What is a life well-lived? Most people don’t have the opportunity to ask themselves this question. The average working-class person is just trying to survive. When I ask this question of myself, I recoil slightly at the image of me in my comfortable societal perch, claiming I have arrived as a creative guru, masquerading my productivity nonsense as branded gospel. The truth is, I don’t want to be famous or revered, I just want to make more time for my creativity and spend time with my family as I try to pay the bills. Small potatoes, I know.
But to be honest, I fucking love potatoes.
Even though I am a working-class creative still trying to figure out the best way to balance life and craft, I have amassed some kernels of truth about what it takes to hold on to that creative spark so often stomped out with vigor and glee by this absurd, indifferent world. While I could spend more time refining my philosophy of a life well-lived, I am at my best when I work through things as I go. So that’s what I will attempt here on cruzfolio.com with every new post, starting with the first part of the puzzle: Exploring The Arts Calling Podcast.
One of the reasons I began the Arts Calling Podcast was to learn the productivity structures other creatives use in their lives. As the show has grown and evolved, this notion of artistic and personal sustainability has ebbed in and out of prominence. Moving forward, I intend to make it a major focus of our episodes. Nonetheless, the phenomenal creatives who have already shared their time with me on the podcast have given me much to learn, whether or not we meant to discuss artistic sustainability alongside a busy life. There is so much to review and process from our archive of over one hundred episodes!
So better late than never, here is my agenda: I will share concrete insights from Arts Calling episodes here at cruzfolio. We’ll cover many topics including the different ways creatives fashion artistic sustainability in their lives. I’ve met phenomenal people on the show and there will certainly be more to come, so I may as well parse through the Arts Calling catalog now and start documenting these throughlines of effort and joy and truth. If you don’t want to hear this, that’s fine with me, no worries–I could use the lessons myself and that would be a worthy endeavor alone.
Most of my life has been led by intuition, not discipline. Not strategy. I am less of a romantic these days, but now and then I give in to visions of a bohemian life where I could just sit at my desk for days and wait for the muse to visit me with her precious gifts. Nope, cant do that anymore. I have to work today and I can’t wait that long. Have to do the budget. Have to talk about the car and how it sounds like the transmission could go out in the next few days. Forgot to take the trash out. Damn it. Have to make dinner on a weeknight. That’s not so bad. Regardless, it’s time to get clear about what works with the time we have. So I will lay out what practices, tools, and conditions allow a working-class artist to keep creating, no matter where they are or what’s keeping them busy. And above all, don’t forget to mind your potatoes.
Much love,
j