The Conversion of Bob part 3

 

A conversation about Picasso and Millionaires

Recently I was working with two other artists at a company event and in the time we had before work started, we were talking amongst ourselves and one of them said of himself “a man of my talent should be a millionaire by now.”  

He also said, “if Pablo Picasso made a fortune with the junk he put out then why can't I?”

Overlooking his negativity he actually presented a good question because I’m not a big fan of Picasso, either. Most of the modern artists who are successful really don't produce any particularly beautiful works of art that I would consider masterpieces, worthy of the price tags.

The not-so-secret truth about failing 

Well, my fellow artist and I agreed as far as Picasso is concerned but that leads to another question; why do some artists succeed and others do not? Then, while in that conversation (I’m reluctant to call it a “conversation” because he was doing all of the talking) it occurred to me how negative he was being, and I slowly began to realize something else. Most of the artists with whom I associate at such events are unmistakably pessimistic. Granted, there is always healthy amounts of sarcasm among creative people by nature, but those with whom I work are downright negative.

The not-so secret truth about success

At the same event, after work began, there was a gentleman I was drawing, and he was genuinely captivated in what I was doing and was asking uncommonly intelligent questions about my trade. Not the usual rote, elementary inquiries such as, “do you like what you’re doing?” and “how long have you been drawing?” As it turned out he too liked to draw and was indisputably interested in my experience. He asked me, “do you see something that most people don't look for?” and “do you have a predisposition to noticing hidden values?”

I could’ve told him that there is a distinctive, esoteric quality that separates an artist from normal people but to me that would be exceptionally presuming. Not being a naturally pretentious person, I simply said “it just takes practice like with anything else.”

Of course, the question invariably came up about how I discovered caricature drawing to be a profitable venture which led to my brief story about how for most of my adult life I was unaware of the possibility that I could earn money by doing it and how my upbringing was such that I was told I needed to get a job because I couldn't make a living as an artist.

Don't interrupt me while I'm ignoring you

Before I made my point with the man, another artist with who was working alongside me, overheard our conversation and interrupted. He was supporting the idea that a caricature artist cannot earn a living (a decent one anyway). Not only did I find his comments a little undermining to the experience I was trying to convey to my customer, but as a fellow artist I would expect a little more respect for his own profession.

I, on the other hand, when allowed to complete my thought (my constituent’s unsought input notwithstanding) told the gentleman they were wrong; one certainly can make a living as an artist.

They set the bar

So why the negativity? Why are my contemporaries sold on the idea that they will not succeed? Why do they think that this is not an industry by which one can’t make a decent living? I cannot say with any authority why they believe it, but I know everything originates with one’s belief system, does it not? If one believes he can't succeed he's right. Of course, it isn't necessary to reach the same level of success attained by Disney or Schultz or even by Tom Richmond for one to be considered successful. (If you don't know who Tom Richmond is look him up) In the context of the conversation I was having yesterday, success can be defined as earning a decent living and one doesn’t have to be the richest artist in the country to do that.

Lampooning hall of fame

Granted if one relies 100% on being hired for "gigs" just to sustain themselves, of course their means will always fall short of their vision, way short. I know this from my own experience. I am certain this is what they have come to rely on and hope for, but I’m sure Tom Richmond, a very successful caricature artist, doesn't think that way. Disney and Schultz didn't either and neither do Matt Groenig, Seth McFarland, George Williams, and Adam Brown. But one thing is certain. Scale is what sends a person from a meager income to better income. Not just that but diversification and several applications of their skill. Also, targeted application. Negative thinking is poison to these possibilities.

Hall of shame

Which group do I belong to? What do I want to do? Certainly, taking lessons from my constituents, I don't want to be negative or pessimistic, and it isn't just the two artists I worked with that particular weekend. Others with whom I work also do much complaining and negative assessing. Another artist I’m familiar with likes to gripe about customers and the agencies that hire him. Another is averse to different ways of doing things. He is critical his fellow artists and has a negative opinion of the latest technology that makes the job more interesting, easier and more in demand.

The theme among these brands of artists seems to be one of extreme conservatism; keep things the way they are without change and in a way that is most familiar to them because that's how they’ve done it for a long time and they've become complacent in their comfort.

Another day another dollar

Do I also do that? To them, success is simply paying the bills, and I understand how important that is but if I were to open my mind about it, especially being self-employed for so long, I know success isn't simply paying the bills unless that is all that is important to me.

Have a plan

My solution, as I see it, is to diversify my talent by not only working at events, but ones I book independently and not through an agency and teaching the art of caricature to others. For now, those are my two primary objectives.

Also, in addition to the above, once those two objectives are satisfactorily completed by obtaining events and classes with relative ease, then I will focus on publishing and selling books and merchandise that support those endeavors.

Here's a match. Now burn those bridges!

These ambitions do not get realized by grouping myself with my fellow glum artists whose only hope is to pay their bills while waiting for the next gig. In fact, how wonderful it would have been at the event I mentioned, in my conversation with the customer who showed interest, to offer him a book, written by me, explaining everything he wanted to know. It would have been like Kevin O'Leary says, “throwing gasoline on the fire”. That's another reason for urgently wanting to complete my workbook because it will contain plenty of stories and experiences about my life as an artist and how those experiences can help other aspiring artists learn to be successful by becoming a tad familiar with the landscape.

The possibilities of moving on from my friends’ insistence that he should be a millionaire because Picasso was, and how one cannot earn a decent living as an artist and success is in simply paying the bills is in all those explanations I just mentioned. I just want to remove myself from their kinship.

Are You Sitting on a Nail?

The hound that was sitting on a nail

There is a story about an old hound dog that sat on the porch all day and periodically would let out a lengthy, mournful howl. This would last all day until one day a neighbor asked the dog's owner why he displayed such peculiar behavior.

"It’s because he's sitting on a nail", said the owner.

"Well," returned the neighbor, "why doesn't he move?"

"Because he's too lazy." Said the owner. "He prefers the pain of the nail to the effort of finding another spot."

Did you ever have one of those conversations?

Not long ago, I was discussing with some friends a phenomenon that involved the improvement of one’s life and why, when someone is given verified information that can improve one’s life, whether it be personal or business, the information isn’t often utilized? It’s as if someone tells you that a large suitcase full of neatly stacked hundred-dollar bills is waiting in a locker at the downtown bus station and it can be yours. You’re handed the key to the locker and told the only condition is you must pick it up today by 4pm because it won’t be there after that time.  

Any reasonable person would drop what he’s doing and retrieve the suitcase, toot-sweet, but so often, excuses are made.

“But the trip downtown at lunchtime is murder.”

“I have a phone conference I can’t miss.”

“Gas is so expensive, and if I go all the way downtown it’ll blow my fuel budget for the week.”

“It’s dangerous at the bus station. What if I’m robbed?”

This story is somewhat of a parable, but like all parables, it is rooted in real conditions. I went away from my conversation with my friends consumed with that question, only I personalized it.

When I’m given good information that will change my life for the better, why don’t I pursue it?

An "ahha" moment

 I thought of very little else for the rest of the day knowing how vexed I was with the very conditions we discussed. Almost immediately, I realized it when, on the way home, I stopped off at the grocery store to get a couple of things and I spent a few extra seconds in the car ensuring I had my wallet because it held my bank card and Kroger card, both of which I use to pay for my things. Suddenly it hit me; I don’t need my wallet at all because I have a digital wallet on my phone and it has the same information as my physical cards, even the Kroger card. So why was it important to me to find my wallet? Really, the only thing my physical wallet is good for is a place to put my driver’s license and what little cash I have. But even after coming to that conclusion, I still took my wallet with me and paid with my physical bank card. Why?

I gotta know

I wanted to know! I was convinced it’s because of real mental conditions. I also wanted to know because, if for no other reason, I, myself, want to change.

I found out that our tendency, everyone included, is to fail to adopt confirmed improvements due to psychological, emotional and mental factors that prioritize immediate comfort over long-term gain. In other words, we don’t want to leave our comfort zone. We’re happy there. We’re familiar with it. It’s predictable. It’s safe.

I discovered there are fancy names for the very conditions I’m addressing:

·         Present Bias

·         Cognitive Dissonance

·         Fear and Identity Protection

·         Learned Helplessness

·         Emotional attachment to habits

·         Misconception of effort

Most of these can be grouped together and explained in the earlier story about the hound dog sitting on a nail; we prefer the pain over the effort and inconvenience to moving to a different part of the porch, even at our own detriment. 

·         We tend to overvalue present comfort and undervalue future change.

·         We tend to ignore evidence to avoid changing our belief system.

·         Deep-seated beliefs are linked to self-identity and social groups.

·         A person may believe they can’t adopt new habits leading to feelings of helplessness. This is also known as learned helplessness and was coined by Martin Seligman.

·         People may stick to false propositions because they’re comfortable or familiar.

·         The immediate cost of change is mentally overshadowed by future gain.

Our brains prefer the path of least resistance. We prefer watching videos to reading books because it’s easier. It’s easier to have a Popeye’s chicken sandwich than cook our own meals. It’s easier to take a nap than go for a walk.

On a deeper, personal level, it was somehow more comfortable for me to pay for groceries with a card, than my phone. In this case the results weren't so consequential, but it is a small example of my unwillingness (at the time) to adopt a new habit because I'm comfortable with the old. I wonder what else I'm undervaluing. 

 

 

Brainless

 There is a saying that says, "Empty your mind, pick up a pencil and draw" and the purpose of this is tactical in nature in the sense that one must focus on the task at hand and to remove as best one can, of all outside distractions (there are many). This also applies to anything a person does that involves their intentional focus, not just drawing, although it is a principle I teach art students. 

Like I said, this rule applies to many things but the spirit behind it involves activity, not passive mindlessness.

• Watching TV
• Doom-scrolling
• Social media
• Gossiping
• excessive phone use

I was listening to an interview about how devices and A.I. are doing things for us that we used to have to do for ourselves and the interviewee thought how great it is to have it because it gives him less to think about but immediately after he said it, I recognized that something in that remark didn't quite jibe well with me. 

"It Gives Me Less to Think About"

Isn't thinking what sets humans apart from animals? The greatest works of humankind begins by thinking to solve problems or to be creative. 

• The polio vaccine
• the four minute mile
• The abolition of slavery
• Landing on the moon
• The Sistine Chapel
• The horseless carriage
• Notre Dame Cathedral
• Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3

All originated in the human mind as an independent, free thought, an idea originating in the gray matter of the human mind and not in an electronic device. 

The goals of the forces of evil is to get people to empty their minds so the void can be filled with less than valuable things. 

"Let the robot do it"

That's why, knowing full well A.I. can do my work for me and probably make it way better, aesthetically speaking, than I will ever be able to do, I will only do it myself. Most of the time I won't even check it using A.I. and it's not because I'm a stubborn, crotchety old man who doesn't like new-fangled gadgets. It's because I like the way I do it, mistakes and all. How much value would Leonardo's Mona Lisa possess if it was done by Grok?

I've drawn some things and someone would say to me "Let's see what A.I. can do with it!" My immediate response is a decisive "no". Why would I want to see what a robot can do to my creation? 

Along those same lines, there is an argument about the ethics of using things like the self-checkout lanes at the grocery stores and most of the people that vow they will never use them, because they want to "support the employees", are the same people who  gladly use ATM machines to do bank transactions instead of going inside the bank to let a person do it. These are also the same people who would let Chat GPT create an illustration for them instead of employing a person to do it. Better still, these people will let A.I. write a book, illustrate it and design the cover and then they say, "I wrote this book".

Changing the World in 8 Days

What am I spending time on?

I read a book early last year and it wasn't the best book I've read, but it had good information and recently, I went to look for it on my bookshelf, but to my surprise, I couldn't find it. I thought to myself, 

I know it was no treasure, but I couldn't have donated it to a thrift store already, could I have? 

It was a newer book, and I didn’t dislike it so I began to search for it with no luck when I had the brilliant idea of cataloging all my books so I could easily check to see if a particular book was still in my possession without turning my house upside-down. So, during the course of trying to get a foothold on this new year’s objectives, I was distracted when I began searching for a book I thought was in my collection.

 I have my daily tasks all laid out which will take time to complete, and for the last couple of days I have been cataloging all the books I own. So, instead of tending to my daily non-negotiables, I'm spending time recording every book in the house! It reminds of the story Zig Ziglar talked about when a guy he once met told him he had memorized every name of every county in every state in America. Ziglar thought it was an extraordinary claim so what else could he do? He asked him to prove it and sure enough, the man did it.

 Ziglar thought it an amazing mental achievement, but he said to himself, why spend so much time, mental capacity and energy on such a useless endeavor? What possible good could come out of knowing the name of every county in America? Wasn't there something he could spend his time on that would be more beneficial?

 That’s what I'm asking myself. I just spent lots of time cataloging all my books and for what? Couldn’t I have better spent my time on something else, something more beneficial related to my process of getting better results?

 It's that damned Marine mentality, again, that was tattooed in my psyche all those years ago. We were always expected to achieve immediate and consequential results, without exception and without excuses. I still hear that drill instructor in my ear.

Grace Please

However, there is another side to that coin, one that is a little more merciful and gracious to me.

  It's very early in the year, just a little more than a week into it and here I am already berating myself for neither meeting all my objectives I've set nor being awarded my rightful Pulitzer Prize for writing.

 I'm going to have to give myself some time, especially since some of the particulars of my daily non-negotiables are new to me.

 The fact is I can't change the world in 8 days. It may take a little more time.

Merry Christmas to me?

 

Part of my job is to be at company Christmas parties not as an employee, but as part of the entertainment. In case you're not aware, I draw caricatures of the employees.

 I must admit that some of these revelries are quite impressive as a result of the deep pockets of the corporation and sometimes I feel not only out of place but it’s as though I walked onto a set of a Hollywood production like The Godfather or The Great Gatsby because of the opulence and elegance of the venue.

I also have a confession. I sometimes feel envious of the attending underlings because they are having so much fun and they partake of the outstanding dinners prepared by first class chefs (I snuck a bite of some boiled crab and it made my toes curl) and receive the gifts and bonuses from their company.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a firm advocate of running self-employment but I sometimes would like just a taste of the other side. When I have those inclinations, it’s usually only for the duration of the event and I can focus on my own, again, afterwards.

Then I’d  begin thinking about it. There have been times in days past when I was part of a company that did Christmas parties. Certainly, they may not have been as posh as the ones described above but they were very nice indeed, but what was the ultimate price I paid for the privilege?

I might save the long answer for another time but, in short, I lost control of my future, my personal goals, my hopes for the future. The parties were forgotten about the next day, and the Christmas bonuses are long gone. In fact, when my apparent usefulness to the companies was through, I was tossed aside and coldly left without a means of income without regard to my needs or the needs of my family. Some party, huh?

So, as a quick reminder to myself, I earn more money in the two or three hours of drawings that I’m providing for the company that hired my services than I used to make all week as an employee and for the privilege of attending their Christmas party.

No thank you.

 

 

A Most Unforgettable Christmas

It's customary for stateside military personnel to take furlough during Christmas week to visit their families back home and as a young U.S. Marine, when not deployed, I too would follow that convention, but not always.

This part was the same

Military furlough is not unlike the traditional vacation time of any civilian job in that one gains more leave days the longer they’re in and it was typical for us to gather and save as much furlough in order to ensure we had time off during the holidays and I was no different.

This Part was different, though.

But it was a long time ago, when one year, I and some friends stationed at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, decided to forgo furlough that year during Christmastime and remain there on the base and take our leave, later, when everyone else returned, usually after New Year’s Day.

Left Behind

There were about four of us, and we watched what seemed to be the entire population of Marines at Camp Lejeune depart for home. Lejeune was a ghost town as we were the only four out of the entire battalion to remain there and we practically had the whole base to ourselves. I’ve often wondered what would happen if the country was attacked during Christmas because there would be no military to defend the country.

During that quiet week, we still had to report in uniform every morning to the officer on duty but afterwards we were on our own. No training, no formations, no duties, no physical training, no inspections, and no watches other than the occasional guard duty but it was a small price to pay, and I must admit it was one of the most unforgettable, and fun, Christmases I ever had.

Say "hello" to our friend, Jim

We spent the week with a case of Jim Beam, going into Jacksonville at night to paint the town red, taking a couple of days to go fishing at nearby Catfish Lake and since we ate most of our meals at the chow hall, we didn’t spend any money on eating out. We also had no cars and our transportation to and from town was by bus, so we had no worries about driving conditions.

It was a great bonding experience for the four of us who still keep in touch to this day.

When the holiday was over, and everyone else reported back for duty, the four of us put in our leave requests as planned and off we went to celebrate a new year, not at home, but in Montana, which was another unforgettable experience, but that’s another story.

 

I Almost Joined

We landed at the San Diego airport in the middle of the night and went to the designated area reserved for Marine recruits and waited. I was part of a group of about 25 other recruits, still in our civilian attire and we still had our hair.

Eventually a Marine Staff Sergeant, built like he was chiseled as Greek statue, came from out of the dark, accompanied by a slim corporal, walked decidedly over to a waiting podium, and firmly placed paperwork on it.

The corporal said to us, "Form two single file lines in front of the staff sergeant's podium."

We all then groped our way toward the podium, not knowing what was coming next. The square jawed staff Sergeant looked up and said with authority, "When you hear your name you will answer 'here', and from now on, your first and last words will be 'sir'."

He looked at his list and began calling role, "Anderson". We all heard the recruit respond with a low and careless "here", and at that, the staff Sergeant looked up in shock and yelled, "You don't listen well do you! Did I not just say the first and last word out of that filthy suck of yours will be 'sir'!" 

My eyes grew wide.

He continued, "Get the shit out of your ears and listen up! ANDERSON!" This time the recruit answered, with the standard "Sir, here, sir!"

I began some alarming self-talk, saying to myself, "Oh, my god, here I am in the middle of a strange airport in the middle of the night, and this Marine is yelling and cussing at this guy! What have I done? Is it too late to change my mind? Why do I keep doing this to myself?"

Needless to say, it was too late, and it was the first encounter of the adventure of a lifetime. I was to go on to see, and experience amazing things over the next several years. I established bonds with other Marines that still exist today, after all these years. Nothing I do, nothing I say, nothing I think, isn’t somehow tainted with Marine green.

The experience was unique and the only ones who can relate to it are actually not veterans in general, nor even, most of the time, other Marines, but rather the very Marines who actually went through it all alongside me. 

I am rather guarded on the subject because many people often say things like, "I almost joined the Marines" or "My uncle was in the Marines so it's like I was a Marine too." And then there is always the ones who think they understand the life of Marines because, "I read how tough it is, so I understand"

No, they don't understand, and there is no way they could, no matter how many stories they hear from relatives, or videos they watch, or books they read. It's like me trying to understand what it's like to go through childbirth; I can listen to my wife, and other women can tell me what it's like, and I can read about it, or hear about it, but I never gone through it. I can listen politely but understanding what it's like is not within my capabilities.

We had a phrase when I was in, "If you ain't been there, shut the fuck up". This was a simple and frank way of saying if someone hasn't done what they're talking about, then they don't know what they're talking about.  

I can't count the number of times over the years the people who have never been in, ceaselessly blather on to me about what they think they know. Not only do I find them a total bore but it's also highly offensive to me. Who are they to tell me what it's like?

If you're in business for yourself, how often have you heard someone tell you how to run your business, who themselves aren't in business and have never been in business?

"If I was in business", I've heard them say, "I'd run it this way, or that way." When I've heard this phrase over all the years in which I've worked for myself, I would have liked to have answered, "If you ain't been there...." as they proceed to their warehouse job or cubicle, underpaid, underwhelmed, and complaining.

Don't most of us self-employed, instead, just smile politely and say little in response?