I think most mildly overestimate how much free time I actually have to explore anything creative. I see a lot of creatives constantly posting things online, and I fail to understand how they do it.
A lot of them don't have kids, mind you, which makes a lot of difference, but most seem to simply have the freedom and resources to go out and accomplish something whenever they want, with a list of willing participants at their beck and call, like they don't have bills to pay or any responibilities. For me it has always been one or the other: either I have a decent income but no time; or I have all the time in the world but no money; and this requires money, if not to pay models for their abilities, which is a solid investment for those who understand, but to even go places: gas, entrance fees, food, film...et cetera.
Maybe the average person is just better at managing everything than I am, which I always assumed, and is always why I searched for people to manage my brain and my time. A lot of creatives live in that magical, Narnia-esque world where people actually pay them to shoot places and people and products. I obviously don't have any accounts, and even fewer individuals supporting me. I'm just a guy with a camera, though not a "GWC", or maybe I am. This has all gotten overwhelmingly depressing.
Now I'm looking at making an investment to make my film work relevant again, but on a practical level I'm staring blankly at the wall wondering what the point of it all is? The internet is saturated with art that is clearly far more important than mine, so why do I keep doing this?
This is naturally the age old creative conundrum, but as my work tapers off more and more, and I have less time and energy to do what I love, I can feel my dreams slipping off into oblivion. I remember my father teaching me how to play something on the guitar when I was a kid, and I, seeing music as an ideal in life and recognizing how much better he was at it than I was, asked him why he didn't pursue music; why didn't he chase his dreams?
He said that at some point you become too busy with life, and paying bills, and dealing with children, so your dreams get set on the shelf... until your wife throws them away because they are just taking up space in the garage. That is referencing my mother, who at some point threw my father's creative collection away, deeming it unimportant, only to leave him later because she deemed him not good enough. My wife supports my work as much as she practically can, but the relevance of it all has come up on a number of occasions, and I often feel like my creative hands are tied.
This is by no fault of hers; it's just life; which I now understand was my father explaining to me that at some point you grow up. I swore I would never abandon my dreams, though. I am obviously not the character I wrote for myself as a child, and I have abandoned music and acting even though I excelled at them, but even this one little thing that I decided to hold on to is slowly fading, "back to the futureing," to quote the latest lego movie... don't even get me started on the last time I watched a good, real, adult film, that I always relied on to rip my aching heart out and show it to me.
For years I have been writing about the creative struggle, generally wrapping my drivel up with something along the lines of "we just keep going," but it is certainly draining to be here: juggling two kids, with one's school and activities, my big job, my wife's supplemental multiple jobs... you quickly go from doing something creative, to thinking about doing something creative... talking to people about shooting, to thinking about talking to people about shooting...
... until you realize that you're just rushing home from work most days to make sure your wife can get to her job on time, and your day off together ends up getting cluttered up with things you need to get done.
Life: the delicate balance of working your ass off to break even, and letting go of the things you love in learning to love things that benefit the ones you love...
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