Dear Mozart,

None of this is an ideal situation. 😅

We can still band together? A small group protecting one another in a hostile space. And maybe even bend over backwards to help out the few others who try, who survive? But 🤷

Bound in this system, I've found that I have little patience for people don't put in the effort to be Amazing or Sneaky. I have even less for those who can just make art because they are entitled to it.

Apologies.

Folks ask me "Aren't you sad that artists play a cursed lottery in a world that is directly hostile to the value of creativity or innovation?"

I'm way past mad. The rules of the game were made clear as a kid. I deserve nothing. Any time we get to produce anything, it is an unexpected miracle.

BE SNEAKY: Money folks who will never make anything like to buy Talent. Here I am, a bought and paid for member of the servant class.

Still, maybe I could slip a little bit of my soul into it? Obscured so the generational capitalist dullards wouldn't notice?

So exhausting

BE AMAZING: Treat art like an elite sport. Be undeniably great. With the assumption it was a rigged lottery. Assume no one with talent makes it without parent money. But maybe a tiny handful with insane talent, grit? And the enemy's tools and connections? And hilarious amounts of luck?

So grueling

So I adapted. Smart kid; figures things out. To be a full time artist when you don't have money: Be amazing. And be sneaky.

Later on I met people for whom this basic contract "Art = Poverty" didn't hold true. Shockingly, every single time they had rich parents.

(Though they hated bringing this up. "No, I had it tough! Sometimes I had to take our third car up to our second house in Maine! An ancient 5 year old wreck!")

I was raised in an environment where it was simply known that to be an artist was to starve, lack healthcare, have unstable relationships and likely die early. Probably in extreme poverty.

If you were smart, you'd aim for a job at the mill.

Feels like this could be a new line in this old song

What the world needs now
Is a whole bunch of taxes
On billionaires who bore me to death

genius.com/Cracker-teen...

The monkey's paw curls