I'm Not a Tree

 

Why do I do my own cooking, grind my own coffee beans and bake my own bread? Why do I have a business of my own and write my own books? It has something to do with creating my own environment; one that I can not only have better control of but also one that suits me better than others can. I don’t want to live in someone else’s realm. I want to live in my own.

I was created in God’s image, in his likeness and God is creative and orderly. He has given me the ability to be the same, and it’s already in me, in my possession. I don’t have to ask for it.

When I was young, everything was new to me, and I savored the uniqueness of everything. Life was a learning experience, fresh and original but as I aged, I noticed how new things slowly began to grow further and further apart. I began hearing the same stories repeated like so many re-runs of old TV programs. There's nothing new under the sun and often people also tend to repeat common knowledge as if it’s new information.

As time goes by, it’s not unusual for adults to grow complacent and even depressed from being bored from many days being a duplicate of the day before. Being in business for myself allows me to learn new things about earning money I would not have otherwise known. Someone also said, in fact I think it was me, “when I want to read a good book, I’ll write one”, so the same goes for the learning experience of drawing and writing which are a never ending learning experience.

I’ve also been known to say, “my favorite food is my own”. Learning to cook delicious food is also a learning experience as well as the proper grind of coffee beans for certain applications and the different flavors of coffee from around the world.

I make my own bread because it not only is superior to what the supermarkets and giant bakeries churn out but for how therapeutic it can be. It takes patience and experience to learn how to make the perfect loaf of bread. I love making plum pudding and it’s become a Christmas tradition for my family.

Jeffery Gitomer’s book, The Little Red Book of Selling, and in many other books, as well as some of the world’s greatest minds, touts creating an environment conducive to my life’s objectives and intentions. If I don’t like the way things are then I can change it. I can change where I live, who my friends are, my job, my attitude, my philosophy and my health, my relationships. As I age it becomes more important to me.

The Professional Loafer

 

                          

They say if you chase two rabbits, you'll lose both. It's also been said to do one thing and do it better than anybody. There is also the school of thought that the best way to earn money is by diversified income and to do more than one thing. So, who's right? 

Is it possible to do one main thing and have side gigs like a job or is it recommended to has just one thing but use it in different ways?

My late mentor once said we must answer "yes" to three things to have true success at anything:

1. Can you make money doing it?
2. Are you good at it?
3. Do you like doing it?

The first thing that must be considered and is of paramount importance is that a person must make money. Without it then there is no need to continue reading the rest of this article. I'm not talking about a hobby or something to do in your spare time, but is there a way to earn money doing what you're doing or want to do?

Second, are you good at it? I once knew someone who wanted to be a professional skateboarder and even though I was horrified at the prospect of such a career, I enquired at the potential of earning money doing it. I must admit, with reservations, there was the outside chance that money could be earned at it and after reluctantly checking off the first box, I asked if he was good at riding a skateboard. Even though he thought he was a talented rider, and to his credit, he practiced often, even at the sacrifice of schoolwork, I discovered he wasn't very good at riding a skateboard. He could ride a skateboard to be sure, but he didn't have the skills to do so professionally. Not by a long shot. 

Unfortunately, I couldn't check the second box. He didn't follow the formula for a successful career as a skateboarder.

The third thing is liking what you do. I knew a guy who was an accountant and got paid decent money for it but didn't like doing it. As a result, he never rose above the mediocre level.

I had to honestly assess myself about my career endeavors about drawing. I've gotten so much heat over the years about how there "just isn't enough money in drawing" to make a decent living at it, but I proved that theory wrong years ago. 

I'm pretty good and I like doing it, especially compared to the other lax jobs I've tried. So, guess what, all the boxes are checked.

My next endeavor is how to diversify drawing?

Why Are You Doing This

Indoctrinated

 I've Often written in the past and published in Shut Up Draw and What's Your Tomato, stories of how my childhood and early adulthood was overly influenced by the opinions and expectations of those closest to me and societal norms in general. 

"Drawing is nice" I was told  "but you have to have a real career."

"You can't make any money with that."

"You got to work to make your boss happy."

The mantras and opinions are still ringing in my ears and in fact, those bits of "helpful" advice perpetually, even today, find their way back around to me. 

As a young person I accepted this indoctrination as the truth and I told myself, 

"All these people can't be wrong"

It's true that when it came to my family members, they did want the best for me. Well, in many ways, but as far as the clamor of the rest, little did I know, they did not want the best for me. All they wanted was to be right because misery loves company. 

As far as my family was concerned, all they've known was working to earn a living and that's all that was important. No one said I had to like my job because the important thing was to just do it and please the boss. I respect that philosophy as long people decide they have little else to contribute, but as a kid, all I heard from my father was how he hated his job, and he complained about it often. 

Being raised by a single mom, I was alone a great deal of the time, left very much on my own for hours each day without supervision, guidance or the discipline a growing boy needs because Mom was working so much just trying to keep us fed and housed. 

Was that a great way to demonstrate to a child that having a job was the best way to go? 

The ones with whom I've crossed paths who saw the way, before I ever did, who either purposely or incidentally verbalized it, are the ones I would have benefited from listening to. People like my closest friends, girlfriends, my writing instructor from college or my coworkers in the meager jobs with which we all suffered.

"Why are you doing this?" I was often asked when they saw my talents lie somewhere other than punching a time clock at 6 am and working 12 hrs a day, 6 days a week.

My answer had the mediocre stamp of approval on it. "Because I have bills to pay". So, I continued doing the "same old same old" and my dissatisfaction slid into destructive thoughts like anger, sorrow, self-loathing which then manifested into behaviors like putting the needs of others before my own even at my own detriment, depression and melancholies. My sincere unhappiness and perpetual lack of sufficient income did not support the notion put forward by others that my purpose in life was to get a job and make my boss happy.  

They told me it would be better than this

Things are changing and it took long enough. Even though I've come to the conclusion that the popular narrative is wrong, I've still not realized the income but it's no worse than before. I still have my doubts. The echoes of my early days still resound, and they have never really gone away. "What if I've made a huge mistake?" I often ask myself. "What if I'm wrong and all those others were right?"

I've proven to myself that it isn't necessary to earn a living by "pleasing the boss". Isn't it ironic that the very suggestion I was given as a young person was actually the worst I could have possibly been given because my record of "pleasing the boss" has been dismal, to put it nicely. 

Did You Say You'e an Artist?

You Can't Make Any Money Doing That

Of course, I’ve been drawing since childhood, as all children do, but as I grew older, my interest in drawing stuck with me when most of my friends went on to pursue other interests and careers. A problem with an occupation in art arose, however, because I was indoctrinated as a youth to believe that a person couldn’t make a decent living in art and unfortunately, I believed it. So, for most of my adulthood my work life was a lesson in how miserable I could be with doing things I hated doing. Instead of succeeding at a career, I always wanted to find an escape from it and drawing was a way to do that accompanied with desires about earning a living with it.

Better Than Average

Getting fired isn’t the end of the world. Statistics show that a person gets fired an average of twice during their working career. I’ve got that beat. I’ve been fired four times and on one of those occasions in the late 90’s, it led to a inconsistencies in the philosophy I bought about not being able to make any decent money as an artist because over the years, thanks to the internet, I grew to discover countless artists who earn a living drawing caricatures. They get hired to attend a party or other event, set up a drawing table, bring pens and paper and start drawing people in cartoon form.

The Four-Hour Workweek

I knew I could do that too, and I decided it would be a great part-time job for extra money. Little did I know at the time that this “extra money” often turned out to pay more in 3 or 4 hours of drawing than my weekly paycheck at my regular crappy job in 40 or more hours.

I started by renting a space at Traders Village, a large flea market in Houston, and with my drawing table and supplies in tow, I set up in a small and empty 10’ x 5’ space and began drawing shoppers for $5 a head. The price soon went to $10 for black and white and $20 for color. Who said there was no money in art?

The Green Cow

That’s how I started using caricature drawing as my cash cow and this allowed me to discover other ways that drawing as a career and not just a hobby. For me it’s never been a hobby but a pursuit.

Now, it’s to the point that my cartooning is my main source of income and still growing. Not bad for a kid who was programmed to believe an artist can’t earn money.

 

Driving Busses in Finland

 

The Helsinki Bus Station

Arno Minkkinen is a Finnish photographer who uses an illustration called The Helsinki Bus Station to describe the creative process over time. The way someone finds distinctiveness in their art form is much like buses leaving a station.

When the buses initially embark, they all follow the same route and it’s likely that some even make the same stops. After several stops the buses then begin to diverge as they follow different roads the further away they get from the departure point.

Stay on the Bus

A creative person who may be pursuing an endeavor like drawing, may initially determine his work is rather common and unoriginal, so he may decide to return to the “bus station” and start all over again only to discover the process repeats itself. The solution is to stay on the bus. It eventually follows a different course from the others.

Pursue an art that looks much the same as everyone else’s initially but, soon, you’ll develop your own style.

Something Good to Read

Nothing New

 Now-a-days many profess to have discovered journaling; a "new" trend, a vouge way of "manifesting" and it's the rage of news segments, talk shows, books, memes, social media personalities and self-improvement gurus. The fact is journaling or keeping a diary has been a common practice of people for thousands of years by the famous, infamous, successful and the not-so-successful.

• People have documented their lives on clay tablets in the bronze age.
• Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in 167 A.D. wrote his thoughts in a 12-book journal collection called Things to One's Self. 
• One of the most famous and widely Read diaries was kept by Ann Frank and became a famous work of literature.

I not only keep a journal myself (actually several) but have been doing so since I was in my 20's.  As a Marine I found it quite useful as a way to record the many adventures I experienced on deployments and a few other escapades were thrown in as well. My first go at it was written on a paper plate in the high desert of California while training for desert warfare and the practice stuck with me for the last 40 or so years. There is hardly a period in my life when I didn’t keep a diary.

An alter ego

One reason is because it’s intensely therapeutic. It’s like talking not to myself but to someone who really listens and understands what I’m going through whether good or bad. Often, I have a tangle of ideas and thoughts in my head, much like a cluttered desk, and getting those deliberations out of my head and onto paper cleans things up and helps organize my notions. It’s as if while I’m writing, a second, unseen person appears and joins in to respond in the discussion and helps me determine if what I’m thinking is suitable and if not, I find other solutions.

Crystal Clear

Whenever I write it helps me clarify my thinking or emotions and crystallizes my imagination. They become no longer just a vague impulse but genuine visuals I can see in the form of words.

Writing helps me to reason my way through decision making by allowing me to see more clearly the possible results of my actions.

Of course, keeping a journal is good practice as a writer as long as I seek to improve and be better at it.

                           I Can’t Write Just One

I have several journals of all kinds and sizes, each for a different application including handwritten ones, a digital journal, a bullet journal and of course a slew of sketch journals. Each one of my drawings has the date on them and they help remind me about the time I drew, why and what I was thinking. It’s a funny thing about a sketch or drawing; it helps me remember the smallest details of an event and can take me on a voyage revisiting the experience. Remember the old saying, "one picture is worth a thousand words".

I have a small pocket size notebook and pen I almost always have in my possession for those unexpected moments of inspiration. I also have a very large journal I use for long term drawing and writing.

Know Me Better, Boy!

Another important reason for journaling, at least important to me, is for posterity; a legacy. I have members of my family who are today very young and may not have a chance to know me well and if they are so inclined in the future, they can get to know me better even if I'm not around.

I Write Because I always want something good to read

I sometimes, well, often, I find conversations with others regularly leave me aloof and sometimes outright bored, but the journal is always stimulating and thought-provoking. It hearkens back to the feeling of having a conversation with a second person. I talk about what’s on my mind and the listening page always answers back.

I'm Not Deranged. I'm an Introvert.

 

I don't need to see a psychiatrist to cure my introversion. People tend to say to introverts, 

      "Why don't you talk more? Why are you so quiet?" 

and many times, I hear,

                      "You need to come out of your shell."

I find those remarks rather off-putting and even insulting because it's an indirect way of saying, "your personality sucks and you need to change". 

It would be no different than me telling an extrovert "Why don't you shut up? You talk too much." and- 

"You need to crawl into a shell".

The fact is, being an introvert isn't a personality flaw for which I need to seek therapy any more than an extrovert needs to seek mental treatment for his or her personality (though sometimes I think some should). 

Extroverts talk to think, and introverts think to talk. 

I've always been a reflective person and most often through my life, from childhood till now, I've been the quietest one in the room. I tend more to listen to the others in the group and get amused about how so many think their input is more valuable than anyone else's. People often say dumb things, and it makes great material for my cartoons. 

A better question might be, are cartoonists great introverts or are introverts great cartoonists?