Why: Why Do I Quit Art?

hello again

a lot of people, almost everyone i know has asked me this question. i usually just tell them i can no longer pay my bills, and i have to work, and work costs time, and time cost too much money. then they would usually ask "and what if you made enough money to pay the bills, then you will come back?", and i say "no way". in effect this is where the real question begins. the financial issue is not a question, it's a given disposition, but my choice not to continue remains even when that issue is resolved. so why is that?

well, to sum it all up, i refuse to make music if it won't pay my bills. this sounds greedy, petty, and spoiled - i know. but the question of money is not a financial question or a moral question. it is the tip of the iceberg. in order for me to make a living off the art i make, everything would have had to be totally different. i would give it up, this money, if i could keep the whole costruct which enables it to be, but that is impossible.

to understand my position, i ask you to consider this issue:
what happens when you pay for something?

what happens when you take some of the money you own and transfer it to someone/something else in exchange for something you get in return? first of all, consider how you got this money to begin with. well, you worked for it. you invested your time to gain possession over it. why did you do it? simply because it was a better use of your time than not gaining it. and why? because it gives you the possibility to satisfy other needs. it's hard to imagine someone refusing being rewarded for his time and effort spent. it can be money, it can be gratitude. but even gratitude has to be something you need. i mean, you wouldn't need the gratitude of someone who you don't feel desrves your effort. that would leave you feeling like a sucker.

so you take this money, this accumulation of time and effort and exchange it with something you need. you exchange it for the amount of your time and effort that person or organisation agrees to sell it to you in exchange. you both agree that it is the best deal available in the given disposition. you totally commit yourself to this exchange. once you pay, you fully agree you need that thing as much as you payed at least. i'm saying at least because while you can be happy you made a good bargin, if you are not happy with it, you still agreed to pay, and once you payed, you cannot take it back. what you devoted of yourself in this exchange is no longer in your possession, and you payed knowing that. you knew what you sacrifice and you knew what you were supposed to get back in exchange. if you discover you did not get what you thought you were supposed to get you might demand your money back, but for what you thought you were buying you have totally agreed that you need it at least as much you payed for it. you can go tell the seller that you too are practicing the production of the good you have purchased, but you are fully aware of the fact that your ability to produce a similar good does not fulfill your current need. in effect, when you buy you let yourself surrender to a sense of need to something which is not already a part of you.

but by the same coin, what you don't agree to pay for, you simply don't need. it is true that i have given people my music for free. yes, i did. and i do not regret that. as i did it, i simply shifted the question from: "do you need the music i made", to "do you need the music i will make". and the answer is strinkingly obvious. the answer is no. the "global collective need" for my art can be converted to less than a week's pay. if you take all time which all the people on this earth combined would wish to contribute to assure that i will provide this earth with another album, then all in all it would amount to less than a week's effort. i seriously question those of you who tell me to continue, without being able to feel the need to exchange this opinion with your own time and effort, by contributing some cash. you don't need me. face it. you don't. and that's fine. that is how you feel, and i respect that. you don't need me to continue, so why say such empty words? i mean, if you want to be on my better side, then again, i ask you: why? i am/was an artist which hardly anyone needs, so what kind of leverage do you think you can obtain from my "better side"?

of course. some of you consider me as a friend. you think making art is just something that makes me happy, and you don't wish me to rob myself of that. you think it is stupid.

well, you are wrong. it doesn't make me happy. it never did. it never was never about being happy. never. finishing a song or track does give me a sense of fulfillment, but the actual work is simply...work. it was always only by turning to fantasy, imagining the effect my art would have on my life and the people around me that i was able to get my sense of fulfillment. my fulfillment - my reason for doing art. but this fantasy has been utterly shattered. it was shuttered in berlin, 2005. since then, i have been building the psychological mechanism you now know as "loki". this mechanism had only one function as far as i was concerened. to answer the question - if in my life my art serves no use, can it be useful to anyone else?

and now i have my answer. it is not utterly useless, but it is "useless enough" to not justify my efforts. for a precious few (less than 20 humans) my art does serve a use, but whatever i achieve through art, i can much easily and effectively achieve through conversation. they cannot justify the efforts. sorry, you just can't. you can buy a lot of my stuff and donate generously. but naturally, you just cannot compensate for the fact that you are so few, and that the conversations we had were more meaningful to you than anything you got through my art. you'd think that by knowing the artist first hand you achieve a deeper perspective over the artist's art, but sadly it mostly just erodes the necessity of the actual piece of art in question. like a mirage that evaporates once you try to actually hold it. the magic of art disappears.

"and what about the joy of creation?", "what about art for art's sake?", "what about fun?" and so on and so forth...well...sorry. i never really bought these notions. i just can't. i can't make myself believe these are anything but ego deceptions. i am really a nihilist, and i have been holding on to hope in my art to pull me out of the great void of faithlessness through my art, but now it's gone. the chasm between the meaningfullness of my art to this world and my artistic ambitions is too great. i can't believe my own bullshit anymore. i know that for all i said here, you might say something like "you were never an artist to begin with". to you i answer:
1. Fuck You
2. And indeed i quit

some of you might think it's a question of time. just give it time. well, i did. as you can hear through my discography (partly available here except for the "failed experiment" albums from 1995 - 1997), i have gave this a lot of time already, and it's time to face the music. i started at age 16. i am 31 years old today. enough.

some of you might think i need/needed to make more "accessible" music. more commercial. but how can i? how can my art be more meaningful by eroding its contents to a mere reflection of what you already know? even if i was to become successful this way, i would be in the same position, as i would feel the same sense of meaninglessness.

i have no choice but to quit. it is not because i am not successful. being unsuccessful is just the tip of the iceberg.

tpfkaa
(the ptyl formally known as artist)