Jazpreet Sandhu

Posted Thursday, April 20, 2023

1y

INFP

Virgo

6

7

Struggling Artistically

This is a VERY long (yet meticulously formatted) post written over the span of, like, 3 days, so don't click read more if you don't want to read what is probably the longest post you've seen on this, or any other, platform lol. Sorry in advance if some of this makes no sense. . . It's hard to proof read posts this long 😂 Note: I know the title says "artistically," but honestly, this encompasses so much more than that. ~~~ •Background (you can actually skip this section if you'd like): I've ALWAYS wanted to be a creative and an artist of one kind or another. Back when I was still in the early grades of primary school, I wanted to draw. I loved to do it so much, but I wasn't great at it (I was like 6-11 years old, so no biggie there lol). Fast forward to 2014 when I was in 7th grade, I took my first art class where I did really well as it was pretty guided and based more on "artistic ability" rather than creativity and, to be honest, the grading was incredibly forgiving. The next year, I took the next level art class where it was a lot less guided and more focused on creativity AND artistic ability. I did SO poorly that, upon being pulled out of that period by my learning director, and being given the option to do so, I requested to be pulled out of the class and to be placed in a math support class instead. I didn't actually need math support as I did totally fine in math, but I just wanted to get away from the art class. I couldn't be in it any longer dealing with not being cut out for that which I've wanted to do for my whole life up until that point. After that happened, I gave up drawing entirely. I didn't even have the smallest desire to draw for a good 3-4 years. It wasn't until around this time that a hobby I took up a few years prior, back in 2013, started budding into something more: music. I worked hard to learn the production software (FL Studio) and what started out as wanting to do some moombahcore type music then turned into wanting to play guitar and do metal, then some dark trancy stuff, then now: EBM (a subgenre of industrial). ~~~ •Problem: Roughly 9 years of music production being my number 1 passion and what do I have to show for it? 4 songs. . . That's it. While I'm definitely satisfied with those 4 songs, I can't ignore the literal, more-recent-than-I'd-like-to-admit HUNDREDS of projects that are nothing but failed attempts at compositions, failed attempts at sound design, and even failed attempts at DRUM SEQUENCING of all things. . . Nothing but 8 bar loops. Those abandoned and failed projects stare me down constantly every time I open up FL. I just can't help but feel that the bad outways the good here. Despite how often I try to get better, I fail, as I can't seem to get past this plateau I've been stuck at for a good 4-5 years now. ~~~ •Effect: It isn't the "failed musician" part of this story that gets to me. . . It's that, in recent years, rather than doing it purely out of fun, music is the one thing I've put the most effort into just for the sake being SOMEBODY. I've long accepted that making a living off of it at any point in my life is entirely out of the question, but put frankly, I still seek others' validation through the art forms I try to tackle. I know that isn't healthy, but THAT is a much bigger problem that I'm not ready to tackle just yet. I sought after SOMETHING that would make me feel even remotely special or even feel like I could actually belong in a community of some sort where I could actually be liked by like-minded people. My introverted and awkward nature always made finding anything of the sort unfeasible, as everyone who approached me would immediately start drifting away once they learned how impossible it is to get to know me. There have been so many times where I KNEW that specific people and I would get along wonderfully, but I never reached out to them because VERY few people have ever stuck around me long enough to reach that point. I just wanted a way I could reach out to people through the product of a common passion, rather than through direct communication, as it could at least provide SOMETHING to bond over off the bat. I've spent so much time trying to learn things, like drawing, music, writing, 3D modeling (didn't get very far with this one), animation (this one either), coding, and now, here I go crawling back to drawing, spending more money than I should on tools that I KNOW don't make the artist, telling myself that the learning curve for the tools/mediums are the issue, not my lack of ability. No matter what crafts, or hobbies I try to tackle, no matter how much love, care and time I throw at each project, they all crumble apart before they take shape. ~~~ •Question: I don't want to make a post THIS long just to rant or get something off my chest, so I'll ask for some advice. . . Does anyone else struggle with this or something similar? How do you cope with it? (edited)