The Artist's Way

The following is an excerpt from A Fool's Folly.

PART V: Outcomes Are What Consolidation Is Made Of

Chapter 24: The Artist's Way

Daily experience is filtered through our worldview with the aim of accurately predicting the future and maximising reward. The Pareto principle tells us that 20% of our mental models will do 80% of the work of filtering experience. A small number of models will support our entire worldview. The first five parts of this book represent the five most important mental models, that if established in your mind, will allow you to build a worldview through experience without further external input.

I want to outline a few heuristics that'll allow you to meet your obligations in the practical world. A heuristic enables you to discover something for yourself, when the time is right. This will allow the important models to establish themselves in your mind. I hope for these to step in when you feel like saying, "That's all well and good Craig, but I've got to make a living!", or other similar statements.

You might be reluctant to quit a job you dislike due to a fear of becoming a starving artist. This chapter aims to expel that reluctance.

The first heuristic is what I call the 5K trigger. In Australia I can live comfortably for three months on $5,000. When my bank balance dips below 5K, I start looking for work - usually manual labour - and begin saving again. If a job comes to an end, I can decide a course of action knowing that I'm able to rest easy until I hit the 5K trigger again. For example, if you've saved 20K by the end of a job, you can decide between taking 6+ months off for creative work, or going to live and work in another country like I did by coming to Canada. Adjust this heuristic according to your situation.

The second heuristic has to do with mechanical work and creative exorcism. So long as the labour market is healthy in your country, economics will ensure that you earn a living off of good honest labouring. Mechanical work is a great partner to creative work. You can drive a forklift and conceptualise your album at the same time. Cognitive work (say accounting) consumes all your bandwidth and leaves little willpower leftover for creative work. Manual labour is unappealing to most people, but it can easily be approached as adventure. You can do a harvest in the WA Wheatbelt, do station work in the NT, pick grapes in the Barossa Valley of SA, pick bananas in QLD. If you spend six months in each spot, there are lifetimes to be had in different locations and industries. Just within Australia. Mix adventure and mechanical work for a creative exorcism.

The third heuristic has to do with income replacement. Don't think about focusing on creative work until you've replaced the income you would earn through mechanical work. Once you have a finished article (photo prints say), you can try selling them. If your monthly income is $1,600 and you make $10 profit on each copy, you'll need to sell 160 copies a month before you can quit your day job. You need to fully replace your existing income, otherwise everything is going to feel expensive. It's simple economics.

The next heuristic has to do with the intentions you have for your art. Please don't aim to impress people, aim to form a union among men. A great many will be impressed by your work, but who will not join you on a mission of shared intent. You can waste yourself trying to achieve consensus and conspicuous agreement. The people who will join you in shared intent will be as esoteric as you are, and you know exactly how esoteric you are. Some folks want to go to work and have a few drinks on the weekend. They don't want the conversation to get too serious. You don't want or need that. What you need are people with some spirit. People who have no spirit are of little use to those who do. In our world you are either rock n' roll or you are nothing. Form a union among men who have great spirit and some shared intentions.

The final heuristic has to do with the intentions you have for your union. Don't get together to stroke each others egos. Get together and attempt to bring about your shared intentions. I've recently read a book by an economist about creating prosperity with new currencies. It would be a shame if he had simply written the book. Thankfully he has gone further and formed a union, and these people have gone out and successfully implemented their ideas all around the world. Art is an experience. A book is in the first place an experience. One can't sit in an office and dream up the next Great American Novel. These things aren't dreamt up, they happen to you. However, the artwork remains merely a smoke signal - an agent to the principal. The principal experience and work lies beyond the artwork. Intend for your union to bring about great things and the experiences that go along.

Say in the hypothetical, that it takes a decade to achieve the aims of these five heuristics. Is there a better way to spend a decade?