Who would I be then?

In another lifetime, I see myself as a true artist. Now, the definition of “true” and “artist” is probably, definitely, subjective to most, objective to a select few. What I mean by true is someone who has surrendered all else that this current life has demanded from them, a corporate job, and a 9-5 salaried income, someone who has escaped from the claws of our capitalistic culture, pursuing their passion that does not follow a traditional career path, what is expected of them. What I mean by artist is someone who lives and breathes their work, their aesthetics ingrained into their everyday life, constant ink-stained hands or pieces of clothing always marked by paint splatters, everything in their life a reflection of their creative endeavours. But most importantly, what I mean by a true artist is someone who is happy doing what they do, an untainted pursuit of art as their livelihood, the ability to sustain themselves solely through their art. In another lifetime, that is who I am. 

I can also see myself as a news reporter, an animator, a veterinarian, a scientist, and an architect. There are infinite alternate timelines where the career path I veered down is not the one I am on today. Maybe in one, I am an artist, but not a successful one, a starving artist, struggling to make ends meet, but stubborn in the fact that I refuse to pursue anything else other than what I love. Maybe in another, I am the head of a conglomerate, rich and brimming with power, having released myself of all artistic practices, even those I kept around as hobbies just to have a solitary creative outlet, diverting my devotion from writing into a forced ambition for something else. Something to do with numbers, most likely. I can not tell if I resent these other versions of me, whichever one you pull from a hat, whichever life I ended up choosing. Some days, I am content with the timeline that I exist in; other days, I am envious of all that I could have become. 

I don’t have any career ambitions. It’s a bitter truth that tastes sour when I hear it leaving my mouth. It’s a loaded sentiment, filled with implications of failure, of lack of self-discipline, of listlessness, and of being lost in life. The lifetime that this version of me has landed in tends to feel like a mediocre one. I fall in the middle between a starving artist and the extensive success I could have achieved. I have not failed in life, not even close to it, but I do not feel I have lived an exceptionally triumphant life, specifically with my career. Ever since I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a creative. I threw myself into drawing and writing, feeling most like myself with a blank piece of paper and a pencil in my hand. I could create something out of nothing, and there was no more powerful feeling than that. Since I was a child, I have pulled pieces of myself, from myself, leaving it all on the paper, on the canvas, on the document. I was not shy to share my art; I yearned for feedback, for praise, for visibility, for success. Only when I grew up did I know that what I had grown to love was all that it would be: something that I could only love. Realistically, statistically, honestly, there was no career there. There was no stability in writing for the rest of my life, not something that would put food on the table and pay my rent. So I learned to accept that writing would be something only for me, something that no one else would see, something that I began to keep private. 

I am quite good with numbers, that is, if I apply myself. I am horrendous at science. I chose a business career, marketing specifically. It wasn’t difficult to find a cross-section of creativity and stability, stability as in a traditional career path, traditional as in something that wouldn’t make my parents frown every time we talked about my future financial freedom. Marketing was a major I hoped would allow me to flex my creative muscle, to build on my writing skills, while also being able to make a livable income. In theory, it seemed like a pretty great solution to me, to seventeen-year-old me, about to graduate high school, seventeen-year old me about to make a decision that would most likely determine the course for the rest of my life. In reality, it has come to be the blandest, most grey and neutral decision I probably made. My passion for creative writing, for flowery prose and poetic language does not quite translate into email marketing, into corporate language, and the speak of B2B tech companies. Sure, my role in marketing requires writing. A lot. But it’s writing in a box, writing with rules and structure and limitations, not writing with no bounds, not writing with freedom and the space to breathe. It is more numbers, more critiques, more of this, less of that. And the punchline? My salary is quite laughable. 

I know that money isn’t everything. But in our capitalistic, hungry world, money means a lot. So it is quite ironic that I have found myself in the timeline where I am not quite a starving artist, but I am not living lavishly either. Don’t get me wrong, I am still extremely fortunate, and I am not disregarding the privilege of having a full-time job, of living in a great city, and being able to afford my lifestyle. But I can’t help but wonder if this is a sacrifice most creatives have to make in this day and age. I would love to become a published author one day, but even having my name in print doesn’t guarantee me financial stability. It would be a personal achievement that could amount to nothing physically. Corporations need us to be a cog in the machine, to generate revenue, to reduce costs, to maximize profits, to increase sales, to do everything in our power to help them succeed, even if it’s at the detriment of our health and well-being. Is that really the society we live in now? I am not power hungry, nor am I money hungry, but will I survive if I don’t have even an inkling of that mindset? 

I wish for a world where everyone can do what they love without the worries of having enough to pay their bills or buy groceries. I do not love my job, but I will have to continue down this path in order to sustain the life that I want to live. I don’t hate my job, but there are many other things I would rather be doing. I don’t regret the decisions that led me here, but I do wonder a lot about what my life would look like if I chose differently, if I were able to translate my prowess with math into a love for it, if I chose a different program to study, if I did not choose to stay in Boston. I wonder if I made writing my career, would I lose my adoration for it? Would it become a chore for me, rather than a passion that I willingly choose to do? There are versions of me who did choose differently, and though it is not in my purview to know and understand these versions of me, I’m not sure nothing will ever appease my curiosities, my yearning, my bitterness, my remorse, for what could have been.