I sometimes wish I fell a little more evenly into the world you rail against. Sometimes, I think it would be easier to have a good credit score, be a model employee at a 9–5, eat the same lunch, drink the same drinks, and talk to the same people day after day after day after day after day.

Sometimes being unique, being different, being whatever the hell you want to call it feels like such a burden. A difficulty. Wouldn’t it be easier to go with the herd?

Sometimes, I wonder. But that hasn’t been my life. So many people have chided me for being unproductive, for not having that job — to the point where now it’s something I’ve come to almost dislike about myself.

But not quite. There’s some part of me that yearns for artistic freedom, to not be tied down into one thing or the other.

I just wish it came easier. With more acceptance. With more money. With less scorn. I wish it was taught in schools as a viable path. I wish that schools were something different what they are — truly a place to learn your passions, instead of a school-to-work-to-death pipeline created to make productive employees.

This is a good piece. I’m with you, 100%. I just wish it was easier.

— Zx