Side hustles and sell outs.
I have a friend, no – not that kind of friend. The platonic kind, a normal friend – as normal goes. She’s a geologist during the day. But, she’s a fashion designer and photographer in her spare time. She has a side hustle. An alternative income generating activity that not only pays the bills but it feeds the creative hunger. Bills don’t pay themselves. I have a lot of friends who have side hustles in addition to their main hustle of a 9 – 5 job in their chosen profession, even I have a side hustle. Three guesses what it is. So why to graduate professionals have side hustles? Why do they moonlight as Disc Jockey’s (DJ’s), stand-up comedians, writers and fashion designers? Are they greedy? Why didn’t they just study music, performing arts and literature? Did they sell their dreams for a paycheque at the end of the month? Epangelo nali talepo nawa mpo.
I’ve been a geologist since 2012. I make a decent living, I am good at my job. But, I would hardly say that it makes me the happiest person in the world and I would also be lying if I said that I believe that I will become excellent at it. The above mentioned personal reflection is how I realised that maybe just maybe, I sold the unpredictability and uncertainty of a fulfilling life of a struggling artist for the financial prosperity and steady income of a career in applied earth science. Did I sell out my dream so that I could make more money in one of the so called ‘serious professions’?
Question: So did we sell out our talents and our passions, so we could live comfortably? Did we willingly choose mundane routine and thought constraining boredom over the stressful but fulfilling creative freedom of the arts?
Answer: 1] Yes, 2] no and 3] it’s not that simple.
I have a friend that I used to work with in exploration, we call each other ‘Chameleon’, that part of my life was spent chasing chameleons in the desert (good times). She would always say, “When you’re making a living from something you’re passionate about, it is so liberating.” I suspected that it was all the time she spent with her head in Robin Sharma’s book ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’. I never really understood what she was trying to teach me, because I never finished reading the book – a bad habit that deadlines and pressure to deliver results had allowed to fester and set in. Only recently did I finally start understanding what she had tried to pass on to me. Only when I finally decided to resurrect the dream deferred did I realise the importance of doing what you love and what makes you happy, spending a lifetime dedicating yourself to something that you have no real passion for, only leads to you ending up as just another robot in a cubicle in the capitalist world. A pawn in the monopolistic ‘eat or be eaten’ world.
1] So yes, we did sell out. We sold out the dream for financial prosperity. With inflation higher than a motherfucker. The possibility of having to live solely off unguaranteed and infrequent royalties from music, paintings or books in a society that is notoriously eager to consume art but not willing to pay the artist for it, it is probably a risk most of us weren’t willing to take. The disappearance and death of music artists e.g. Leghetto, Dollar Six, Trey Van die Kasie perhaps has taught us all that depending solely on a career in the arts is an uncalculated gamble with an unpredictable possibility of a payoff. So essentially when the realisation that depending on art for steady revenue was suicide hit home, many of us sold out, we put our heads into our textbooks and dedicated our time and focus to obtaining our degrees.
2] No. Essentially having a side hustle means that the individual is still creating. Thus partaking in an activity forbidden by the Christian religion, serving two masters. The aim of a side hustle is to express a creative side that the chosen profession does not allow. So in actual fact, those with side hustles have not really sold out – because by virtue of having a side hustle, they are still producing art. They are still creating and still contributing by using their god given talents to bring joy and meaning to others. When you turn your back completely on your creative talents, then in my opinion that qualifies you to be classified as a sell-out! At least in the context of this argument.
3] It is complicated. We grew up in an era where the need to produce engineers, doctors and scientists was a national priority. For those of us with an aptitude for maths and science, the options were narrowed down for us. The brightest would be pushed towards the technical fields, so the exposure to more artistic subjects was non existent. So basically our school systems were basically constructed to produce scientists, engineers, doctors, accountants and business oriented individuals. Career guidance consisted of one approach, the smartest are put into the higher level class and the rest take ordinary level subjects. The aspirations of our parents also play a role. The generation before us had very few engineers, doctors and scientists. Those individuals were the best off, they earned a more than decent living. Most of our parents are/were teachers, policemen, army officers and labourers. So basically their desire for us to study technical fields was born out of their aspiration for us to reach higher than they were allowed to.
Education is expensive, so not many parents, guardians and extended families would never pay for a child to be educated in arts. The arts are just not profitable, you cannot make enough to pay off study loans, support siblings and extended family, and still aim to own property. “Can you eat art?” An example of the kind of reaction you’d receive for expressing a desire to be educated in the arts.
So it’s complicated, sometimes the only options was to just put your head down and keep solving equations that you’d probably never apply in real life.
So in the end, there really is no simple answer to the question.
I’ve been a geologist since 2012. I make a decent living, I am good at my job. But, I would hardly say that it makes me the happiest person in the world and I would also be lying if I said that I believe that I will become excellent at it. The above mentioned personal reflection is how I realised that maybe just maybe, I sold the unpredictability and uncertainty of a fulfilling life of a struggling artist for the financial prosperity and steady income of a career in applied earth science. Did I sell out my dream so that I could make more money in one of the so called ‘serious professions’?
Question: So did we sell out our talents and our passions, so we could live comfortably? Did we willingly choose mundane routine and thought constraining boredom over the stressful but fulfilling creative freedom of the arts?
Answer: 1] Yes, 2] no and 3] it’s not that simple.
I have a friend that I used to work with in exploration, we call each other ‘Chameleon’, that part of my life was spent chasing chameleons in the desert (good times). She would always say, “When you’re making a living from something you’re passionate about, it is so liberating.” I suspected that it was all the time she spent with her head in Robin Sharma’s book ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’. I never really understood what she was trying to teach me, because I never finished reading the book – a bad habit that deadlines and pressure to deliver results had allowed to fester and set in. Only recently did I finally start understanding what she had tried to pass on to me. Only when I finally decided to resurrect the dream deferred did I realise the importance of doing what you love and what makes you happy, spending a lifetime dedicating yourself to something that you have no real passion for, only leads to you ending up as just another robot in a cubicle in the capitalist world. A pawn in the monopolistic ‘eat or be eaten’ world.
1] So yes, we did sell out. We sold out the dream for financial prosperity. With inflation higher than a motherfucker. The possibility of having to live solely off unguaranteed and infrequent royalties from music, paintings or books in a society that is notoriously eager to consume art but not willing to pay the artist for it, it is probably a risk most of us weren’t willing to take. The disappearance and death of music artists e.g. Leghetto, Dollar Six, Trey Van die Kasie perhaps has taught us all that depending solely on a career in the arts is an uncalculated gamble with an unpredictable possibility of a payoff. So essentially when the realisation that depending on art for steady revenue was suicide hit home, many of us sold out, we put our heads into our textbooks and dedicated our time and focus to obtaining our degrees.
2] No. Essentially having a side hustle means that the individual is still creating. Thus partaking in an activity forbidden by the Christian religion, serving two masters. The aim of a side hustle is to express a creative side that the chosen profession does not allow. So in actual fact, those with side hustles have not really sold out – because by virtue of having a side hustle, they are still producing art. They are still creating and still contributing by using their god given talents to bring joy and meaning to others. When you turn your back completely on your creative talents, then in my opinion that qualifies you to be classified as a sell-out! At least in the context of this argument.
3] It is complicated. We grew up in an era where the need to produce engineers, doctors and scientists was a national priority. For those of us with an aptitude for maths and science, the options were narrowed down for us. The brightest would be pushed towards the technical fields, so the exposure to more artistic subjects was non existent. So basically our school systems were basically constructed to produce scientists, engineers, doctors, accountants and business oriented individuals. Career guidance consisted of one approach, the smartest are put into the higher level class and the rest take ordinary level subjects. The aspirations of our parents also play a role. The generation before us had very few engineers, doctors and scientists. Those individuals were the best off, they earned a more than decent living. Most of our parents are/were teachers, policemen, army officers and labourers. So basically their desire for us to study technical fields was born out of their aspiration for us to reach higher than they were allowed to.
Education is expensive, so not many parents, guardians and extended families would never pay for a child to be educated in arts. The arts are just not profitable, you cannot make enough to pay off study loans, support siblings and extended family, and still aim to own property. “Can you eat art?” An example of the kind of reaction you’d receive for expressing a desire to be educated in the arts.
So it’s complicated, sometimes the only options was to just put your head down and keep solving equations that you’d probably never apply in real life.
So in the end, there really is no simple answer to the question.
Concluding that there is no real simple answer to the question of selling out for a comfortable life, really hits home.
ReplyDeleteI have no side hustle, thought about having one - but the energy is just not there.
At work the dampening of that urge to create, express, dare to dabble with the unknown, unpredictable - basically the life affirming - takes a great deal of energy. I respect those who keep up the side hustle. Note, as a proponent of sarcastic humor and an aspiring writer - wouldn't it be somewhat relieving to shove one of your prose pieces down the throat of the next one who asks you 'if you can eat art.'?
That is a joke, an impolite and somewhat cruel one. Another cause from stifling the creative urge, it does not go away, it only darkens, changes the luminous passions to dark impulses. Resisting those dark impulses - more energy consumed. I really do respect the creatives with a side hustle!
Now onto the lid on the coffin and the nails - being good at that soul crushing, life stifling job - and smiling about it! Well, Sartre said hell is other people. In this case their perception, appreciation, and praise of those abilities which creatives employ to survive - that truly is hell. Kudos to those who have a side hustle!
No, it is far from greed. It is creation, enriching life and veering from the dull and dreary which causes the death of so many. Well before their time of death. It relieves us from the thought that ultimately life is pointless. To those with the side hustle, whilst it pays (even if not always to enable living from), stay implored to continue on the side hustle.
You encourage the geologist/photographer/fashion designer, encourage yourself and all the like-minded you know. You save the ones stuck in the dull, the dreary, the boring. Keep on hustling on the side.