Two Ways To Choose: An Artist's Lament on Time and How To Spend It

Two ways to choose,
On a razor's edge,
Remain behind,
Go straight ahead

Room full of people, room for just one,
If I can't break out now, the time just won't come

Two ways to choose,
Which way to go,
Decide for me,
Please let me know

Looked in the mirror, saw I was wrong,
If I could get back to where I belong, where I belong

Two ways to choose,
Which way to go,
Had thoughts for one
Designs for both

But we were immortal, we were not there,
Washed up on the beaches, struggling for air

I see your face still in my window,
Torments yet calms, won't set me free,
Something must break now,
This life isn't mine,
Something must break now,
Wait for the time,
Something must break

• “Something Must Break” - Joy Division

Friends, Robots and Sexecutioners,

Every weekend when I wake up I feel free for a moment. The work week is done and I have two days of relatively unstructured time ahead of me. I can look forward to time with family, the dog and pursuing my various artistic endeavors.

Then it hits me. The panic. I have a finite amount of time in which to spend on these and I’m immediately in conflict. Which to do? 

I’m a musician as you may well know. And I do so love my music. I want to spend time on that, honing my craft, working on songs and learning new things. But then…

I’m an artist. I draw and write my own comics which is cool. And they take work. A lot of work. Maybe because I’m relatively new to this but also because good things take time to create. I want to sit down and draw and develop my stories but then again…

I’m a writer. I’ve been writing since I was 12 or so and in the last 12 years I’ve been writing regularly. I’ve got 5 novels out, at least 25 short stories and several of each in progress. I also write my Bunnyhead comics in addition to illustrating them. Those stories take time to write. 

As does everything else I create.

It seems a bit self-indulgent to think about this in these times (historians of ephemera take note: as I write this on March 21, 2020, the world is gripped by the Coronavirus pandemic). Yet no matter what year it is I’ve felt this way for quite some time. How do I do the things I love, create the things I create and give them all the time they deserve? 

Part of it, I think, is the nature of the creative/maker mind I’ve been blessed with. There’s a great article about Paul Graham who identified two types of people (and you know what they say about two types of people: there’s the type who says there’s two types of people in the world and those who say there isn;t): makers and managers. Makers is synonymous with creators, and can mean anyone from artists to coders, developers and even engineers. Managers are the other side of the coin, those who are best at managing situations or groups of people. Facilitators. Makers, as Graham states, need more time to get their projects completed; specifically needing more time to sit down on a regular basis and work.

And boy is that ever me. 

If I feel like I have less than 4-6 hours free time I just get depressed and sit on the couch. And this is even after I trained myself to get to work faster and created a good workflow. Which is weird but hey whaddya gonna do. Old habits die hard like vampires and Bruce Willis. I’ve at least figured out that if I plan out my weekends I’m less likely to find myself at work on Mondays wondering what my weekend was like. Yet still I fall prey to my weakness of worry. 

So I suppose I’m asking if others feel like this too? 

And I don’t mean my fellow weekend warriors but fulltime musicians and artists as well. 

Okay. Back to making beep bopp boop music. 

Be well. AND WASH YA DAMN HANDS!!!

- CRT