The Art of Having a Job and Making a Life at the Same Time
The idea of the side hustle is not part of the new normal we've been predicting at the tail of this bizarre yet completely expected pandemic. The side hustle has always been with us. For all the hand-wringing about the evils of capitalism and greed and discriminating practices in the workplace, none of it is new.
Yes, there are some elements of post-COVID society that will seem new. The remote workplace ascendance (long overdue) will stick in the long term. Cities, however, will not die nor will the onsite workplace. The hospitality industry will rebound as it has for centuries following global calamity. The people in control of government are largely the same people who have always been in charge. Nothing new there.
There were always side hustles and ever it shall continue to be.
The desire to make a living with a sense of daily fulfillment and creative issuance has been a clarion call for each generation. The GenZ kids wiping their tear ducts at the concept of having to work a job in order to be able to survive is not specific to them. We of the eighties coming of age wept our own version of those entitled Why can't I just do what I love and the money will come? crying jags. Hell, GenXers still get pantie-twisted over being overlooked as the latchkey kids of the twentieth century.
I've done the starving artist thing. After years grinding away at my art, I realized that my talents and perspective were not up to the meritocracy of popularity. I simply am not skilled enough nor interested in creating the kind of thing that makes a lot of money so I had to work for a living in order to survive.
I did the Work a job and create art in my off-time thing for decades off and on. That path certainly fueled my Art for Art's Sake DNA and helped feed my self-delusion of being an outsider artist while still being able to afford an apartment and a decent pair of shoes. The price of those Sketchers was paid by teaching public school, working retail at a tobacconist, construction work, managing the facilities of a Chicago massage school, directing events for public radio, and managing the largest concert venue in Chicago.
Hell, I even spent some time living in a Bronco II and playing my trumpet on the street to eat.
Here's a clue to survival as an artist in a world that only rewards art with cash when there is more cash for the world: know what your art is and, more importantly, what it is not.
Back in those days at public radio, one of my co-workers who also created amazing sketch comedy on the side, grabbed me.
"Don, you're the resident "Art for Art's Sake" asshole around here (see?) so I have a question for you. My sketch group was just offered a ton of money to create a series of shows for a major beer distributor. We were thrilled until we found out they didn't want us to actually write the stuff. They want to oversee all the content and pass us scripts that promote their stuff and call it our stuff. Then we perform it for the paycheck. Get the picture?"
"I do."
"I'm betting you'll say we're hacks if we take the money."
"What's the question?"
"Do you think we should walk away from the dough and keep our integrity?"
I sighed. "Hypothetically, let's say a guy in a $10,000 suit comes into the newsroom right now. He looks around and decides to offer me $50,000 to suck his cock in front of everyone. Well, I could use $50K. That's almost a year's salary for working here. I could use that sort of immediate cash.
You're correct. I'm am the Ars Gratia Artis fuckhole around here but I'd still grab a few mints, walk over to the guy, drop to my knees and give him a hummer that Celtic women would sing songs of legendary praise for generations to come. I'd hum a playlist of anything he wanted to hear while popping his cork. Hell, for an additional $20,000 I'd swallow.
I'd take the money. But I would not fool myself into calling it my art.
I think the question you should be asking is would I then, having taken the dirty lucre for an inappropriate sex act in the workplace, then start to seek out more cocksucking jobs instead of continuing to work here. I mean, the money was relatively easy. If I did it right, he'd nut within minutes and that makes it a lucrative gig, yes?
The answer to that question is a resounding no. Do it once, acknowledge it isn't my art, take the cash and move on and I'm fine. Start to seek it out and eventually the act becomes my art and the art I feel so passionate about has been transformed into a simple pay-for-play scheme."
If you’ve been doing Life right you’ve developed some skills. The cat who succeeds out of the gate and then fails is less wise than the one who fails five times and only then succeeds. With those failures come skills. Some of those skills (likely the less free-spirited ones) people will pay you money to use. Others (the fun ones) few will bother paying for. The balance is in figuring out how to use the boring skills to pay for the privilege (yes, it’s a fucking privilege to get to fly, my friends) of using the exciting skills for creation.
There are three perspectives one must shift in order to achieve this balance.
First, lose the need to blame others for the obstacles you face. Finding people and systems to blame for your failure takes up all the gas in your tank and prevents you from that essential learning from mistakes needed to build up skill. How can you learn from a failure if every failure is the fault of someone else? Assume responsibility for yourself and your choices (even if they’re limited, they’re still choices you made or avoided).
If your missteps are the fault of others, your successes are not yours, either.
Second, accept less. Accept enough rather than more. When your pursuit is for experience rather than wealth, you will always be living a life of opulence. Once you have experience, there is no bankruptcy that can drain that account. This is not a call to be a fucking hippie, a minimalist asshole living in a yurt in the desert, a Nomadland wannabe scavenging from the bounty of the CVS dumpster. Nothing wrong with those choices but this is not that.
Accepting less is a redefining of what success means. The richest fucker on Planet Money is no better or more fulfilled than the guy who has enough. Enough to eat every day, pay a few bills, save a little bit for later, and have time for a long walk or a stiff drink.
Third, the job that requires the boring skills? It is a means to an end. That job is not the definer of who you are or who you can be nor is it a millstone around your neck, preventing you from the fame and fortune you so richly deserve. Lose the ego, do the job, take the money, and embrace the rest of your time as an opportunity to use those unmarketable but creative skills to make things that wouldn’t exist without you. It’s just a gig.
Do it well because your ability to do solid work for legit pay reflects upon your character even if you’re wiping down toilets in a gas station. If the gig doesn’t pay you enough, find another one. If you grow to despise your boss, move on.
Just remember, that gig you do strictly for money is not your art.
Your art is the other thing.
