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      Writing and Work, (circumlunar), 07/20/2018
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User  jynx   recently  posted  on   "life  segmentation"[1],
prompting several replies in  gopher space. I really enjoyed
jynx's advice:

"So, if you haven't done  so, divorce your purpose from your
employment. Make your employment  pay your bills, not define
you.  Do not  let  all of  your time  be  swallowed by  your
vocation. You  cannot go  back to see  what you  missed, and
money does not replace the time you lost."

Really, this is important. In my adult life, my hobby became
my career, and  my joy in the thing I  was doing evaporated.
Maybe it's a natural process,  where our work provides value
to others  but takes something  from us, and  our recreation
must adapt in  order to continue being a  renewal. Maybe the
pleasure I had in the hobby was bound to subside either way.

The  point is,  we need  work, and  we need  recreation. The
minute  you  spend  all  your time  recreating,  you're  not
renewing anything.  I'm certain  some great  philosopher has
already  addressed this  problem, though  I'm not  well read
enough to know who they were.

Right  now, I'm  poised to  restart the  cycle of  turning a
hobby into a vocation. I enjoy  writing, and some part of me
says that I'd like to write  to provide. I have no delusions
of becoming a best-selling author overnight, or even at all.
I'm fully aware of the plight of the starving artist[2], and
yet I'm not even inclined to identify as an artist. I'm just
a guy that likes to write and wants to try out a new job.

One of  the responders to  jynx's post was user  zlg[3], who
shared  an  article entitled  "The  Sex  & Cash  Theory"[4].
Loosely stated, the  theory is that creative  folks can have
one of  two types of  jobs: a  bill-paying "cash" job,  or a
creative and "sexy" job.  The article was apparently drawing
from a book, but I didn't look further.

Most jarring from the article was this bit:

"It’s  the  people  who   refuse  to  cleave  their  lives
this  way-  who just  want  to  start  Day One  by  quitting
their  current crappy  job and  moving straight  on over  to
best-selling author. Well, they never make it."

My issue with  this is the false dichotomy of  a cloven life
vs. wanting to  be an instant success in  an artistic field.
Reason  and experience  tell me  that there  are many  other
paradigms that one could pursue.  I think one issue that the
article  doesn't cover  is what  happens to  "sexy" pursuits
when  they're all  you pursue,  and what  happens to  "cash"
pursuits when they're all you  pursue. I really need to look
into that more.

Life has  been chaotic, and  I feel like this  post reflects
that to a degree. Hopefully I  can calm down and bit and get
some writing  projects going  that aren't chaotic;  that, or
find a market for chaotic works.

[1] gopher://gopher.club:70/0/users/jynx/phlog/typezero/20180709.post
[2] gopher://gopherpedia.com:70/0/Starving artist
[3] gopher://zlg.space:70/0/phlog/2018-07-12_0036.txt
[4] https://www.gapingvoid.com/blog/2004/03/25/the-sex-cash-theory/