Everyone's Life Is Weird
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In the article this sounds like a liberating revelation, but for most people this is just a small ridge they struggle to stay and not fall down on either side. The less privileged, the smaller the ridge. The least privileged manage to fall down all sides.
the weird descriptor, and this revelation, are byproducts of hyperfocus on achievements or being on guiderails from parents.
Not necessarily a wealth thing, so I don't mean to be talking down about that. I didn't grow up with much, but had to go through the same realization when leaving Google.
All the worrying about retirement, TC, etc., tolerating abuse.in the workplace, etc., were mechanisms hiding that it was totally fine to leave.
Something that helped me a lot along the way was seeing a comment on Blind from a 50-60 year old with 2M+ TC combined with his lawyer wife in Bay Area. They were getting divorced, and his message was tl;Dr man I was dumb. The part that hit hardest was him pointing out virtually any savings can be wiped away quickly by emergencies, there's not really a safe # once you're making tech bucks.
But...
There also is no perfect life. Nothing on earth ever perfectly satisfies. Your dream job won't pay enough for all your other dreams. You may find a wonderful person to share your life with, but they won't be perfect. Some of their dreams will clash with some of your dreams.
When that happens, don't throw out something really good to try to reach something perfect. It's only perfect in your dreams. In reality, it may not even be better. "Take time in your pursuit of happiness to just be happy."
So, yes, you can ditch a path that doesn't fit you. But no path fits perfectly. Don't destroy something good in order to try to reach an unattainable amount of perfection.
Where's the line between those two kinds of advice? Aye, there's the rub...
Up to a certain age it's totally possible. Having commitments and people depending on you decreases this possibility that to a great extent.
I wish I knew this at the end of mandatory education.
It's pretty clear there is a large chunk of the population that just doesn't operate well under traditional education and career paths.
For us, it's just a slow, often painful exercise in realising following rules laid out by some institution just doesn't work for us - and most critically: that that is OK! that it doesn't mean you are not capable, or not smart, at most it means you might not be good at jumping through hoops when you have no intrinsic motivation to do so, and at least it shows that education is not designed to work for everyone, it's one size fits all.
... but almost no one tells you this, and so we are destined to waste time and, in some countries huge amounts of money, and psychological pain learning this lesson.
The irony is I now work in ed-tech. But I have some solace in knowing the technology I work on is moving traditional education towards a more individualised experience that might work better for someone like me.
The article's not quite reaching that conclusion, but trust me, we're all strange in our own ways. And it's not an artist thing.
The "career path" and the "rules and customs" that the article mentions don't actually exist. It's what lives within one or two standard deviations of the average, but... in individual things, we're all far from the average. It just, well, averages out in the long run.
To stick with the example: I can name large amounts of FAANG folk who do well, and who never majored in CS, or got that internship, or went to grad school, or started at FAANG. I can name large amounts of folks who followed exactly that path, but either didn't go to FAANG at all, or left quickly.
"Normal" is a facade. For all of us. The only thing to keep in mind is that people will complain if you don't keep up the facade (because what does that mean for their choice to keep it, for decades?).
But, facade or not, the true average human being has slightly less than two legs. They don't exist.
I didn't get that from this article. The author compared their own life to the lives of historical figures, viewed from the outside.
Perhaps "normal" is merely a facade, better maintained by those able to successfully tread the traditional path adequately enough; Perhaps those who label themselves "weird" aren't fundamentally much different, but have freed themself of that untenable position.
</weird armchair philosopher>
Definitely not.
People like to believe it because it's an interesting story and people like interesting things.
And it's an interesting story to tell – "This artist has a weird life!"
But it's no different from the depressed comedian trope. It's boring to talk about the happy and well-adjusted comedian.
Artists have weird lives and artists have normal lives – although some people's definition of normal is weird to others and vice versa.