Iphone glitch
Iphone glitch
Cars in the neighborhood part 2
Cars in the neighborhood
I am so sick of friends asking me to photograph them, and then insinuating that because we are friends I should do it for free.
How on earth am I ever going to be successful if even my friends don’t want to value my time and skills, but still want professional pictures?
Literally, I get asked several times a month if we can “take a few pics” or if I can “do them a favor”. My favorite is the ‘trade’. What are you going to trade me for 8-15 hours of my time, use of the considerable investment I’ve made in equipment and education, and experience? I’ve had offers for dinner, to clean my house, and someone even offered to assist me, knowing nothing about lighting equipment.
I know I’m venting here, but I would never ask my friends to do something for me for free. And I’m having to really say NO a lot right now, rather than YES.
The good news is that this week I’ve had 3 paying photoshoots, and so all this selective YES is making a difference…
I am truly horrible at ‘dating’. Really. I don’t small talk. I can’t flirt unless I truly like the person, and I’m not really that accepting of averageness.
What does this equal? Perpetually single.
It’s a little old in a city that is such a great backdrop for romance and fun.
New hair
I have this ideal of the ultra efficient me. I put myself through these cycles where I am alternatingly up and down based on my own perception of ‘where i am’ in my life.
I always come back to the concept of self-mastery. That is, if I utilized my energy, my skills, my concentration and my network efficiently, then I would naturally exist in a state of continual motion and growth - maximum return on investment, spiritually and practically.
The problem is I never achieve this. I don’t know if I even touch on it. So does it mean I haven’t exactly pin-pointed what self-mastery really means to me?
I seem to have an inability to get out of a money trap. I have creativity in spades. I’m never short for ideas. I see through people, situations, psychic ether and ‘problems’ in seconds. But I just can’t see my way to profit. Not, at least by the method of my artwork.
Struggling to pay bills and have a roof over my head always steals the thunder.
And so I’m always battling finite reserves of energy and finance and time.
How do you promote and market yourself to a market that is more high end and financially secure when you are not financially secure, you do not know the people individually in the field you need to, and you have to work 50 hours a week to put a roof over your head?
I’m at this place where I have lots of skills to achieve a desired result. But they are at that critical point where they will either atrophy or become obsolete from lack of continual use and upgrade if I cannot better control my time.
It’s true I tend to be unrealistic about what I can handle. I make leaps of faith all the time. But I don’t really understand business. I don’t think I even understand the dollar. And if I can’t grasp that - then isn’t a leap of faith really just a leap into disaster?
So comes in the roll of faith and an collective presence that is greater than the self. There’s no mastery of that. Only an ability to interpret signs and move accordingly.
I have a second interview with a photographer here in greenpoint on Tuesday. If I get this job, it’s an opportunity to put myself right in the middle of running someone else’s already created empire, and an opportunity to at least keep the skills I have from drying up or becoming obsolete.
I fly to LA right after the interview for a visit with my mom.
I hope when I come back that I am charged up, and that one of those collective interventions occurs, where I get the job and get a change of perspective.
Then maybe this self-mastery obsession can at least settle down to one frontal lobe, and not both.
I haven’t got enough grey matter to spare…
I’ve been getting my apartment ready all day for a party. Records, sangria, lovely people.
Yay!
I know myself well enough by now to recognize when I’m starting to spiral down…
So why is it always such a challenge to keep this spiraling from occurring? How come I can’t just be happy with me, rather than happy about where I’m going?
I hate that I can’t just join rank and file and be materialistic and obsessively concerned with getting ahead.
Instead, I have art on my shoulder like another mouth to feed.
Yeah maybe the bills are getting paid, but then art isn’t.
I feel like there ought to be away to just jump out of the loop. One of those much talked about paradigm shifts would be welcome right about now.