Although I didn’t particularly enjoy the beginning and the end where the author used political climate as examples (even though it's based on her experiences, I'm just not a fan of politics lol), it is, overall, a good read. In a way, I felt like I was talking to a therapist (though I’ve not experienced talking to one yet I imagine that’s probably what it’s like, helping you navigate your thoughts and feelings).
P16
I saw strange people who made their own world, and it looked wild and limitless.
P20
You cannot possibly know right now how much your work is going to impact someone, someday. [...] Your work—the work you’re making right now and the work you haven’t dreamt of yet—is going to impact the people who need to experience it. But first, you have to get the work out of you and into the world! But you must get out of your own way. The world you have grown up in—regardless of your identities and experiences—has taught you limiting ideas about being an artist. You and I both know that you need to make your work in order to be alive. Artists have to make art.
P31
[...] I can start exactly where I am, with what I have, [...] I don’t have to wait. I don’t need to become somebody else or wish for different skills.
P39
As far as we concretely know, we get this one life, a limited time on the planet, and it’s not clear how long our individual spans will be. No matter what is happening in the world, in your community, in your household, it’s up to you to move ever toward a joy-filled and satisfying life, whatever that means to you. Anger isn’t action and misery isn’t solidarity. [...] Anger is real and necessary, and it can be transformed into fuel. I want you to feel and express anger in safe and effective ways. So many people are discouraged from and punished for expressing anger—[...]but feeling the full range of your feelings and expressing them in ways that support your overall well-being [...] Anger is an inevitable and natural response to injustice, so stuffing it down and shaming yourself for being angry is not realistic.
P41
Supporting healthy, balanced activism in your social circles helps reduce burnout. Infusing a lot of fun and joy into your life will also reduce burnout! Fun is not optional, and joy is not a luxury—this is an actual antiburnout strategy.
P45
Your upbringing, family of origin, early beliefs, and expectations continue to impact you now. What you learned growing up about the world of work—what it’s like to manage money, whether being an artist is a financially viable career, and so on—forms the core of your choices, whether consciously or unconsciously.
P47
Becoming aware of how you think, feel, and behave and the people who influenced you can help you make choices and changes that lead to the outcome you want.
P54
You have to make your work, above all else. You are an artist—as opposed to, say, a person creatively expressing yourself—because you need to make art in order to lead a content life. You, as an artist, have to continue making art using the time, space, and resources you can access now—not later, not someday.
P56
Nobody is ever going to make you prioritize your practice except for you. You contain multitudes and may have a million interests and things you want to do in a day and in a lifetime. You might not get to do all of them, all the time. But you do get to determine what is most important to you right now and create space in your life for it.
P60
Being too broke is a belief that becomes a story resulting in an illusionary brick wall between you and art making.
P61
The key lesson now is to accept that your anxieties about money are separate from your need to make your art. The money problem does not have to be solved before you can make art.
P62
Discipline and commitment will yield you a lot more art than inspirations. [...] You become inspired from being active and curious.
P82
Perfection will not serve you because it’s just an illusion.
P83
Perfection simply does not exist as long as we are in our human brains, which do not cease analyzing, criticizing, wondering, and comparing. In a sense, everything is already perfect and nothing is ever perfect.
P87
Another person’s life, success, and failure have nothing to do with your own because you are not living that life. Your real source of comparison is you—where you’ve been and where you want to go.
P91/92
You will make work that has an enormous impact on someone. You may never meet or hear from them, but someone will encounter a work you make and it will do something transformative for them. They will be grateful you exist, thankful you made the work and let it be out in the world. In order to get there, to let your work reach the people who need and want to experience it, you have to be of service to it. You have to make it, yes, and you also have to support its life after it’s no longer your private experience. This takes enormous generosity.
P93
Courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s being afraid and doing the thing anyway. I encourage artists to think of the worst outcome and then talk through whether they can live through that outcome. [...] Talking about that fear out loud is often soothing enough. Disappointment will not kill you. I often find that when an artist experiences the outcome they are afraid of, they find the fear shrinks down to the correct size.
P123
Remember that you are in your life, the only one you have. You get to make it meaningful and well-lived each day.
P125
If someone asks you for something and you cannot do it, it’s okay to say no. You can say yes to something else or at another time.
P126
Being of service is a strong antidote to depression. When you feel like utter shit, take a contrary action to whatever your brain is telling you.
P130
Ask for help and resources. The more you ask for, the more you’ll likely get. Not getting what you ask for is a great lesson, too. Getting comfortable with disappointment and rejection makes it easier for you to bounce back. Get your practice and your art career the resources they deserve. Your practice deserves the work you’re putting in now. This is also true for your goals and your dreams—you must put in the work to build in the direction you want to go. Don’t wait.
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