Reluctantly an Artist

Reflections on where to focus my time :

1. Money is boring - there are too many ways to make money, and not enough interesting ways to spend it.

2. Most people have poor taste - they find money interesting, because they find the available ways to spend it interesting.

3. The first two statements taken together are not about economics, but about aesthetics, and therefore about ethics.

4. If I am to take my aesthetic position, and occasionally wield it as my ethical position, then I am essentially identifying as a political artist.

5. I don't think the previous point is very attractive, but I can find no other fault with it.

Maybe I should just open a fucking art studio.

/ intermission /

Perhaps, in the interest of reducing distractions, I should ban myself from taking any freelance work other than work as a freelance artist.

So, for finance, HR, governance, ops, software development, etc., I could only take formal employments, but not temporary contracts.

This is an interesting pivot. In 2008 or thereabouts, my third year in the workforce, I branded myself as a generalist for hire. This could now be undone, whereby as a generalist I only volunteer.

So in my 19th year post-graduation, perhaps the way forward is :

- freelance gigs : only as an artist

- employments and board seats : business as usual

I like this idea. I will meditate upon it.

///

2024-03-12

Ongoing review of my decision to stop doing freelance work ( except for art ).

Maybe I have lowered my standards too much. In 2011 I was collecting 3000 $/month for work. Until 2015, I did not change this rate by much. It was a rate calculated in 2008, to be worth my time for the short-term. 13 years later, my rate is only about 65% higher, because I do almost zero commercial work, and have not been actively building my business.

Here is the error I made recently : I took jobs which were too small. I thought that for sufficient small blocks of time, $50-$250 jobs should be fun and easy. However, the counterparties were quite flakey even for such small amounts. So maybe I should deny freelance work below a certain size, say $5000, and just deny everything else.

Except art.

Again, this is for independent freelance contract work ... not employments, where I tend to take just anything to pass the time, like waiting tables.