Life As Performance art 84

We do not make ourselves. Even the direction that our lives take, we still have to negotiate with forces beyond our control, more powerful than ourselves, and at best we have to agree to compromise. A friend of mine, who once remarked to me that really, anyone could make it through university if they really wanted to. however, I am not a privileged white guy, born into a comfortable bourgeois existence, who made it through university thanks to the Bank of Mom and Dad and being able to continue living in Chateau Familia while going on to graduate studies, and who has never had to do without in all of his privileged life. (by the way, Gentle Reader, not all white guys are privileged. White Privilege is a very selective goddess, and not a particularly benevolent deity) After I explained a thing or to to him, he did have the good sense and kindness to retract his comment. But these things linger, and they hurt and fester, because when you are poor and living on the margins you are always going to be unfairly and unjustly judged by the successful. It is their way of keeping us down and feeling safe and comfortable about our existence. Blame us for our failure. It's all our fault. We deserve what we get. Et cetera. We are their shadow, their poor, unwanted and unsuccessful shadow. Our existence reveals, not that we are lazy, undisciplined, or unmotivated, but that life is almost never fair or equal, and really, only the strong and lucky and well-connected are going to thrive, or at least survive. I am not complaining. Even though it has been insinuated that I was never a successful artist, I can reply that I have sold at least one hundred of my original paintings. The sticking point is, that with the visual and plastic arts, even more than in any other life or vocational discipline, the success rate is going to be very thin and narrow. Those who make it to the top are going to be very few, indeed. I am currently reading Malcolm Gladwell's famous book, Outliers. What is really standing out to me is his argument that personal ambition and hard work really have very little to do with making it in life. It has to do with birthdate and birth order, family and social environment,and how much support and encouragement to succeed one had in their formative years. It also has an awful lot to do with money, and with family stability. Talent plays a significant but not a huge role in this. In my own case, had my father not sexually molested me and otherwise demeaned, belittled and rejected me when I was a child; had my mother not beat the crap out of me every time she couldn't manage her anger; had my brother not beat the crap out of me every day because of his inborn hatred and resentment of me and my existence; had my father not been an alcoholic; had he and my mother been well-educated, and had my father especially valued and respected the importance of university education; had my parents not divorced, which is to say had my father kept his zipper up and had my mother been a little more forgiving, and had they gone in for good marriage counselling; had there been a sound spiritual, religious, ethical and moral foundation and rudder to our life as a family; had my mother not gone off to live with an abusive alcoholic with criminal tendencies when I was still in grade eleven, and had my father made a real effort to not hate me when I had to live with him for a little while (four months later, he kicked me out. I was seventeen); had other variables ween in place. No kid going through what I had to endure should be reasonably expected to do well in life. I could not finish postsecondary education for the simple reason that I was already emotionally exhausted from childhood and adolescent turmoil and trauma by the time I was a young adult struggling to keep a roof over my head, and I was working in an emotionally demanding and low paying occupation as a caregiver, making it impossible for me to have enough mental energy leftover to cope with night school. I know this, because I tried it, and it didn't work. Does this make me a failure? Not in the least. During that time, with all the variables against me, I still forged ahead in Christian street ministry and started an intentional Christian community, and we were living and working among a despised and unwanted population of street people, AIDS sufferers, queers and survival sex workers. I wrote a novel, and even if I couldn't get it published, at least it is now written and complete and available to be read on this blog under the serial title Thirteen Crucifixions, if you care to look at it Gentle Reader. I have published on Kindle my first collection of short stories. Here is the link, if you care to purchase https://www.amazon.co.uk/Tigresa-Negra-Black-Tigress-Stories-ebook/dp/B07NF3JRFV. Heck I'll even throw in a story for free, if you want to read that too. it will be in a separate post. I have also drawn and painted hundreds if not thousands of original compositions, more than one hundred have been sold, I have found affordable social housing and an occupation as a mental health worker that is rewarding and gratifying. I am still poor and I am still able to do a lot with my life despite everything. Perhaps I have not succeeded on society's terms. Big deal. On my terms, with the crap I have had to deal with, I think i have done pretty darn good, Gentle Reader.