Coming Home, but Home Isn’t the Same

Often, I’ve heard artists say, “If you want to be an artist, you must have fire in the belly.” All growing up, I never had to question what that meant. I was born with fire in the belly, deep inside of me. I felt it as a teenager, and it’s still there, even now. Focus is a struggle, but the desire itself? Never.

Even as a teenager, I was obsessed with finding a creative career path, and I meandered through different options: music, animation, illustration, writing, and even the meditative arts, such as tai chi.

I have so many happy memories.

Spending Christmas Eve in my university studio stall where I drew all night under the dim light of my glowing miniature Christmas tree. Standing at the front of the hall of the New York Society of Illustrators when the host of the award ceremony called my name. Sitting at the BYU cafeteria table with my publishing editor. Walking down the sidewalk with my music instructor, our large saxophone cases banging at our knees.

To my good fortune, I got my foot in the door in the creative career path by having the honor of working with Shadow Mountain Publishing. First, they allowed me to paint covers for some of their books, and then, in 2015, they even published one of my own.

Up to that point, and even now, I wouldn’t say that anything I’ve done so far in my career really feels like what I wanted to do when I chose the creative path decades ago. I’ve learned so much, and yet, I feel like I’ve done little more than jot down a few ideas.

In 2015, I had to take a long, tremendously long pause. More obstacles appeared than I could handle.

There were health concerns, infertility issues, financial strains, and the rapid and disruptive advancement of technology. Two beautiful newborns entered my life, followed by a global pandemic, and then came my ex-wife’s and my decision to separate.

Developing in the creative world is fun, but my skill is not yet so great that I can solve those challenges with nought but a paintbrush and a cartoon character. So, I rolled up my sleeves and started solving each problem as best as I could in a more typical fashion.

I changed my lifestyle to better my health (bye bye, Cintiq monitor). My (ex)-wife and I focused on in vitro fertilization. We put money and thousands of hours of sweat-equity into our dilapidated home. I “learned to code,” then spent a few years as a stay-at-home father during the pandemic. When our marriage ended, I put on a black and red Papa John’s pizza-delivery hat to pay the bills while I renewed my efforts to complete my teaching certificate.

All along the way, I carried a desperate need to obtain some alternative, more realistic means of providing for myself and my children. Constant were my efforts to complete yet another university course, read just one more textbook, or brainstorm one more career step.

Each day, questions would arise such as, should I take calculus-based statistics, or library science? What’s more immediately useful: a book on web servers, or one on linear algebra? I can work while my family sleeps; should I use the timezone situation to my advantage by taking a part-time remote job for a tech company in Vietnam?

In 2015, at the beginning of this chapter of my life, when encountering some of the more emotional challenges, I would often have this feeling like I had just had water splashed on the fire in my gut. And this happened again, and again, and again.

Some of the memories of those moments are too painful to share in specifics. A white door. A golden knob. The smell of steamed broccoli. A sheet of blank paper. Staring at my hand in double-vision.

At some point, I simply had to choose between having a family, or allowing the fire in my belly to be the boss of my life. I chose the former. In exchange, I received two amazing, beautiful children. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Now, the children are old enough to go to school, and my task isn’t to change their diapers, but to bring home a paycheck. I’ve got a job, I’ve got a little place to live, and half the time my kids are with their mother.

That means… well.. does it mean that I can explore some creativity again?

Perhaps, perhaps there’s some room in my life to give those burning embers deep in my belly a breath of oxygen? Could I write another book? Something just for me?

Could I take up a hobby, and blog about it? What about just getting a dog? Maybe learn to shoot a moose? Could I pick up the guitar? What about singing, learning a new language, writing poetry, or even learning to enunciate my words more clearly? Maybe I could even work on my posture?

Could I do this just for me? Could there be some part of my life, where I focus on creating something beautiful? When it’s finished, whatever “it” is, I could have the option to share it with an audience with a hope that my work will help someone else through some dark period of their life?

Or, if I let that fire in the belly out again, will I set myself back on the path of destruction? Will I one day be, once again, living in a shipping container while I struggle to figure out how to make ends meet?

Would a creative endeavor lead to pleasant memories with my children, or would my children one day wish that I had spent my time in some other manner? As our country, good old USA, keeps falling apart, what will my share of the responsibility of this downward spiral be if I turn my attention to… my art? Is there a place in a collapsing world for… my art?

Would future me regret ever taking my mind off the most essential aspects of survival? How would I know how and when to draw the line between pursuing a hobby and the harshness of the universe?

Dare I be a ferret playing at the river bed, not paying attention to the lynx sneaking my way in the grass?

Gnawing at my mind in all of this is the question, what do I do in this world where artificial intelligence is changing everything? The soul of an artist is forged in the hearth of repetition and failure. What does an artist do in a world where the outward appearance of that lifelong artistic achievement can be stolen, mimicked in a moment, and mass produced at almost no cost?

If I wanted, in a weekend or two, I could use artificial intelligence to write a dozen books related to my novella. These books would probably be good reads, too.

I wouldn’t be opposed to do that as an experiment, just out of curiosity. However, I wouldn’t call the end result, “my work.” It would be… well… something else. If done for money, it would be… something stolen. Not me. Not my work.

How can any artist compete with another artist who feels otherwise?

Furthermore, along the journey of the last few years, I’ve had such fun times exploring the world of computers. Words and phrases that were once mystical now put a grin on my face. “Emacs,” “VIM golf,” “recursion,” and, “The man in Nebraska thanklessly maintaining an essential repository since 2003.”

Where do computers fit in, now that artificial intelligence is here? Computers are fun. Computers are artistic creations, too. Data is fun. Data is super fun. Data is beautiful. “Data is beautiful.”

I have this free time now. When my day’s work is done, I come home, and… sit.

My kids are currently at their mother’s place. My lessons are planned. My students’ work is graded. I have no university coursework of my own to complete. My home is small and the upkeep is easy.

Now what?

I borrowed a guitar from the school, just for fun, and learned to play a few chords. I watched a YouTube video on the basics of singing. I plunked away at the keyboard on this and that. I juiced five apples, a beet, three carrots, four stalks of celery, and a thumb of ginger. I finished a textbook on databases and hooked up a few things on my T490.

I wrote this blog post.

Artificial Intelligence Transparency Report

No artificial intelligence was used in the creation of this blog post.