Emotions are very odd things. Back when I was escaping misery caused by my family by indulging in misery caused by the unpleasant backstage behaviour of Wolfe, I stopped writing my original book as I constantly asked myself why. Why should I write the book, why would anyone read the book, why would I assume that I was the right person to write the book?
Whilst you can waste a lot of time on pointless projects, world events since then have indicated that I should have been arrogant enough to go ahead and write the book anyway. Apparently few people have tackled the agricultural history of America with a view to the impending disaster of GM, and even fewer people care about it. The history of marketing has been covered by a few people, but nobody has seen fit to link it to the history of psychology or the effects on the modern population, to the point that we now view survival as entertainment on TV and we are increasingly being encouraged to look on creativity as madness by a variety of corporate sponsored research studies.
Looking on creativity as madness is a particularly dangerous and limiting viewpoint. It does not benefit the world, it does not benefit the creatives. The only people it benefits are the companies that would much rather you wanted to buy something. If we allow this to continue, alongside the view of science being superior to nature as justification for destroying the very efficient natural resources we have left, we will be unable to make progress and the planet will be destroyed. It is no coincidence, for example that our Victorian ancestors used their free time to indulge their whackier ideas with the additional benefit of a liberal view to products from the colonies dispensed by the local chemist.
This book has strayed back into my to-do list in the last few days as I consider how to go about dealing with my Boris Johnson book. I have a fairly complex plan for this book, which is a bit more literary and a bit more fun than my previous comic strip style books to alleviate the Wolfe melancholy.
Hence, I am considering the matter of how different people, neither of whom I have met or plan to meet, have a different effect on one’s confidence and general sense of self. Wolfe turned out to be a thoroughly depressing and very limited person whose obsession with money and women rendered him very boring unless he was speaking. His speaking, which is technically fascinating, is limited to what he believes will extract the most in terms of immediate sales, at the expense of long term respect, which has left me with the feeling that a potentially great man has rather sold his soul for the gratification of the immediate.
Gratification for the immediate is all very well, but as aims go, it gets boring. Boris has a different set of limitations, and in many ways he is also trapped by ambition, but not in the ways you might expect. I shall explore this alternative way of viewing Boris in Lucifer Ogilvie, but for now it is producing a new development in my work which I am finding quite challenging.
I think overall that there is a long way to go with my work before I am happy. I am doing something original at least, which presents its own challenges in terms of setting the bar I am happy with and taking it further. Several of the existing pieces will be modified shortly, and a completely new set added as I throw a few ideas around and develop the product.
My friend is at pains to tell me that I should view all work as finished and ingratiate myself with potential dealers, that my pricing is nonsense and that I should not be too concerned about development. My response is as follows:
- The pricing is at cost – cost of labour, cost of material replacement, cost of storage – were you to purchase my items in a shop it would have to be at twice that price – yes I am flexible on prototype pricing, but the prices as they are reflect an accurate costing of the effort and are in fact quite low.
- Ingratiating myself with dealers when I am not totally happy with my product is a waste of time – I am not so vain as to assume that everything I do is marketable or in fashion. That isn’t what the work is about anyway – this has been a period of self development in which I have been forced by circumstance to look for validation via something other than money or other people.
- Making 3d objects has its own reward in the form of developing a range of skills that you do not get by buying things or even learning them. I have previously complained to the BBC about this very topic as they seem to prefer encouraging children to buy the things they want instead of making them.
- Writing as a form of expression is also useful and makes you more confident about other things.
So, despite my lack of funds and pension, I am certainly a well rounded person these days, with an aim in mind. I now have to figure out why musing on Boris makes me feel so much more validated than musing on Wolfe, which made me laugh a lot, but also made me feel very damaged and unhappy.
Such is the adventure of the imagination that is being stuck in the house, wondering what happened to the twenty hour days and the burning ambition you used to have, wondering how the hell you will survive with no family, no money and no pension because you were kind to your parents and left with nothing but your lust for obscure carpets.