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What you said at the end deeply resonated with me. I made a similar decision regarding music years ago and since giving up all aspirations of commercial success from music, the quality of what I am able to create has blossomed - and then tanks again the moment I so much as THINK of making a track to put up for sale.

So I came to the similar conclusion of playing only for myself and my family, and I am much happier with music as a result.

I recommend to anyone working on talent-development to try, the next time inspiration strikes, creating your next piece of art for an audience of one (Self) and see what happens. The results may surprise you.

> I don't paint for you. I paint for myself. It's part of my life.

> A place where there are no compromises, no demands, no expectations, no projections, no assessments, no tasks, no metrics, no applause and no glory.

> A place where I am happy.

I have immense respect for you. I did something along these lines too: switched fields so I could write software for myself. The same reasons you listed resonated deeply with me.

Can you elaborate a bit? When I have a project I'm really exited about working on I'm productive and it feels great, when it's something I have to do for the business but I don't love the project, I'm slow and doing the work is a grind.

So, I think about how I could only write the software I want to write a decent amount.

What did you do?

I feel the same way. I have attention deficit disorder: it's really hard for me to concentrate on "boring" tasks. However, I actually have hyperattention when it comes to stuff I find interesting.

I've been programming since I was 14, I really love computers but the business aspect really turns me off. I can do it well if I need to but it just doesn't interest me like the operating systems, programming languages, virtual machines...

So when the time came for me to choose between a career in technology or something else like medical or law school, I chose something else. I'm somewhat comfortable now, still developing my career. I come here every day to read and talk about technology and sometimes I'll even publish a project on GitHub. Still wonder what it would have been like had I made a different choice.

When I have a project I'm really exited about working on I'm productive and it feels great, when it's something I have to do for the business but I don't love the project, I'm slow and doing the work is a grind.

This is completely normal. There is a conflict between what you know on a deep level and the false consciousness you are required to uphold, and that you do uphold by completing the work.

The ground truth is that, even though your boss probably isn't a bad or mean person, he too has a boss, who has a boss, and following the chain one almost always finds a vested interest in a corrupt status quo whereby a small set of hereditarily connected rent-seekers who stifle progress and don't care about anything but expanding their own wealth and power.

You can make money by collecting small donations from normal, decent people, but there aren't that many to go around, because the fact is that normal humans have almost no economic freedom. Modulo a rounding error, all money is blood money: it comes either from wealthy people and corporations who have evil intentions, or from governments that might have decent intentions but have been corrupted by evil psychopaths from the private-sector elite.

The fact that rich people are paying us to do something is as strong a signal as there could be that what we're doing is poisoning the world, possibly in a way we don't fully understand. Plus, any time we do something as a subordinate, we know that if we perform too well, we are sending a signal to people who are humiliating us (even if in a superficially professional and kind way) that treating us as subordinates works, and encouraging them to humiliate us even more.

The only reason the system doesn't collapse in an afternoon is that we're indoctrinated into bourgeois false consciousness. But something tells me you knew that already.

> one almost always finds a vested interest in a corrupt status quo whereby a small set of hereditarily connected rent-seekers who stifle progress and don't care about anything but expanding their own wealth and power

Case in point, posted here just yesterday:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32479652

Sometimes it feels like there's only two options: become one of these rent-seekers or find a way to opt out of this system.

> The only reason the system doesn't collapse in an afternoon is that we're indoctrinated into bourgeois false consciousness.

The reason is that very few people prefer farming over their current jobs. No need for the poor-vs-rich demagoguing. What does "bourgeois false consciousness" even mean?

You're proposing a false dichotomy: that we either go back to an agrarian lifestyle or accept the status quo.

Technology is a good thing. Industry is a good thing. We can keep them.

What we don't need is the ruling class. They take the lion's share of the resources, and they don't do anything useful to justify what we pay to subsidize their pampered existences. We can rip them out and things will still work.

Rip them out and then you'll just have a new ruling class. It will be the next layer down. Humans are not equal. Most strive to accomplish things. Put those two together and it leads to unequal results.

What false dichotomy? Either you are within the hierarchy that is humanity or you go (relatively) independent, meaning you need to produce your own food at the very least.

Instead of hating humanity for what it inherently is, maybe your anger comes from an understanding that the rules aren't fair. So maybe propose that we should strive for a world where the laws are fairer, so that people can feel that their efforts are not in vain and that they're not being taken advantage of.

>They take the lion's share of the resources, and they don't do anything useful to justify what we pay to subsidize their pampered existences.

That sounds like ideology without logic:

"They take the lion's share of the resources" -> Actually, they earn it based on the current set of laws, through some variable amount of effort.

"pampered existence" -> No need to name call. We all have different circumstances in life. Don't worry, those people you hate have their own problems and their own stressors. They're just different than yours. Just because they have plenty of food and shelter doesn't mean their lives are all smiles.

"subsidize" -> fix the laws or whatever is causing the subsidizing, if indeed there is subsidizing. Hating the players is not productive.

"they don't do anything useful" -> they run companies, they run the government, etc. Those are useful things.

Huh?

This is not the response I expected, and doesn't even really speak to what I asked. "How did you work more on the things you wanted to?" doesn't mean I expect to somehow magically only ever get to do what I want.

"Rich people paying us" automatically equaling evil is just such a weird thought. There are 7 billion people on the planet, and someone's got to do the work of keeping them alive, and most of that work is not going to be fun work someone wants to do.

That's reality. We're already lucky we get to write software instead of cleaning sewers or whatever. You can debate how necessary a lot of the jobs that exist are or aren't, or how wealth is distributed in society, but the fact that jobs exist that people don't really want to do isn't the result of some evil conspiracy cooked up by a cabal of rich people... it's just physics. Someone has to grow the vegetables.

If I paid you to garden tomatoes for me, is that "a signal" that I'm "poisoning the world"? If you don't like gardening, but I pay you enough that now you'll do it, does that somehow make me evil?

Weird, man.

I have learned to love the grind. The grind/business part gives me the resources to paint or do the things that I like. But this is personal, I don't have a universal solution.

All of my colleagues (at the company) share the same mentality, we all work for money/resources. Most of us don't use any form of enthusiasm or emotional projection on a business task. We use a craftsmanship approach towards a product building. We strive to produce quality. It sounds banal, but it's true, and it works for us.

That’s a beautiful story. It’s so good that you found peace.

I have a child who is enormously gifted and could probably follow precisely the same career path you described. I fear/hope that child will make the same decisions you did.

Every parent hopes their kid will pursue their dreams as a hobby while learning to code. Speaking as a parent of two such kids, good luck with that. Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.

I have no kids and cannot reflect on the fear/hope part. Life is too complex to be predicted in general, we choose our own path alone. All that can attest to is that in my darkest moments, painting has given me a shelter and hope. When I paint, I completely loose sense of time. Actually, after some hiccups to this day I use an alarm to limit my sessions.:)

> All that can attest to is that in my darkest moments, painting has given me a shelter and hope. When I paint, I completely lose sense of time.

That's me with programming.

I would of course love to links to your art if you're up to it

Thanks for your request, I am working on a show (series of experimental paintings) but I have a principle of not sharing on HN personal stuff. In this way, when I speak here, I have no filter and no self-censuring mechanism is applied.:)

I can't paint for myself:

> the nature of [needing to put bread on the table] is energy depleting zapping any creative juices needed for the concentration and initiative to produce content. Let alone something of high-quality that doesn’t exude fatigue.

I somehow relate. Art was my love/joy for many years, then it became my business and I think I lost every joy I had on it

> I don't paint for you. I paint for myself. It's part of my life. A place where there are no compromises, no demands, no expectations, no projections, no assessments, no tasks, no metrics, no applause and no glory.

That sounds idealistic to the point of foolishness. The end result of your decision to quit art was that you had to get a job as a graphic designer. Doesn't that achieve even less of your vision?

A lot of people encounter this same dilemma: "do I want to conform to an imperfect system in order to stay in my chosen profession, or should I quit?"

By choosing to quit, you are giving up all of your leverage. You will be replaced by the next "yes man" who doesn't share your vision. If you stick with it, you can continue to nudge the system in the direction you want.

unless you conclude that art and the “system” are incompatible on some fundamental way. i’ve arrived at a similar place as OP anyway

There is nothing in the laws of nature that require "rational actor" application of leverage. Money does not buy happiness. It seems their previous job directly conflicted with their stated goal of expressing themselves, and the new graphic design gig does not. To me that achieved quite a lot.

Correct. Creating design and products serves others. Painting is personal. In my view, this is the difference between art and design. When creating art, I share my personal vision and emotions. Design is 'function over form', the goal of design is the UX and achieving a set of goals. The successful design/product is free from the designer's and creators egos, its purpose is to serve. You can use artistic tools and interpretation in graphic design as a medium, but you must deliver a balanced result within a set of rules and goals.

I just don't think there is much of a market willing to patronize any one person's self-expression without any demands.

What’s all this about systems and leverage and wrangling external things to one’s own will?

It sounds like they just want to paint what they want, the way they want, and now do exactly that.

All this other stuff sounds like projection of your own concerns, and in pretty unfriendly language to boot.

The Story of a Fisherman https://www.highview.com.au/the-story-of-a-fisherman/

Not just that. You spend way more of the 80000 hours in deliberate practice.

Practice towards what goal? To be the next Banksy? To be a millionaire? In my experience, practice has a limit. After a lot of hours I can code decently, and my stuff is working, but one of my developers which is in his twenties can outperform me with quality and elegance.

When you have a talent and a habit/routine, you can keep your form for years.

It is like muscle training, every day simple routine is more effective than two days in a week in the gym.

And my goal is to stay in shape and create something meaningful for myself, not to win the Art Olympics:)