The time I should try to be my best

I might be breaking one of the few standards that I believe I ought to hold to myself.  I am not working my hardest, neither am I trying my hardest.  This is a day-by-day principle, and so far, I haven't even succeeded too well going month-by-month.

Good ol' Big Al said to me on my graduation day that art "is about the money.  It's all about the money."  I strongly disagree with this; if it were about the money, then I would have majored in business.  When he says the sentence, "It is all about the money," he means that everything, including art, has some sort of monetary value.  This I wouldn't deny, but this does not mean that is why art's done.  

The constructivist artist Malevich from the early 20th century writes in one of his texts about the development of the airplane.  He basically states, that people assume the airplane, which was by then used to transport supplies or to do something else that had practical value, was created out of practicality.  But he rightly rejects this; instead he says that the development, the innovation of the airplane came out of the eon-long human desire to achieve flight.  Only after this innovation, was a practical or utilitarian use found for it.

Regardless of the fact that innovation and the artistic process are not for the ends of practicality and money, I do concede that money is more than important.  I am finding myself in a cycle.

I want to make art.

I do have a room that I pay rent for.

I don't have a job.

I have time to make art, but instead stress about not having a main income and decide to spend my time online looking for one.

I then become quite unhappy everyday, particularly when Rachel arrives home and tells me about her day, no matter how uneventful it is, because compared to me, the whole world is spinning past me.

Then I think about how my peers (every artist between the ages of 20 and 28) are being so much more productive than I.

Then I want to make art even more.

Then I realize that I have financial constraints.

Then I realize that I don't have a job.

Then I realize that to get a job I should spend all day on craigslist until I get one (despite the fact that I know I can get a jobs without craigslist; but you know, sitting on your butt at home is really tempting).

What does this all add up to?  I am not working or even trying to work my hardest.

Jon Stewart the other day joking asked Barack Obama if he still wanted the country when it now seemed like a "slightly used car" when before 2 years ago, it was brand spanking new.  To this, President-elect Barack Obama said, "I fell that now is the time to want to be president."  Rachel said to me recently, that when we met each other, we met each other at our best.  I guess right now, I feel like this is the time to try to be our best.