrums, wait til you try unemployment brother.
>>34400624I'm not OP.... But having worked physically demanding jobs before (think Amazon warehouse), that was my experience, until moving onto better employment opportunities. You'll never feel more artistically inspired as when you're unemployed and on the verge of destitution, tho.
>>34400504Forget your parents' divorce or your mother's poverty and all that. Success in life comes from playing the cards you were dealt, not blaming the dealer.And success is not always measured in money
>>34400671Okay I won't tell you you're wrong about your own experience anymore. My point though is, framing things as an 'either/or' choice (as OP was doing) can end up psychologically preventing you from doing anything.Look at how OP described themselves, with the backstory and everything. They seem generally depressed, and it sounds like they have positioned 'making a comic' as the thing that will turn it all around. Do you believe that will cure their depression? They want to "express so many things", but they need to isolate to do so.If you accept the premise of 'OP cannot make a comic unless they start a whole new life', then that becomes the focus and source of discontent. And in the meantime the comic does not get made.
>>34400504The risk is great. The decision, of course, is yours.
>>34400504https://podscripts.co/podcasts/the-knowledge-project-with-shane-parrish/70-scott-adams-avoiding-loserthinkHere's a podcast where Scott Adams the dilbert guy explains how he went from working in a bank to working as a cartoonist
>>34400576I see your point, and I'm 'involved' at the very least, I draw, I paint, I'm writing a fanzine at the moment. Truth be told maybe I could 'start', but I also feel like I want to take art seriously, and I really hate giving my employeer the best hours of the day. I usually do excel spreadsheets, sales reports, emails, six days a week, 9-6 with extra responsibilities outside of work. I'm very burnt out, and it's gotten to the point where friends, family, or drugs don't make me feel better. To be honest I only feel like I can 'start' because I'm starting to have money too. I don't even have a good chair or a desk, and some of my best materials I've bought this last year.Honestly I should've mentioned I'm a third worlder probably
